Pacific

Marshalls concerned about cocaine sales on Ebeye

15:29 pm on 5 May 2005

There is growing concern in the Marshall Islands about continued cocaine problems on Ebeye Island.

Ebeye is home to about 1,500 Marshall Islanders who work at the nearby US missile test site on Kwajalein Atoll.

More than a year after professionally bundled packages of cocaine washed ashore at Kwajalein, locals on Ebeye report that plastic bags of cocaine are being sold for 5 US dollars each.

The sales have raised concern among police and others that a much larger amount of cocaine may have been found by some residents and never turned in to the police.

Professionally bundled packages of cocaine have been washing up on remote atolls in the Marshall Islands since the early 1990s.

Islanders on Bikini, Mili and Rongelap have turned over to police large amounts of double-plastic wrapped cocaine during the past 10 years.

This has led to police speculation that remote islands in the Marshalls are used occasionally as pick up points for drug shipments.