Tampa Mayor Lands Unexpected Catch While Fishing In Florida Keys

KEY WEST, FL — It was intended to be a relaxing getaway, a traditional fishing trip for Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and her family in the Florida Keys during the state's two-day recreational spiny lobster harvest.

While Castor's son and his girlfriend snorkeled in the clear waters off Marathon in search of the elusive-but-tasty Florida lobster species that like to hide in rock cracks and crevices 50 to 80 feet below the surface of the Caribbean, Castor and her younger brother, Kelly, had their sights set on hooking a nice mahi mahi, a sport fish found in the Caribbean throughout the summer months, perfect when cooked in a garlic butter sauce.

However, the current mayor and former and first woman police chief of Tampa wasn't expecting to land a 70-pound block of cocaine.

Kelly Castor was the first to spot the strange package bobbing in the water and pointed it out to his sister. After spending 31 years at the Tampa Police Department, Castor said she immediately identified the block-shaped package.

"It was cocaine," she said with the certainty of a law enforcement officer who spent six years on the Tampa police's narcotics unit.

They hauled the package on board the fishing boat and headed to the nearest town, Marathon, with their unexpected find, where they contacted the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.

Walter Slosar, chief patrol agent of the Miami Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, confirmed Castor's suspicions.

The package contained 25 cocaine bricks with an estimated street value of $1.1 million.

Slosar said Castor's discovery in the Caribbean, just 128 miles from Havana, Cuba, isn't all that unusual.

In early July, recreational boaters found 87 pounds of hashish and 62 pounds of cocaine off Marathon.

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And the day before Castor's discovery, boaters found an 8-pound bale of marijuana floating about 13 miles off Big Pine Key in the Lower Keys.

Last month, News Nation detailed the concerns of marine biologists who said sharks have been behaving erratically after feasting on cocaine found floating in areas from Miami on the Atlantic Ocean to the Keys and Naples on the Gulf of Mexico side of the Florida peninsula.

Slosar said the wayward contraband is often tossed into the ocean by drug smugglers from South American or the Caribbean islands when they spot Border Patrol or Coast Guard boats nearby.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in 2022, 44.2 thousand pounds of cocaine was discovered in waters or seized from vessels. Already in 2023, that number has increased to 44.9 thousand pounds of cocaine.

In total, 347,000 pounds of drugs were seized in U.S. waters in 2022 and 218,000 pounds has been seized this year.