Police on a remote Pacific Island have netted a huge shipment of cocaine after drug dealers abandoned a vessel and it drifted to shore.
The “ghostship” washed up on Ailuk Atoll, a remote atoll with about 400 people, in the Marshall Islands last week after floating in the Pacific Ocean for years.
Attorney general Richard Hickson said the 5.5m fibreglass vessel was found last week with 649 kg of cocaine hidden in a compartment beneath the deck.
Hickson said the vessel most likely drifted across the Pacific from Central or South America. “It could have been drifting for a year or two,” he said.
He added the boat could have been drifting for more than a year and was most likely from Central or South America.
Debris from the Americas often washes up in the Marshalls after months or years at sea, driven by Pacific Ocean currents.
It is thought that most drug finds are sold by local people causing drug problems in the remote Island network so authorities thanked the public for turning in the haul.
The police said they incinerated all but two of the Class A packages marked with the letters KW on Tuesday. The two remaining packages will be analysed by US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), they added.
