New taipei: An angler in New Taipei’s Yehliu village came back with a fisherman’s tale on Tuesday after discovering a 43-kilogram bag of marijuana washed up on shore.

According to Focus Taiwan, the New Taipei City Police Department’s Jinshan Precinct reported that the man, who was not identified, discovered the burlap bag at 8:35 a.m. Tuesday while fishing near Camel’s Hump Rock, off of Dong’ao Road. He mentioned having noticed the bag floating off the shoreline several days earlier.

Upon opening the bag and looking inside, the man realized it was something suspicious and promptly reported it to the police. Police officers who arrived at the scene conducted a rapid drug test, which confirmed that the bag contained marijuana, a category 2 drug under the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act.

The drugs, weighing 43 kilograms in total, were wrapped in 32 separate bags and had an estimated street value of around NT$20 million (US$635,432) in Taiwan. Authorities have requested assistance from the Coast Guard and other relevant agencies to investigate the case, although they warned that the absence of security cameras in the area could complicate efforts to trace the source of the drugs.