The recent discovery of the decomposed bodies of three scuba divers on the beaches of Sicily could be tied to drug trafficking, according to prosecutors.

The body of a third diver was found on Wednesday in Contrada Ginestra, in Termini Imerese, on the northern coast of Sicily. The first two washed ashore in the area of Cefalù and Castel di Tusa, on the northern coast, on 1 and 8 January. None of the bodies have been identified and local authorities have not received any reports of missing persons.

Five separate district attorney offices are working on the case, which they believe could be tied to hashish trafficking. In recent days, hundreds of packets of hashish, totalling over 100kg and with an estimated street value of over €1m, washed ashore on three beaches in northern and south-west Sicily, from Messina to Agrigento.

“We are not ruling out that those two bodies were victims of a shipwreck caused by strong north-westerly winds that hit our coasts around the time of their death,” said Angelo Cavallo, district attorney of Pratti, in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica. “The other hypothesis is that the divers fell into the water while aboard a stricken vessel that was transporting drugs, and that the drugs found on three separate beaches ended up in the water as well. Obviously, these are only hypotheses that need to be verified.”

The district attorney’s office in Agrigento is also working on the case, which they confirmed with the Guardian is “top secret”.

“The sea around Sicily is a crossroads of illicit trafficking from Morocco and Spain, among other places,” said a prosecutor in Agrigento. “It may certainly be the case that the presence of all these packets of hashish on our coasts is due to inclement weather, which caused an accident aboard the vessel that was transporting them.”

Coroners have so far been unable to ascertain the age of the victims, although recent analysis suggests an approximate age of between 40 and 50 years. Estimates indicated that the deaths occurred two months ago, but more recent examination suggests a more recent time. One of the bodies bears a tattoo, “tribale” (tribal), on its left forearm, the outline of a bat between its shoulder blades and the letter M on its right arm.

For years, Italian investigators have tracked shipments of Moroccan hashish, around 100kg at a time, coming to Spain in boats crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. The shipments take place on yachts, cargo ships or fishing boats, and the drugs are often transferred to powerful motorboats at high sea that set out toward European ports, including one in Italy. In May 2019, members of the Italian Financial Police in Sicily arrested three drug traffickers and seized five tonnes of hashish found aboard a yacht. The drugs were intended for the European market and had an estimated street value of €50m.

However, a new strategy for trafficking hashish, which was uncovered last year by the Spanish Guardia Civil, could shed light on the mystery of the bodies washed ashore in Sicily. Last September, Spanish authorities announced the arrest of 32 people suspected of “large-scale hashish trafficking” around Tarifa, in southern Spain. The drugs, held in large parcels, was tethered to the vessels using ropes. The traffickers recruited expert scuba divers who would recover the parcels and load them on to dinghies before transporting them ashore.