A man walking on a Welsh beach made a potentially incredible discovery as he strolled across the sand when he came across around 30 washed up black bags that he believes contained many kilos of cocaine. The man, who does not wish to be named, was taking a walk along Tan-y-Bwlch beach to the south of Aberystwyth in Ceredigion on Saturday morning.
He said he saw something on the sand but at first could not tell what it was. As he got closer, he found around 30 black bags all tied together with rope, interspersed with empty plastic jugs, seemingly to keep the cargo afloat in the water.
Police were called to the beach and the walker said he saw what looked like a white powder inside one of the bags when it was cut open. The bags, he suspects, were full of packages of cocaine. You can get the latest WalesOnline newsletters e-mailed to you directly for free by signing up here.
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“I was out for my early morning walk when I saw something on the beach,” said the walker. “I was intrigued and walked up to it and knew what it was almost straight away. An old lady called the police and they came around half an hour later. They cut open a bag and it looked like pure cocaine. They dragged it off the beach and took it away.”
The exact contents of the bags, and how much the haul, if it is drugs, could potentially be worth, has not been confirmed, but Dyfed-Powys Police has been asked to comment after it removed the items from the beach on Saturday. If the discovery is connected to Class A drugs, it would not be the first time in recent memory that such a find has been made on a British beach.
In May last year, nearly a tonne of cocaine washed up on beaches near Hastings and Newhaven in East Sussex. On that occasion, members of the public spotted bags bobbing in the sea before alerting police, who took them away for testing. Samples taken from the bags later tested positive for cocaine.
Regarding that find, a National Crime Agency branch commander said: “This is a significant amount of class A drugs which we think originated in South America, but we are keeping an open mind about how the drugs washed up here and where the end destination might have been. Clearly though, losing a consignment of this size will represent a significant hit to the criminal networks involved.”
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