More cocaine found washed up in the Florida Keys this week

Fishermen in the Florida Keys discovered a package containing more than two pounds of cocaine washed up onshore Monday night.

The two anglers found the drugs — weighing 2.4 pounds or a little more than a kilogram — near mile marker 78 in Lower Matecumbe Key. They reported the find to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

The sheriff’s office turned the contraband over to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Authorities have reported a recent spike in the amount of illegal drugs found either on the water off the Keys or washed up on the island chain’s shores.

In late April and early May, the Border Patrol confiscated what it estimates to be almost $2 million worth of cocaine and marijuana found in two separate locations on the water.

The initial find was 25 packages of cocaine stashed in a large sack found off Key Largo on April 30. In total, authorities say the load weighed 73 pounds.

Then, on May 1, a boater off Marathon in the Middle Keys discovered a large sack filled with five bundles of marijuana weighing 62 pounds.

In March, a snorkeler found and reported a large bundle of cocaine floating off the small Upper Keys city of Layton. That load weighed 68 pounds, according to the Border Patrol.