Three tonnes worth of drugs found in Pacific Ocean dubbed ‘Cocaine Shark’

It’s a boat! It’s a shark! No, it’s three tonnes of cocaine floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

On Wednesday, New Zealand police identified a mysterious floating object in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean as 81 bales of cocaine, worth about half a million New Zealand dollars or £261 million.

The drugs were packaged in “bricks,” tied up with string, and attached to buoys to keep afloat.

Photos, released by the police, show some of the cocaine labeled with Batman symbols and four-leaf clovers.

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Given the size and location of the cocaine, many compared it to the movie Cocaine Bear and dubbed the real-life drug bust as “cocaine shark.”

Cocaine Bear is an upcoming movie based on a real-life incident where an American black bear ingested cocaine after drug smugglers dropped a shipment in the forest.

So of course, the prospect of a shark ingesting the three tonnes of cocaine was an easy joke for people on Twitter who made memes about the incident.

The discovery was part of “Operation Hydros” an initiative created to identify and monitor suspicious vessel movements.

New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said they believe the massive shipment was destined for the Australian market.

“There is no doubt this discovery lands a major financial blow right from the South American producers through the distributors of this product,” Coster said.

The cocaine is enough to have supplied the Australian market for a year and the New Zealand market for 30 years.

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