Tampa Mayor Catches $1.1 Million Worth of Cocaine While Fishing in Florida Keys With Family

Mayor of Tampa Bay Jane Castor speaks during the 2020 Stanley Cup Champion rally in Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 30, 2020. Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images

The mayor of Tampa, Florida, discovered 70 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of approximately $1.1 million floating in the Atlantic Ocean during a fishing trip alongside her family last month, according to her office.

Mayor Jane Castor was fishing with her family in July when her brother Kelly Castor spotted a black package simply “bobbing in the water,” she told the Tampa Bay Times.

Ms. Castor, who previously served as chief of police of the Tampa Police Department from 2009 to 2015, immediately realized the package was cocaine, she told the publication.

After pulling the package—roughly the size of a microwave—onboard the boat, the family noticed a split in the wrapping that revealed tightly packed bricks individually wrapped, she said.

Ms. Castor then immediately made sure to save the location of their discovery on her watch, just off the Middle Keys city of Marathon, and later called the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office to inform them of the find.

A local officer later arrived once the boat returned to the dock and assessed the package before two federal agents also arrived on the scene, she told the publication.

The package was later taken away by officials, according to the mayor.

Recalling the events in a separate interview with Fox 13, Ms. Castor said that she and her family initially had concerns about pulling the package out of the water.

Traffic rolls on the Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon, Fla., on Sept. 19, 2017. Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via Getty Images

‘A Bail of Cocaine’

“Closer we got, I was like, ‘Oh, that would be a bail of cocaine,’” she told the outlet. “My family was a little worried, like what if there was a tracker [on it] or something like that? I said, ‘Well, the batteries are dead if that happened.’”

According to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Border Patrol, the package of cocaine was discovered “by a recreational boater” off the Florida Keys on July 23 and subsequently seized by agents with the Miami Sector.

The post, which did not mention Ms. Castor, also included an image of 25 bricks of cocaine, each wrapped in a package featuring a blue and purple butterfly.

Ms. Castor retweeted the post by Border Patrol alongside a laughing emoji face.

The Epoch Times has contacted Ms. Castor’s office for further comment.

“We appreciate the ongoing support from our boating community. Thanks to the efforts of this Good Samaritan, 70 pounds of cocaine are in federal custody and off our streets,” a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said in a statement to Fox 13 of the July incident.

“We encourage the community to immediately report suspicious activity to local authorities,” the spokesperson added.

More Drugs Discovered in Florida Waters

The July seizure is not the only time cocaine has been discovered floating off the waters of Florida in recent months.

In that same month, 2.7 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $41,000 was found by a “Good Samaritan” who was boating near the Florida Keys, according to Border Patrol agents.

Also in July, another boater found a package of marijuana off Islamorada in the Upper Keys that weighed around three pounds, according to the Miami Herald, while a separate boater found a package containing 87 pounds of hashish offshore of Marathon.

On the same day that the 87 pounds of hashish was discovered, another boater found a parcel of 62 pounds of cocaine in the same area, the publication reported.

A day prior, a package of marijuana weighing about eight pounds was discovered floating about 13 miles northwest of Big Pine Key in the Lower Keys, according to the Miami Herald.

Last year in October, Border Patrol agents discovered three pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $43,000 that had washed up near the coastline of Cape Canaveral, while Department of Homeland Security agents were still investigating 50 packages of cocaine worth an estimated $1.7 million that washed up on Vero Beach, Florida, days earlier.