19 Oct 2008

Entire beach stolen in Jamaica

9:57 pm on 19 October 2008

Opposition politicians in Jamaica have criticised the police over an investigation into the theft of an entire beach.

They want to know why no-one's been arrested yet over the removal of 500 truckloads of sand from the beach on the island's north coast, which was discovered back in July.

The beach at Coral Springs was 400 metres of white sandy beach and the property at the parish of Trelawny was due to be turned into a billion dollar resort complex.

But the theft of the most important feature lead to its developers calling off their plans.

Illegal sand mining is a problem in Jamaica where the tradition of people building their own homes means there's a huge demand for sand as a construction material.

But the large volume and type of sand taken made suspicion point towards the hotel industry.