A man went out looking for sea turtle nests on a Florida beach. Instead, he found cocaine bricks worth nearly $1 million

NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – A beachgoer’s early morning search for sea turtle nests led to the discovery of more than 70 pounds of cocaine on an Amelia Island beach Friday morning.

The 32 kilograms of cocaine, which were wrapped in plastic with a picture of an eagle on top, have an estimated value of nearly $1 million in wholesale brick form. But the street value is just north of $4 million, law enforcement officials said.

Once word got out about the discovery, beachgoers News4JAX ran into said they were shocked.

“That’s a tremendous amount of cocaine and what is it doing this far north? So, it was a shock,” said Megan Feldman.

“We came out looking for shark teeth, but their value is not quite the street value of the other stuff that’s washing up. But we’re still looking for shark teeth,” said Paula Johns, a tourist from South Carolina.

Large amounts of cocaine found both on and off the shoreline of South Florida is common.

A video from a couple of days ago showed the US Border Patrol seizing 29 kilograms of brick cocaine that was floating in the water off the Florida Keys with the same eagle logo on it.

But we’re in Northeast Florida.

“It’s very rare here in Nassau County. Many years ago, there were bales of marijuana that washed up on the beach, but to my knowledge, something like this washing up is certainly a rare event,” Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said.

While the intended destination of the cocaine remains unclear, authorities believe it was purposely tossed off a boat.

“More than likely, it was on a boat that law enforcement or Coast Guard was getting close to and they just threw it overboard to get rid of it so they didn’t have possession of it. The sea current just washes it up along the coastline,” Leeper said.