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$15K cocaine brick drifts to Mañagaha
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Posted on Jul 14 2008
A brick-sized package containing about 1.5 kilos of cocaine with an estimated wholesale price of $15,000 drifted to Managaha Island on Saturday and was found by some children.
According to Department of Public Safety Commissioner Claudio Norita, some children swimming on Managaha Island had found the package adrift on the island’s shore. It was wrapped in cellophane tape. The bundle, which was eventually turned over to DPS, contained about 1.5 kilos of white powder.
Norita said a preliminary test conducted by a crime scene technician using a field test kit revealed that it was cocaine.
“I’m not sure about the exact weight. We haven’t gotten the full report yet,” the commissioner said.
DPS is set to send the packet to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s laboratory in San Francisco to obtain a full examination and get its exact weight.
“It seems that it drifted into Mañagaha Island. Where it came from? I don’t know, but the chief of the Criminal Investigation Division had tasked his investigators and the drug task force to [go] to Mañagaha,” he said.
Norita said CID investigators completed the search of Mañagaha all around the beach area to make sure there’s no other drifting cocaine.
The commissioner recalled that three to four years ago in Chuuk, a bunch of cocaine also drifted to shore.
In the CNMI, Norita said marijuana in a trash bag drifted to the beach a few years ago.
“So it’s not the first time. The CNMI is a transshipment point for cargo, ships and airlines. We are surrounded by water,” he said, which means the package may have been dropped from a passing ship.
