Marshall Islands fisherman nets 48kg cocaine catch

A fisherman in the

Marshall Islands

netted more than he bargained for when he hauled in his catch to find a suspected 48 kilos of cocaine. The white powder, professionally wrapped and taped in plastic bags, had a street value of about $4 million, police said on Friday. “We’re pretty sure we got all of it,” deputy police commissioner Robson Almen added, saying there was no indication the packs had broken out from a larger bundle. Almen said the fisherman called the police when he found the drugs last week while

trawling

off

Kwajalein Atoll

, 494km from the capital

Majuro

. The remote

archipelago

, which is on the northern trans-Pacific

cocaine

route from South America to Asia, has a history of cocaine finds. Between 2002 and 2009, bundles of cocaine and boats with cocaine on board were found washed up on beaches around the Marshall Islands on at least six occasions.