White Lobsters on the Mosquito Coast

Here is an interesting article from TIME magazine about the lucrative cocaine-smuggling trade up the Caribbean coast. This one seems much more up-to-speed than some of the other articles floating around on the internet about cocaine and the coast.

Ever since the “white lobsters” started washing up on Nicaragua’s Caribbean shore a decade ago, life for some people on this isolated and impoverished coast has become remarkably more affluent and globalized, with new mansions, speedboats and lucrative businesses dealing in international trade. Indigenous communities once neglected and marginalized by the state now have the option to self-finance their own development. It looks at first glance like a rare Central American success story — but in reality it’s just another, albeit bizarre, tale of how drug trafficking is taking over the isthmus.

One Response to “White Lobsters on the Mosquito Coast”

All this is true ! I came to fish yelloweye snapper, but the white lobster proved much more lucrative.
As aforeign fisherman here, I was visited soon after arriving, by several narcotraficantes who explained exactly what to do when I found ‘white lobster’. All vessel movement is restricted by the government, but these guys had a route and routine to follow which all but guaranteed success.

Some details not mentioned : The lobster is ferried up the Coast in 50′ skiffs which run at night and beach during the day, powered with 1000 HP of outboards. When capture seems imminent, the load is jettisoned, the crew get away in a dory (a small sailboat the natives use for coastwise travel), and the skiff left to go where it may. A few days later, the NT’s come to town to buy hack the recovered load from the fishermen at the going rate, about USD$ 4,000.