The body of a man in his 30s found aboard a yacht carrying more than 200kg of cocaine that washed up on a deserted Pacific island has been identified as Milan Rindzak, 35, of Slovakia, according to news reports.
Tongan police found the badly decomposed body on the 13m S/Y JeReVe in November.
An international police task force, including the Australian Federal Police and U.S. Customs, was monitoring the boat after it left South America, but lost contact with it until two local divers came across the yacht stranded on an uninhabited atoll in Tonga’s Vava’u island group.
Investigators found Rindzak’s body and 204 one-kg blocks of cocaine worth up to $120 million on the vessel.
Tongan police commissioner Grant O’Fee said Rindzak’s passport and other passports, as well as currency from the United States, the Dominican Republic and Poland, were found on the vessel and would form part of an ongoing investigation.
The yacht was believed headed for Australia.