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The question is, where did they go into the water?

Given the location and time of discovery of the packages, “these are probably all part of the same shipment,” Mulligan said. “The question is, where did they go into the water?” He said the bundles could have floated north from as far south as Puerto Rico, and could have been adrift and waterlogged for some time.

Mulligan said the shipment could have come from a boat that capsized in bad weather, or from an airplane drop where the pickup boat missed the target, or was simply dropped in the wrong place by the airborne delivery crew. Or someone being tracked by the Coast Guard may have tossed it overboard. “There’s a plethora of possibilities,” he said.

The marijuana was turned over to Customs and Border Protection for further investigation, but the agency did not respond to inquiries Monday about whether the source of the marijuana had been determined.

And In Volusia County, Florida, last Wednesday, a large bundle containing 23 smaller packages of marijuana washed up in Ormond Beach, Capt. Tamra Malphurs of the sheriff’s office said. The discovery was called in by a beachgoer and the bundle was destroyed. “This type of thing occurs a few times a year,” Malphurs said, “and we do not know where it came from.”

Flagler Sheriff Rick Staly said in a news release that the arrest of Kelley was “another great example of ‘See Something, Say Something’ … thanks to the joint effort of our citizens’ watchful eyes and good police work these narcotics are off the streets. To anyone thinking they can take advantage of marijuana washing up on shore I have a warning for you. Is it worth a trip to the Green Roof Inn charged with a felony just for some ‘free’ weed?”