New cocaine bricks not from 200kg shipment washing ashore for months, police reveal

As a Sydney man reveals how he found the latest blocks of cocaine washed up on a Sydney beach, police say they are part of a new shipment, not the original 200kg importation gone wrong.

EXCLUSVE: The latest cocaine to wash up on Sydney beaches is not from a monster importation gone wrong which has seen more than 250 kilograms of the drug being found on more than a dozen beaches since Christmas last year.

Police at first thought the five “bricks‘’ found on Curl Curl and Freshwater beaches on Sunday morning were part of the same consignment which first hit the headlines when 39 kilos was found at Magenta Beach on The Central Coast on December 22.

But identifying “stamps”, the wrapping and the fact the cocaine was in bags attached to flotation buoys are totally different from more than 250 kilos of the drug which has been found on more than ten beaches since December 22.

Now police believe the latest cocaine to wash up isn’t part of that monster importation gone wrong, but was instead tied to buoys and set adrift off the coast in an attempt to smuggle the drugs ashore, police believe.

It comes as a northern beaches resident revealed how he stumbled across the drugs on his local stretch of sand on Monday.

Surfer David Hughes found two bricks of cocaine at Curl Curl Beach on Monday. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Mr Hughes’ discovery came after he saw what he thought was a half-buried soccer ball covered in barnacles while walking at Curl Curl Beach with his wife.

“I went up to have a look, then noticed it was a flotation buoy with a bit of marine rope attached. I gave it a bit of a yank and there was something underneath the sand, which was a plastic bag,” Mr Hughes said.

“I cracked open the plastic bag and yes, there were two of those cocaine parcels inside.”

Mr Hughes said the packages were stashed in “typical kitchen tidy bags”.

Mr Hughes took the find to lifesavers at South Curl Curl Surf Club who contacted police.

At the same time, officers also received a call that another 3kg of cocaine had been found at Freshwater Beach, also attached to a buoy.

Police believe the drug-loaded buoys may have been dropped just outside Sydney Heads by a “mother ship’’, but drifted away before they could be collected by a shore party in a smaller boat tasked with collecting the drugs.

“It’s a common way drugs get dropped and collected from fishing trawlers or superyachts,’’ said a senior detective. “Normally nowadays they have GPS on them, but this load seems to have got away.”

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