The turquoise waters of Key Largo, Florida, are usually filled with brightly coloured coral reefs. But a team of unwitting scuba divers recently found themselves in serious crime territory on a routine reef cleaning dive.
Picture their shock as they picked up pieces of garbage at a 100 feet with great care and thought they were doing some good to the ocean. But they were quite mistaken, for something far more sinister skulked between abandoned water bottles and abandoned nets. What they discovered instead of the usual flotsam caught inside their gloves was a collection of meticulously packaged parcels, at first assumed to be a bundle of trash.
After surfacing and looking more closely, they soon became quaking in their sandals as the true nature of their discovery became apparent. Those weren’t loads of trash, each one coming in at about a kilogram 55 pounds in all but kilograms of trash in tightly packed bricks, and the illegal substance it had replaced all the so-called waste within cocaine. The most unsettling detail? All the bricks were branded with a unique marking: the unmistakable swoosh of Nike’s SB skateboarding line.
Scuba divers found 25 kilos of cocaine stamped with Nike SB logos in the ocean during a reef cleaning mission this week.. they later turned it in to police 😳 PIC.TWITTER.COM/RDSUFL0A5G
— SAY CHEESE! 👄🧀 (@SaycheeseDGTL) JUNE 8, 2024
The divers quickly summoned the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. They turned the suspected narcotics over to the U.S. Border Patrol for further investigation, the agency said. A high-stakes cat-and-mouse game is underway, as authorities are piecing together how this odd delivery came to be and to where the mysterious puff departed, probably San Francisco. Which raises the question how did these tidy packaged bricks come to an end resting in silence on the ocean bottom! Could this be simply a single instance of an even broader and more intricate case of a failed smuggling operation?
Investigators have since focused in on the distinctive packaging. For one, the use of a known brand logo, including the name of a prominent athletic footwear provider, seems a deliberate effort to brand, and distinguish one product from among the multiple parts that yellow square represents inside the smuggling ring. It is rather advanced, which further raises questions as to who is behind this operation.
This incident is a sad reminiscence of what has long ago been a reality in the Caribbean islands, especially along the coast of the United States. Smugglers have turned to these waterways treacherous waters as a discreet route to introduce illicit substances into the country. Despite the hard work of law enforcers in trying to keep a watch on and to block these lines, the war against flow of such substances in Florida continues to remain unfinished business.
As the Key Largo investigation continues, it demonstrates how tenacious law enforcement officers serve as the front line against dangerous drugs. This serves as a reminder why we need some degree of community alert systems. Not only did the sharp eyes of the scuba divers interrupt a potential smuggling ring, it also has the potential to break open a larger organization.
Our only consolation is lift our middle fingers to these similar gestures preventing criminals from pushing the drugs into the Sunshine State and here are a few stretches for your reading pleasure, the serene waters of Key Largo may have been disrupted for only a brief second but this discovery will help win the war-on-drugs. One that stands as a chilling reminder that beneath this paradise a war continues to rage. This is a great example of law enforcement doing their part, and the public playing a major role, and working together to keep our community safe.
