{"id":2841,"date":"2008-02-09T10:39:58","date_gmt":"2008-02-09T18:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2008\/02\/09\/10\/39\/white-lines-blow-away\/"},"modified":"2008-02-09T10:39:58","modified_gmt":"2008-02-09T18:39:58","slug":"white-lines-blow-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2008\/02\/09\/10\/39\/white-lines-blow-away\/","title":{"rendered":"White Lines Blow Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bluefields in Nicaragua looks like any other rum-soaked, Rastafarian-packed, hammock-infested Caribbean paradise. But Bluefields has a secret … People here don’t have to work. Every week, sometimes every day, 35kg sacks of cocaine drift in from the sea … When the [US Coast Guard] get close, the traffickers toss the cocaine overboard, both to eliminate evidence and lighten their load in an escape attempt … “People here now go beachcombing for miles, they walk until the find packets. Even the lobster fisherman now go out with the pretence of fishing but really they are looking for la langosta blanca – the white lobster” … when a fisherman finds white lobster the entire village shares the treasure, with a percentage going to the community, a smaller percentage to the church and the majority split among the crew of the small boat that found the loot. “It is like a municipal tax … The schools and churches are not built by the Government, that money comes from the fishermen and their finds”.\/a><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bluefields in Nicaragua looks like any other rum-soaked, Rastafarian-packed, hammock-infested Caribbean paradise. But Bluefields has a secret … People here don’t have to work. Every week, sometimes every day, 35kg sacks of cocaine drift...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[551,554,322,556,552,553,555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bluefields","category-caribbean","category-cocaine","category-langosta-blanca","category-nicaragua","category-rastafari","category-white-lobster"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t