High traces of cocaine found in a man's torso that washed up in Botany Bay strongly suggests the man's death is linked to criminal activity and drug smuggling, the NSW Coroner's Court has found.

The mutilated body of the still-unidentified man was found by prison inmates who were cleaning part of Kyeemagh Beach in Sydney's south on January 27, 2012, but extensive police investigations and multiple DNA searches have drawn blanks.

The torso was found stuffed in a sheet and weighed down with a 22.5 kilogram weight at Botany Bay in 2012. Credit:Chris Lane

"The detection of cocaine in the liver and bowel, coupled with the incision wound to the abdomen tend to suggest that the deceased could have been concealing drugs internally for the purposes of illegal couriering," coroner Derek Lee said in his findings on Thursday.

The corpse was found stuffed in a black fitted sheet, with its head, neck, arms and legs cut off.