a Devonshire man inadvertently intercepted a major supply of cocaine.

Approximately 20 kilograms of the drug -- the value of which was reported to be in the millions of dollars -- washed up in the Devonshire Bay area on Sunday afternoon. The man who found it said it was wrapped in plastic and was floating close to shore.

"I did not have to swim out far for it,'' he told The Royal Gazette . "When I dragged the bale up the steps, I found that it was wrapped in eight to 10 layers of heavy-duty tape and had rubberised seals. Inside, the individual packages were also wrapped in tape. The drug itself was powder dry.'' The man, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, said he contacted Police immediately when he realised what the package contained.

Police subsequently reported that narcotics officers arrived on the scene at around 4.30 p.m. and took the bale to their lab, where analysis confirmed that the powder inside was cocaine.

Although the man said that a drug officer had told him the cocaine might be worth some $60 million on the street, Police spokeswoman Sgt. Roseanda Jones said yesterday that authorities could not yet price it.

"We don't know that because we don't know the purity yet,'' she said.

"We'll have to wait until it's analysed.'' She added that Police were not sure if the drugs were intended for Bermuda or not.

Meanwhile, the man who found the cocaine complained to The Royal Gazette and allegedly some other media that his role in the find has been brushed aside by Police, who yesterday had not yet taken an official statement from him.

"I've done what a good citizen should do,'' he said. "If the authorities don't encourage people to do the right thing, what does this say to the guy who is a little late on his mortgage? Or to kids? If that got into the local drug trade, the effects would have been devastating.'' The man said he was "astounded'' that the Police weren't being more diligent.

But Sgt. Jones, who said the officers involved in the case have been following standard procedure, told The Royal Gazette that the man had not been forgotten and would be providing a statement shortly.

"This is going to be followed up as a normal investigation,'' she said. "If it's not being done in as hurriedly a fashion as he would like, I guess I'd have to apologise for the force. But that's the procedure.''