30 bags of cocaine wash ashore on Galveston beach

A Galveston beachgoer stumbled across 30 bags of cocaine worth an estimated $175,000. A Galveston beachgoer stumbled across 30 bags of cocaine worth an estimated $175,000. Photo: Galveston Police Photo: Galveston Police Image 1 of / 41 Caption Close 30 bags of cocaine wash ashore on Galveston beach 1 / 41 Back to Gallery

A Galveston beachgoer stumbled across 30 bags of cocaine worth an estimated $175,000.

The man reported finding the bags 10 a.m. Sunday, in the 4400 block of Antigua Drive, just south of Galveston Island State Park.

According to Galveston Police, the the bags were unmarked and contained no identifying information.

The incident isn't the first time a large quantity of drugs washed ashore in Galveston.

In May 2010, a woman out for a morning stroll on Galveston's East Beach found 16 bricks of cocaine worth an estimated $2.1 million. A year later, a jogger on Galveston's Indian Beach found another 25 smaller bricks of cocaine, worth about $675,000.

In 2008, a Crosby man found a large brick of marijuana washed ashore on Crystal Beach.

"You never knew what was going to wash up on that beach," the man said. "One day it could be dead bodies to drugs to stolen cars."

Police have said in the past that drug runners often toss drugs overboard when they are being pursued by the U.S. Coast Guard and that it sometimes washes ashore.

Foreign drug smugglers have been known to use a variety of aquatic options in order to smuggle large quantities of drugs into the United States – including so-called "narco subs" – however it is unknown if any of the Galveston finds could be directly tied foreign drug trafficking.