There was a surprise for one local resident last week as he walked his dog along the beach at Playa Flamenca last Sunday evening.

As his dog played on the shoreline it discovered a plastic container that was buried in the sand. Initially there was little more than a strand of cord protruding above the ground but as the interest of the dog intensified, the owner decided to investigate further.

As he dug around the cord he discovered that the thread was tied to a plastic drum which seemed to contain individually wrapped packages of a dark brown substance at which point he alerted the Policia Local.

Together with the Guardia Civil the authorities gradually unearthed the container to find that it contained 19 packets of hashish, weighing a little over 10kg. A spokesman said that his had most certainly been covered up and purposely hidden rather than having simply washed up on the shore.

Hashish, or hash, is a cannabis-family recreational drug that is consumed by oral ingestion or smoking; typically in a pipe, vaporizer or joints, where it is normally mixed with cannabis or tobacco, Most commonly coloured light to dark brown It will not burn if rolled alone.

It is thought that the haul would be worth about 15,000 euro on the open market