Family having picnic on beach find cocaine packages ‘worth half a million pounds’

Several bricks have washed up in eastern coastal provinces over last few months

The Philippines has an extremely harsh stance on drugs (EPA/PNP-PIO)

Several bricks of cocaine worth almost half a million pounds have washed up on a beach in the Philippines.

A family were having a picnic by the sea in Munban municipality when they spotted seven packages on Sunday.

The family collected the bricks and Ruel Perez, 44, called the police.

“The bricks contain white substance wrapped on a packaging tape with Rockstar energy drink logo believed to be cocaine,” Liuetenant Colonel Julio Go told the Manila Bulletin.

If the substance in the packages is proven to be cocaine, it would have a street value of around 35 million pesos (£547,000).

Over the last few months, several bricks of cocaine were found floating in waters of the coast of the Philippines.

In February, cocaine bricks estimated to be worth £7.4m were found along the shores of Dinagat Islands, Surigao del Norte, Camarines Norte and Quezon, the BBC reported.

Then in May, 39 bricks with an estimated value of more than £3m were found by fishermen.

The Philippines has an extremely harsh stance on drugs.

Around 6,600 people, most accused of petty drug crimes, have been killed in the crackdown Rodrigo Duterte, the country’s president, launched three years ago.

Earlier this week, Amnesty International called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to approve a resolution calling for an investigation into what it said was a “perilous normalisation” of illegal executions and police abuses.