A 35-foot panga boat washed ashore in north San Clemente early on Saturday, March 19, with authorities investigating it as likely evidence of human smuggling.

The empty boat was pushed into the shore break as passersby on the beach path and surfers on the sand stopped at the unusual sight.

A 35-foot boat washed ashore in San Clemente on March 19, 2022. No one was found aboard the abandoned vessel. (Photo by Laylan Connelly/SCNG)

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was on site waiting for a tow company to take it back out to sea, but as high tide rose through the morning, the boat was pushed closer to rocks that line the beach by the surf.

Jaime Ruiz, spokesperson with US Customs and Border Protection, said the boat was being investigated as involving human smuggling, as it could have carried as many as 20 people. No drugs were found, he said.

Agents searched the area but found no evidence of the people aboard. The vessel will be seized by the U.S. government.

The abandoned vessel is the latest in a string of panga boats that have been left on South Orange County beaches, with two last September in Laguna Beach putting authorities on alert and another the same month on Strands Beach in Dana Point, when 15 people were filmed running from the beach into the hills.

That same month, another boat was found not far from Saturday’s stranding with fifteen life jackets found on the sand.

Last December, 18 people were arrested after being suspected of being unlawfully present in the United States aboard a boat in Newport Harbor.

Migrants illegally trying to enter the United States by sea often landed near San Diego in the past, but increasingly have turned up on the shores of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, opting to navigate the hazards of the ocean to sidestep heightened security at the Border, officials said last summer.

“As enforcement operations ramp up at the border, criminal organizations have expanded their area of operations further north,” CBP agents said in a news release in August 2021.

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