Monday, September 10, 2018

$50 million of missing cocaine floating in South Pacific

Last May a shark fisherman saw a rope from the water that was buried under a patch of sand on an island in the Solomon Sea. He found $50m worth of cocaine stuffed inside 11 duffel bags and brought them to a village near Budi Budi Island, about 700km east of Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby. Later, a gang of tattooed Asian men arrived by boat and seized the drugs.
PNG police later intercepted the modified trawler with the help of Australian aerial surveillance and arrested seven men. The cocaine was not with them and only a small amount was found. Their boat could not be inspected because it was booby-trapped. It was also too heavy to be towed. Police abandoned it somewhere off the Siassi islands. The seven men were escorted to Alatou, the capital of the Milne Bay province. They pleaded guilty for immigration offences. The cocaine has not been found.