From South America to St Agnes: how a £3.1m cocaine haul could have washed up at a Cornish beauty spot – as investigators hunt for its owners and more at sea

Over the weekend, beachgoers looking for treasure got an unexpected surprise.

There was a black bag containing cocaine worth £3.1 million that was found washed up on the shore of Trevaunance Cove in St Agnes on the north coast of Cornwall.

Searchers are on the hunt for the owners and teams are scouring the coast between Padstow and Holywell Bay to see if more of the substance has been washed out to sea.

Trevaunance Cove is popular with dog walkers and is usually busy with holidaymakers even outside the holidays.

But questions remain over how 40kg of the Class A drug ended up in the sand of Cornwall’s picturesque beach.

Cocaine worth an estimated £3.1 million was found washed up on the popular Trevaunance Cove beach this weekend (pictured)

A black bag containing around 40kg of class A drug was found on the sand along Cornwall’s north coast, according to a village source.

Devon and Cornwall Police are working with Interpol and other global agencies to find out how the drugs end up on British beaches, as Saturday’s discovery in Cornwall is far from a rarity.

Smugglers may have thrown the cocaine overboard when chased by anti-drug patrols.

The drugs could also have fallen overboard during transport on a small boat or due to bad weather conditions on the ship.

Cocaine is smuggled into Europe from the producing countries of South America by both air and sea, using a range of methods and routes.

It is shipped from Latin America in ships launched from Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Venezuela has become more important in recent years as smuggling organizations transport Colombian cocaine overland and take advantage of the heavy maritime traffic between the coast and the islands of the Caribbean.

However, cocaine is also smuggled from Venezuela to Europe by air, either directly or via the Caribbean and Africa.

Cocaine seized by the NCA from a fishing boat stopped at sea off Newquay, Cornwall

Earlier this month, a fishing boat carrying around a tonne of cocaine was intercepted off the coast of Cornwall. Pictured: A stock photo of a boat in Mevagissey, Cornwall

Pictured: Newlyn town harbor in Cornwall. The Cornish coast often sees unexpected parcels

Europe’s largest seaports are in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Antwerp, Belgium, and they are key points for this type of trade.

Major container ports in other countries are also used, such as Algeciras and Valencia in Spain, and Hamburg in Germany.

According to the European Union Drugs Agency, trafficking in Europe mainly takes place through Western and Southern countries.

Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium are the main entry points for South American cocaine reaching Europe.

Together, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy were responsible for around four-fifths of the cocaine seized in the EU in 2014.

Cocaine traffickers use a wide range of trading methods, but the key to facilitating this is corruption.

Organized crime groups involved in the cocaine trade could make “systematic attempts to corrupt workers at all major ports” in response to law enforcement action, according to the EUDA.

The drugs are loaded at the port of departure and recovered at the port of arrival, so the use of corrupt employees on both sides is a key element.

Earlier this month, a fishing boat carrying around a tonne of cocaine was intercepted off the coast of Cornwall, marking a ‘huge loss’ for an organized crime group, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

NCA officers arrested four men and seized the drugs after the boat stopped at sea near Newquay on September 13.

The four men were arrested on suspicion of importing Class A drugs.

Images provided by the NCA show 17 brick-shaped packages in brown packaging and two in dark packaging, most labeled ‘pezx’.

Pictured: A view of Trevaunance Cove, St Agnes Cornwall, on a scenic day

An aerial view of a beach in St Agnes, Cornwall, as people stream onto the beach

Police also released a photo of a blue and white boat named ‘Lily Lola’.

Derek Evans, NCA branch commander, said: ‘This is a significant quantity of cocaine which will represent a huge loss to the organized crime group that attempted to import it into Britain.

“Together with our partners at Border Force and the Joint Maritime Security Centre, we have successfully removed this harmful drug shipment from the criminal market.

“Its further supply would have fueled exploitation through county border activities, as well as serious violence and knife crime.

“Our investigation into this import continues.”

The National Crime Agency says the domestic cocaine market is dominated by criminal gangs who earn around £4 billion a year.

The cocaine trade is closely linked to serious violence throughout the supply chain, including gun and knife crime in Britain. The cocaine trade has seen an exponential increase in associated violence in recent years.

In February, the NCA and Border Force in Britain reportedly made the largest ever seizure of Class A drugs.

The shipment of 5.7 tonnes of cocaine was found in a container at the port of Southampton, bound for Hamburg, Germany. The blocks of drugs were found hidden in a shipment of bananas shipped from South America.

Based on UK street prices, the cocaine would likely have had an estimated value of more than £450 million.

Cocaine is made from a paste extracted from the leaves of the coca bush from South America and then mixed with ‘cutting agents’ such as talcum powder, flour, laxatives and sugar before being sold on the street to boost the dealer’s supply. enlarge.