Armed cops cordon off UK beach as £1MILLION worth of cocaine washes up
ARMED police sealed off a beach after cocaine worth £1.2million washed up.
They were alerted when dog walkers saw black and turquoise parcels marked “POPI” among the pebbles.
Officers wearing face coverings cordoned off the area while they recovered a haul thought to weigh 20kg (44lb).
One resident in Ferring, West Sussex, said: “We thought there was a terrorist incident or something as suddenly all these police carrying guns stormed the beach.”
The drugs are believed to be part of a consignment dumped by smugglers in the Solent last weekend.
Yesterday there were similar scenes on nearby beaches in Felpham and Middleton after dozens more packets were found.
Police searched around Butlin’s Bognor holiday park while using drones and a helicopter to sweep the coastline.
Hundreds of kilos of the illegal drug were first found in the sea off St Aldhelm’s Point and Durdle Door in Dorset on October 2 by a fisherman.
Some washed up on the coasts of Dorset and the Isle of Wight.
That sparked a Whisky Galore-style drama with locals suspected of walking off with the contraband — although a suspect in his 60s was found to have done nothing wrong.
The National Crime Agency believes more could still be floating around the south coast and said if anyone found any they should call police and not touch it.
It added: “Initial testing indicates the substance recovered as cocaine.
“At this time we believe we have recovered all the suspected drugs but the investigation is ongoing, and law enforcement remain vigilant to the possibility that further packages could be recovered.” It said the purity and quantity involved was still being established.
Angler Ron Rapp spotted packages waterproofed with bubble wrap near the Needles off the Isle of Wight. He said: “We saw seagulls sitting on something that looked like some sort of float but our suspicions were drawn.
“We found three packages tied to two canisters — one green and one blue — floating in the water.
“An hour later, a police boat attended with blue flashing lights. They called it in and confirmed our suspicions.
“Then we actually managed to catch some fish so it wasn’t a bad day. But our biggest haul of the day was probably £1million of drugs.”