Florida … Beaches, Sunshine, Bikinis, Cocaine

People used to think we were lying when we said we used to find 40 lb square grouper, (bales of marijuana and cocaine) floating in the Gulf of America while we were out fishing or scalloping. It happened more than you will ever hear about in the news. Some allegedly 'unscrupulous' people would actually NOT report it to the CG. When smugglers vessels were getting chased by the CG, they would just start chunking it overboard while they were running wide open. They CG weren't the only ones watching.

https://x.com/Breaking911/status/1928197901043355747

Florida Fishing Trip Results In Catch Of ’Square Grouper’

Two Florida dads* carried their kids fishing about 30 miles off of the Florida Keys in 2020 to do some sword fishing before the start of the school year. They didn’t catch any swordfish but they did catch some mahi-mahi, some tilefish and a ‘square grouper.’
(In most memes you see of this first picture it says cocaine, it was not cocaine. So I hunted down the original article in the KeysWeekly.)
The ’square grouper’ was a tarp-wrapped bundle with ~15 packages of ‘sea weed’.
‘Square grouper’ being the south Florida name for bales of ‘sea weed’ found frequently floating in the Gulf of America.
They took a few pictures while waiting for the Coast Guard to arrive. One of the dads is a lawyer.

*Straight dads both married to individual women. It’s sad these days that you need to say shit like that.

 

Tampa mayor Jane Castor was fishing off the Florida Keys with her family when she reeled in something unexpected – 70 pounds of cocaine. While out on the boat in late July, Castor's brother saw what he thought was debris in the water, WTVT-TV in Tampa reported.
"Closer we got, I was like, 'Oh, that would be a bail (bale) of cocaine,'" Castor told WTVT.
The Castor family hauled the heavy package onto the boat and discovered a split in the wrapping that revealed individual packages, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Castor later told the Tampa Bay Times that she saved the location of the discovery on her watch and headed back to the family's vacation rental. When she got cell service again, Castor called the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
The family lugged the packages onto the dock and waited for them to arrive. Walter Slosar, chief patrol agent with the Border Patrol's Miami sector, posted a picture of the cocaine on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Slosar said the drugs have an estimated street value of $1.1 million.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/08/09/tampa-mayor-jane-castor-finds-cocaine/70557011007/