Packages of cocaine wash up on Texas beach after ship is raided, officials say

Police in Texas found multiple packages of cocaine on the shores of Jamaica Beach, a small city on the Gulf of Mexico, on Easter Sunday, local officials said. 

Jamaica Beach officials said on social media that local officers and members of the Galveston Police Department had discovered the packages on the shore. Galveston borders Jamaica Beach.

Police did not say how much cocaine was found on the shoreline or what its approximate value was. 

“It seems there was a raid on a ship offshore and the crew started dumping large amounts overboard, and it’s washing up on the coast line,” the city of Jamaica Beach said in a statement on social media. 

On photo show a package of cocaine, labeled “7-P,” tangled in algae on the shore. Another image shows two officers on the beach, one holding a brick of the drugs.

Anyone who spots further packages should contact the Jamaica Beach Police Department, the city said. 

It’s not the first time illicit drugs have washed up on U.S. beaches. The Florida Keys have been a particular hotspot. 

Tourists found a package with 16 bricks of suspected cocaine in the Florida Keys in August 2024. Earlier that month, Hurricane Debby blew 25 packages of cocaine onto another Florida Keys beach, according to authorities. The packages weighed about 70 pounds and were worth over $1 million, police said at the time. In June 2024, boaters off the coast of the Florida Keys found 65 pounds of cocaine floating in the ocean, just weeks after divers found about 55 pounds of cocaine about 100 feet underwater off Key West. 

Also in June 2024, about 55 pounds of cocaine washed up on the shores of Dauphin Island, off the coast of Alabama. 

Researchers with the United Nations have estimated that about 90% of the cocaine consumed in North America comes from Colombia. Traffickers often try to smuggle the illicit substance over the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean with speed boats and semi-submersible vessels nicknamed “narco subs.” Cocaine can be dumped into the water to evade detection from law enforcement or to be picked up by other smugglers, but currents or storms can carry the packages to shore.