THIRTY-NINE is an exciting number. It's not a prime (it's divisible by three and 13), and as a few internet sleuths have noted over the last couple of days, it's not quite 40. But let's not get conspiratorial.
Police have been piecing together how a black plastic bag stuffed with 39 individually wrapped bricks of suspected cocaine could have washed up near the Newcastle Ocean Baths on Boxing Day, adding to about 124 kilograms of similar stuff that has been turning up on the beaches between Sydney and Newcastle since around Christmas Eve.
The gradual discovery of the proverbial Peruvian party sherbets has sent the internet into a bit of a fizz as this latest find comes on the back of a handful of thwarted import schemes in the last couple of years that variously included a saxophonist on a yacht, a pair of Norwegians at Honeysuckle, and a sensational $20 million import plot.
Now, it's Newcastle's unexpectedly white Christmas that has commenters declaring a snow day online and letting rip with more than a few on-the-nose comments.
(All jokes aside - drugs are illegal. And keeping drugs you might find on the beach is - to use the technical term - super duper illegal. So don't do it. If you find drugs, on the beach or otherwise, contact the police.)
"Well, it's just getting weirder," Councillor Carol Duncan fairly pointed out in the Tweeterspehere when the whimsically odd number of suspicious packages showed up at the Ocean Baths this week.
"Could have paid for repairs," one pennywise user suggested.
"No comment." tweeted the councillor.
"And all of a sudden, the nightclub was empty, and everyone was down the beach like some sort of adult Pokémon hunt," another wrote.
Others suspected that maybe this latest plot could go all the way to the top: "Must have fallen out of Santa's sack."
(At this point, we feel it's important to mention: Topics does not suggest Santa has anything to do with cocaine importation.)
"Just in time for New Year's celebrations," noted one festive commenter.
"Inflation is so high I would never tell anyone, but there would be signs," responded another, proving that the cost of living crisis has reached every aspect of our lives.
A few cheeky types seemed to mistake the Herald's Facebook post on the discovery as a Marketplace ad, asking if the find was "still available". A few seemed to think the importers were running a raffle: "Liked and shared, hope I win!"
Still, the curiously unrounded number in the batch left a few stumped.
"Surely drug smugglers don't count in multiples of 39?" mused one writer.
"They don't count in multiples of 40 either," responded another.
Another again posited that perhaps there was a "dealer's dozen" situation going on before the tag to the subreddit for Shrinkflation entered the chat (responses from the moderators were pending at the time of publication).
"You just know, somewhere in the world, a cartel boss is ranting "There were 80 keys!"," Twitter (sorry, X) scoffed.
"Let's hope the sharks haven't got to any of them," suggested one concerned correspondent on Reddit.
Mercifully, there have been no reports of White Pointers walking out of the ocean to tell us they can't feel their teeth and asking whether we think that should be concerning.
More than a couple of good samaritans on Facebook were helpfully dobbing in their mates as the news broke (good one, John - Tony loved it). Others, meanwhile, pondered the moral relativism of the whole de-barnacle: "Just incredible for NSW Police to tweet out 'there are giant bags filled with cocaine in these locations. Please leave them alone'," Twittled one aptly named "Cosmic Jester".
Whatever the curious circumstances of exactly how the packages came to be washed up on the beach, the latest discovery is part of a broader and more serious story of Australia's relationship with cocaine. In 2023, reports suggested Aussies were paying some of the highest prices in the world for cocaine and that they were among the biggest users per capita - 4.2 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over used cocaine in 2019.
The NSW Police Force's State Crime Command is leading this most recent investigation that started at Magenta on the Central Coast on December 22.
The Newcastle haul could have an estimated street value of more than $11 million, while the total seizure could be worth at least $37 million.
Police have urged those along the east coast to remain vigilant and call triple zero (000) if they discover a similar package.
Investigators have warned people not to remove or open the packages if they are found.
Anyone who believes they have seen something similar should contact their local police station.
