When you're bringing more than $1 million worth of weed into Boynton Beach on a boat from the Bahamas, it's probably a good idea to know how to drive said boat.
After Sean Debiase, 42, and Chet Hirshfield, 35, ran their boat into two different sandbars yesterday afternoon -- killing one of the engines -- and then couldn't quite manage docking the boat, a pair of Boynton Beach Police Marine Officers say they went to make sure the guys on the boat were OK and to warn them not to run over manatees.
At a news conference this morning, Officer Darin Hederian said he and another officer began talking to Debiase and Hirschfield, who gave different reasons as to what they were doing on the boat.
Once Officer Gregg Koch got permission from the men to get on their boat and check it out, Hederian says the men ran away.
Koch, still on the boat, realized pretty quickly why the men ran away -- nearly 1,300 pounds of weed in a 31-foot storage console.
Hiderian and three U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents -- who were already in the area of the boat -- caught Debiase and Hirshfield shortly thereafter when they ran into a dead-end.
When the officers were asked what was going through their heads when they realized what they had discovered on the boat, Koch explained that they do those kinds of checks on boats all the time and don't usually find quite what they found. Hiderian butted in, "Jackpot."
Debiase, a Delray Beach resident, and Hirshfield, from Palm Beach Gardens, face federal charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to the cops.
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