mosquito coast

mosquito coast

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 cha

nged 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.”