Netflix Releases Shocking Documentary About How An Entire Island Became Hooked On Cocaine After A Failed Smuggling Run
While drug deals can go wrong all the time, it’s almost unheard of for such a mishap to spark a full-blown addiction crisis that consumes an entire island. Yet that’s exactly what unfolded in June 2001 on São Miguel, a remote island just west of Portugal.
What began as a routine smuggling operation turned into a local nightmare, changing the lives of many residents who had never even seen drugs before that summer.
This wasn’t a small find, either. The island soon became awash with so much cocaine that people of all ages began experimenting with it, often without realizing what it truly was.
Residents of Rabo de Peixe, a modest fishing village, were so unfamiliar with narcotics that some women actually mistook the powder for flour and used it to bread their fish for cooking.
Even children stumbled across the massive, book-sized bricks of cocaine. Thinking it was chalk, they used it to draw lines for their football games, completely unaware of what they were handling.
Local police have since spoken about just how far-reaching the cocaine problem became and how it affected even the youngest on the island.
Police inspector Jose Lopes explained: “Beer glasses of cocaine were going for €5 each.”
“It was a nightmare. Some kids who had never even touched a cigarette started using cocaine.”
The new Netflix documentary titled Turn of the Tide: The Surreal Story of Rabo de Peixe dives into this incredible sequence of events, showing how the drugs ended up in local hands.
It features firsthand accounts from residents who became entangled in the chaos—some through the black market, others as witnesses to the community’s rapid downfall.
What really happened on Rabo de Peixe?
The man behind the shipment was Italian trafficker Antonino Quinci, who was already on the radar of law enforcement. He was transporting uncut cocaine from Venezuela to Spain on behalf of a powerful Spanish crime network and had already completed two successful Atlantic runs earlier that year.
But this time, his luck ran out in spectacular fashion.
While crossing the Atlantic, Quinci’s yacht was hit by a violent storm that damaged its rudder, forcing him to divert to São Miguel. Stranded with millions of dollars’ worth of uncut cocaine on board, he had to make a split-second decision.
Not wanting to dock and draw suspicion with such a large haul of drugs, Quinci tried to hide the cocaine inside a coastal cave. His plan was to use a small dinghy to quietly move it to shore in batches.
However, a passing fisherman spotted him near the cliffs, forcing him to abandon the idea. In a desperate attempt to cover his tracks, Quinci wrapped the remaining bundles in layers of plastic, attached chains, rocks, and an anchor, and dumped them into the ocean, hoping they would sink and remain hidden.
Within just two weeks, police managed to seize about half a metric ton of cocaine, estimated to be worth around $53 million today. But by then, plenty had already been taken by curious locals who had no idea of the drug’s danger.
Quinci eventually spent 10 years in prison for trafficking and using a false identity. After his release, he was arrested again in 2021 for smuggling hashish into Brazil and sentenced to another eight years behind bars.
At the time, the island was home to only around 140,000 residents. Some people did the right thing and notified the police about the strange bags washing ashore. Others, however, pocketed what they found, setting off a chain reaction of addiction, crime, and tragedy that reshaped the island’s history.
The full story of this wild chapter is now told in Turn of the Tide: The Surreal Story of Rabo de Peixe, streaming on Netflix starting Friday, October 17.
