WHITE GOLD

Over the past few years the sleepy town of Bluefields, Nicaragua, has become massively wealthy thanks to 35 kilogram sacks of cocaine which regularly wash up on its beaches. The residents of Bluefields owe their lucky twist of fortune to the town’s unique position halfway between the drug fields of Columbia and the drug fiends of the U.S. A., placing it directly on a smuggling route for “fishing” boats which transport massive amounts of cocaine between the two countries. Then, whenever one of these boats is spotted by an American Coast Guard vessel, the drugs go overboard where the unique patterns of wind and waves in that region deposit the drugs on the beaches of the now-rich Nicaraguan town. "There are no jobs here, unemployment is 85 per cent," says the mayor of Bluefields. "People here now go beachcombing for miles, they walk until the find packets. Even the lobster fisherman now go out with the pretense of fishing but really they are looking for la langosta blanca - the white lobster." (New Zealand Herald)