80 POUNDS OF COCAINE WASH UP

The Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office is looking for the owner of 80
pounds of cocaine that washed ashore last weekend on Navarre Beach.

It ranks among Santa Rosa County's largest drug hauls in value and
quantity.

A bale of 28 bricks wrapped in plastic and burlap was confiscated,
similar to hundreds of pounds of cocaine plucked from Gulf of Mexico
over the last month off south Louisiana, said Santa Rosa sheriff's
spokesman Deputy Jerry Henderson.

The cocaine is 90 percent pure, Henderson said. The estimated total
value is $1.5 million. But if the cocaine would be "cut" and resold,
its actual street value could be higher, he said.

"We've had some wash up," said Maj. John Marie with the Plaquemines
Parish Sheriff'sOffice in Louisiana. "We received 2 kilos (about 41/2
pounds)."

A U.S. attorney whom Marie interviewed on a New Orleans radio show
said the likely source of the cocaine was a boat federal authorities
interdicted that dumped the drugs overboard to avoid being caught with
them, Marie said.

"Most of it has been located by fishermen," Marie said.

"I think we've gotten the majority of it that's washed up in this
area," said Col. Godfrey Buquet with the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's
Office.

The Sheriff's Office waited several days to release information on the
catch to ensure that more bales didn't wash up and to prevent the
public from seeking the drugs, Henderson said.