Stunned litter picker finds £100k cocaine on beach but police have a request

08 August 2023 , 22:00

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£100,000 worth of cocaine was discovered on a beach on Cornwall (Image: CORNWALL LIVE/BPM MEDIA)

Drugs detectives have seized £100,000 worth of cocaine after a litter picker found it washed up on a beach.

The Class A drugs bundle was discovered on Upton Beach in Bude, Cornwall, on Monday as beach cleaner Jodie Harper scoured the beauty spot looking for rubbish. Initially thinking the package was pollution, Jodie had a huge surprise to discover its contents.

Jodie, who volunteers for the Two Minute Foundation beach cleaning charity, was stunned to find a kilogramme of cocaine while litter picking. She told CornwallLive that she came across the package while litter picking, with the parcel then delivered to Bude Police Station during the early afternoon.

Searches were carried out by officers but no further packages were located. Police are now making what may be a thankless appeal for the owner to come forward, with the force saying the drugs are still at the station if anyone wants to collect them.

A Devon & Cornwall Police spokesperson said: “If anyone believes that these drugs belongs to them and wishes to be reunited with the package, then please pop in to the nearest police station and make yourselves known to officers; we will do our best to assist you." Jodie said: "We cover a lot of these beaches on dog walks, we're always out and about. We're always picking up litter as we go.

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Jodie couldn't believe what she discovered in the parcel (CORNWALL LIVE/BPM MEDIA)

"After the storms on Saturday we knew that there was going to be quite a lot of stuff washed up. Normally the most exciting thing you'll find is fishing waste or maybe some packaging with a foreign language that has come from a long way away. But this time we stumbled across a package that immediately looked a bit suspicious."

Jodie compared the discovery to something from a movie, which sparked her initial suspicions. She said: "It just looked like something you'd see in the films. A real kind of taped-up block. It didn't occur to us that it could have been anything else. We were instantly suspicious.

"We had a little look and took it straight over to the police station." Jodie said the outer wrapping of the parcel was a black plastic material with a layer of rubber on the inside.

The package was buoyed with rubber (CORNWALL LIVE/BPM MEDIA)

Jodie suspects the layer of rubber was supposed to act as a form of buoyancy to keep the package afloat. She said: "There was an inner layer with parcel tape. Inside there was clear plastic with white powder in. It was a kind of paste, the sea water had got in."

Jodie said she understood the street value for the amount of cocaine discovered is somewhere in the region of £90,000 to around £100,000. The litter picker says that the package was definitely the "most interesting" item she has found during a beach clean.

A police spokesperson confirmed that the parcel was delivered to Bude Police Station during the early afternoon. As a result of the find, officers headed down to surrounding beaches. Searches were carried out but no further packages were located.

Susie Beever