A drug trade expert has suggested that the huge cocaine haul found on two Norfolk beaches could have been dropped from a plane in a panic.

Rusty Young, author of the bestselling book Marching Powder, about the war on drugs, also said the drugs may have been 'thrown overboard' from a ship during a bust.

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Mr Young, speaking to IB Times UK, said: 'The major way drugs move around the world is on container ships. Often containers fall overboard or often, if they suspect they will get a proper search, they tip them overboard.

'Drug traffickers drive little submarines out to the container ships, the container ship then passes customs and another submarine comes out and unloads the cocaine, usually in the middle of the night.

'They go to the port and unload it on there.'

He added: 'I reckon there was a bust and they threw it overboard. Because this stash of cocaine was not designed to float, it was not a pick-up.'

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He said that if the drugs were being moved by plane, they could have been jettisoned in a panic because it was being tailed.

Mr Young said: 'With those drops, they could make them either buoyant or at least waterproof so when it sinks to the bottom they can put a transponder on it and then they send divers down to get it.'

He said it was most likely that the drugs had come from Colombia.

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The drugs, with an estimated street value of £50m, were found on Friday February 9 in holdalls on Hopton beach and in smaller packages on Caister beach.

Norfolk Police referred the seizure to the National Crime Agency, which is still investigating the incident.

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