Marshall Islands police have found the country’s largest-ever haul of cocaine in an abandoned boat that washed up on a remote atoll, AFP reported. They found 649 kilograms (1,430 pounds) of cocaine hidden in a compartment of the 5.5-metre (18-foot) fibreglass vessel.

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It was found at Ailuk atoll last week.

According to Attorney General Richard Hickson, the boat “could have been drifting for a year or two” and came to the Pacific from Central or South America.

Police said the drugs, which were in one-kilogram packages marked with the letters “KW”, were incinerated on Tuesday, aside from two packs that will be given to the US Drug Enforcement Agency for analysis.

It isn’t uncommon for debris from the Americas to be washed up by Pacific Ocean currents to reach the Marshalls.

There have been numerous other stashes of drugs found along the Marshall Islands’ shoreline over the past two decades, including another one in Ailuk, but the latest haul was by far the largest.

Law enforcement officials have various theories about the origins of such drugs, including that they were abandoned when smugglers were in danger of being caught or lost in storms.

In January 2014, Salvadoran fisherman Jose Alvarenga washed up in the Marshalls, more than 13 months after he set off from Mexico’s west coast with a companion, who died during the voyage.

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After his discovery, University of Hawaii researchers conducted 16 computer simulations of drift patterns from the Mexico coast and found nearly all eventually arrived in the Marshall Islands.