The economic fortunes of a village in Central America have turned on a tide of errant cocaine shipments either abandoned or lost by Columbian smugglers.

A combination of law enforcement, geography and ocean currents has washed tons of the drug - read millions of dollars - into the village of Karpwala in one of the Caribbean's most desolate and isolated regions.

Villages that once eked an existence on shrimp and red-tinged lobster have been transformed and now eagerly await the next arrival of the income source known fondly as "white lobster".