Maybe he got the drugs while offshore from a supply ship and was planning to smuggle it back onshore for distribution. That’s been a successful smuggling technique for centuries.

EDIT: reading the article he was telling the crew they needed to go meet a Chinese mothership, so probably something along those lines. Either he was taking it out to supply a vessel but they never reached it, or they made the pickup but the crew is not talking because of threats but they were allowed to turn the hijacker in because the mothership organization doesn’t want to deal with someone that stupid. He probably lied about having access to a boat and this was his dumb plan to meet up.