The mayor of Tampa has found cocaine with an estimated street value of about $1.1m (£860,000) floating in the Atlantic while on a fishing trip with her family.

Jane Castor, who was the city’s first female police chief before becoming mayor, was fishing off the Florida Keys on 23 July when she made the discovery.

She came across a package wrapped in layers of plastic which was later found to contain 70 pounds of the drug.

Her family lifted the package into their boat and Ms Castor saved the location of their find on her watch.

The drug haul – found in the waters off the Middle Keys city of Marathon – was handed over to federal agents after the mayor contacted the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, reported Tampa Bay Times.

A US Border Patrol post on social media confirmed the estimated value of the drugs found by a “recreational boater”.

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It comes after a brick of cocaine weighing about 2.7lbs was found floating near Florida Keys last month, according to NBC South Florida.

Last week, it was revealed Spanish police, customs officials and the UK’s National Crime Agency held a joint operation to seize two metric tonnes (4,409 pounds) of cocaine with a street value of about €70m (£60m) from a single-mast boat they intercepted off Spain’s northern coast.

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Spain’s tax agency said the location of the haul, in the Bay of Biscay, was “totally exceptional”.

Most cocaine shipments from Latin America to Europe are seized along Spain’s western Atlantic coast.

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