{"id":128246,"date":"2026-01-22T20:48:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/128246\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T20:48:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:48:32","slug":"florida-charter-boat-captain-arrested-allegedly-tried-to-sell-cocaine-he-found-at-sea-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/128246\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida charter boat captain arrested, allegedly tried to sell cocaine he found at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u200bOfficials allege that he sold a kilogram of cocaine for $10,000. But the sheriff&#8217;s office said the drug sale was actually an undercover operation.<\/p>\n<p>FLORIDA, USA \u2014 A charter boat captain in Florida was arrested and accused of selling cocaine he allegedly found at sea, local officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Monroe County Sheriff&#8217;s Office said in a social media post that 65-year-old Bradford Todd Picariello was arrested on Jan. 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Officials allege that he sold a kilogram of cocaine for $10,000. But the sheriff&#8217;s office said the drug sale was actually an undercover operation that resulted in Picariello&#8217;s arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>USA Today, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation\/2026\/01\/21\/florida-boat-captain-cocaine-found-sea-arrested\/88281598007\/?tbref=hp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">citing an arrest report<\/a> with details about the incident, reported that Picariello told a law enforcement source to bring a cooler to the drug sale to &#8220;make it look as though he was getting fish,&#8221; and said he had an additional &#8220;100 pounds&#8221; of cocaine that could also be purchased in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Approximately 23 kilograms were seized altogether, along with $8,000 in cash, and a 38-foot vessel,&#8221; the sheriff&#8217;s office said in their statement. &#8220;A .40-caliber handgun was also seized.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-three kilograms is equivalent to around 50 pounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Picariello was charged with trafficking, possessing and selling cocaine. He is expected to be prosecuted federally, the sheriff&#8217;s office said. He is from Marathon, a city in the Florida Keys with a population of around 10,000. It&#8217;s unclear where Picariello was arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bOfficials allege that he sold a kilogram of cocaine for $10,000. But the sheriff&#8217;s office said the drug&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-128246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}