Tongan police said Wednesday a multinational drugs investigation had been launched after the discovery of a mystery yacht with a dead body aboard stranded on a remote Pacific reef.
A pair of divers spotted the yacht last week off Tonga's Vava'u island group and found the decomposing body of a Caucasian man when they boarded to investigate, said police commissioner Grant O'Fee.
He said investigators were treating the yacht as a crime scene and a probe was underway involving police from Tonga, Australia, the Cook Islands and the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
O'Fee declined to say whether drugs had been found on the yacht, revealing only that Tonga was not believed to be its intended destination.
He said the body had not been identified and an autopsy would be carried out this week.
“Police at this stage have not ruled the death as suspicious but it remains an unexplained death,” he said. - AFP