For centuries the people of the Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua were plagued by arrivals from the sea. Successive waves of British traders, Dutch pirates and Spanish conquistadors brought little but misery. Their luck changed in the 1980s, though, when Colombia became the world’s cocaine capital — and some of the illicit produce started washing up on this monsoon-battered coast.
The locals call it “white lobster”: sacks of cocaine weighing as much as 25kg (55lb) that drift on to beaches near the port of Bluefields almost every day. More bob on the waves waiting to be scooped up. The bags, thrown overboard by Colombian smugglers as US patrols close in, have created a class of “lottery winners”; common parlance for a lucrative day’s fishing.
In a town still beset by grinding poverty, palatial villas with luxury cars in the driveways have sprung up like candy-coloured mushrooms, built on the profits of a drug that sells locally for more than $4,000 (£2,350) a kilogram. One resident, Charlie Walters, said that he had collected about 40kg in 1kg packets over the years. On one occasion he and a few friends found six 25kg sacks in a single day. “We went crazy,” he told The Times. “We built houses, we bought cars, we went on holiday to Costa Rica and partied for months without working.”
Sadly, it is all gone, Mr Walters lamented — blown on women, drugs and in the town’s several casinos — and there are real dangers associated with dabbling in the cocaine trade. “I couldn’t sleep when I had some in the house. If people hear you have found something ... I’ve seen people robbed and shot in the leg as a warning. That’s why I don’t do it anymore,” he said. He paused. “Well, not often, anyway.”
The exhilaration of a “big win” was unbeatable, Mr Walters said. Gazing out to sea, where the light of outlying islands glowed on the horizon, he said wistfully: “Sometimes I sit here and think about everything that’s out there. Probably two boats have passed just now, in the time that we’ve been talking.”
Sometimes local residents are spared even the trouble of converting the cocaine into cash. If the drug boats are returning from a drop-off, they will be carrying the proceeds — which, if they are pursued, they will also be forced to dump. “One time some friends of mine found $4 million in a bucket — in effective money,” Charlie emphasised, slipping into the colourful Creole mix of English and Spanish that characterises this former British protectorate.
The key to Bluefields’ good fortune, and that of other coastal communities, is a combination of geography, currents and climate. Lying about halfway between Colombia and millions of US consumers, traffickers pass close to shore at this point, drawn by the necessity of fuel stops. When cargos are ditched because of storms or pursuit by the US Drug Enforcement Agency, currents carry the loot into the nets of waiting fisherman. Some drug runners have made deals with the locals, sending them messages with GPS co-ordinates to let them know where they should leave fuel.
Sometimes the locals become involved directly in the trafficking itself, picking up loads stashed in lobster pots and transporting them to the next drop-off point. There is talk of a web of corruption and violence in which both the police and local authorities are complicit.
One Bluefields resident, who asked that his identity be protected, said that he had sold cocaine for five years with the connivance of the police. “They’ve given me cocaine to sell. They take it off other people, and then they empty the packets and replace it with soap powder. I’ve seen them do it. Then they burn it, make a show — but they’re just burning soap.”
A local journalist who has investigated the drug industry said that he had been subjected to a campaign of harassment directed by the police. “I have been mugged by youths who have told me they were working for the police. My internet account has been hacked. I have to take a lot of precautions.”
The police declined to comment.
Most of the Bluefields drugs are bought by local traffickers who then sell them on the Pacific Coast at double the price, but some stay in the area — where the effect on the impoverished and underemployed youth is obvious. Cocaine is cheaper than marijuana and there is a high incidence of its abuse, with thin, nervy youths hanging about on street corners — one of whom offered to sell some to The Times within minutes of our arrival.
The mayor, Harold Bacón Brokamp, attempted to play down the problem. “What we have is really just some remnants of drugs that pass by,” he said. “Some people benefit from it but some people suffer.”
Others say that many residents could not survive without it. When the rain comes in Bluefields — and it does almost every day, for 11 months of the year — it is so dense that it forms clouds as it whips sideways down the town’s narrow streets, forcing inhabitants to race for cover and rendering work almost impossible.
“Sometimes there might not be any shrimp in the harbour for months, and the only other real work here is construction — and you can’t mix cement in rain like this,” said one businesswoman who did not wish to be named, gesturing to the wall of water cascading from the roof of her porch.
“These are poor people. It is so difficult to even scratch a living here. You can’t really blame them for taking what they can get.”
A global habit
6.9m estimated number of North Americans using cocaine each year
65% of US dollar bills are contaminated with cocaine
$14.1bn US Government’s 2009 budget for fighting the drugs trade
$50bn estimated value of global cocaine market 51% of the world’s cocaine is produced in Colombia
300,000 estimated number of people working in Colombia’s cocaine industry
