Woman finds package filled with £100k of cocaine washed up on Cornish beach

A beach cleaner in Cornwall has discovered a bag of cocaine with a suspected street value of £100,000 while scouring the sand for rubbish.

The package, containing around a kilogramme of the Class A drug, was found by Jodie, while she was picking litter at Upton Beach in Bude Harper on Monday 7 August.

The parcel was then taken to Bude Police Station and searches around the beach were carried out by officers but no further packages were located.

Jodie said: "We cover a lot of these beaches on dog walks, we're always out and about. We're always picking up litter as we go."

She said she suspected there would be a lot of rubbish washed up on the beach due to storms at the weekend - but the discovery was still a shock.

"Normally the most exciting thing you'll find is fishing waste or maybe some packaging with a foreign language that has come from a long way away," she said.

"But this time we stumbled across a package that immediately looked a bit suspicious."

Jodie added: "It looked like something you'd see in the films. A real kind of taped-up block. It didn't occur to us that it could have been anything else. We were instantly suspicious.

"We had a little look and took it straight over to the police station. There was an inner layer with parcel tape. Inside there was clear plastic with white powder in. It was a kind of paste, the sea water had got in."

A spokesperson Devon and Cornwall Police has said: “When suspected drugs packages are located in the vicinity of the sea or beach, in the first instance members of the public should leave it in situ and contact police who will advise further.

“Necessary enquiries will be carried out to obtain any evidential material and provide suitable safeguarding if required.”