We Tried Finding the Nun From That Miami Smoke Shop Raid

Picture this: you’re at your local smoke shop, restocking your beloved Blue Razz Ice disposable vape, when a SWAT team suddenly busts through the doors. Chaos erupts, customers scatter, and police officers clad in tactical gear flood the room.

And then, as your brain tries to process what the hell is going on, you spot her: a nun.

Last month, we (and evidently the rest of Miami) went looking for answers after a sister mysteriously appeared on the scene of a raid at a Biscayne Boulevard smoke shop. Clips posted online showed her sitting amid the bust in a bright blue veil, navy tunic, and rosary in hand, looking like something out of an AI prompt or a low-budget movie set.

The Miami police department quickly assured us she had nothing to do with the raid and was “just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” but the explanation only raised more questions: Who is she? Where did she come from? And, perhaps most urgently, what exactly was she doing there?

In honor of 4/20, New Times went on a mission to track her down. Hold onto your rosaries!

On March 12, not long after our original story went live (complete with a public plea for tips), a message slid into our DMs.

“Read your story about the nun and the vape shop bust. Using Google lens it appears she’s a part of this group,” the message read.

The message shared a link to a website for the Apostoles of Infinite Love (also known as the Order of the Magnificat of the Mother of God), a traditionalist independent Catholic religious group based primarily in Quebec, Canada. The group, which has been described as a cult, has faced allegations of child abuse, kidnapping, and sexual abuse.

Before we could fully process All Of That™, another tip arrived the very next day — this time via email.

“Yes I have known the nun in your article for many years. She was passing out religious calenders for donations,” the generous tipster wrote. “Seems like it was wrong time wrong place.”

The source provided a possible name for the sister(!) and said she was part of a mission that periodically travels to Miami.

“She has actually gone back to New York where she belongs to the Apostle of Infinite Love Mission,” the source wrote. “They come here for a few months and then go back to New York.”

Naturally, we did what any other nun-seeking reporters would do: we tried calling the convent in New York.

No one picked up, so we tried again. And again. We left a voicemail explaining, as professionally as possible, that we were trying to track down a nun spotted during a SWAT raid at a vape shop.

Alas, no response.

For now, until she returns to Miami — or this writer’s employer agrees to expense a trip to New York for some boots-on-the-ground journalism (ahem) — the trail appears to end here.

Was the sister just a figment of our collective imagination? Did we all get too stoned and dream her up?

Or maybe, just maybe, the real nun was the friends we made along the way.