Indonesian sailors seize $82m of cocaine

Navy sailors made Indonesia’s biggest cocaine seizure after finding plastic packages floating in the sea. Four black packages containing 179 kilograms of the drug worth $82.6 million were spotted near Merak port on Java island on Sunday, said the navy’s deputy chief of staff, Vice Admiral Ahmadi Purwono. Smugglers are thought to have left them there to be picked up by a speedboat. “This is a spectacular seizure,” he said. No one has been arrested, and the authorities are still investigating, he said. Indonesia is a major hub for drug trafficking in South-East Asia and has strict drug laws, with convicted smugglers sometimes executed by firing squad.