Body in barrel found on Malibu beach: police

A body stuffed in a barrel was discovered Monday on a beach in Malibu, the swanky Californian hotspot beloved by the rich and famous, police said.

Reports said the man's corpse was crammed into a 55-gallon drum when it was discovered by maintenance workers.

Homicide detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff were working the case, the department said. It did not reveal the dead man's identity or his cause of death.

Broadcaster ABC7 said the barrel had originally been spotted bobbing in the water at Malibu Lagoon State Beach by sanitation workers on Sunday evening.

AFP photos showed the closed barrel resting upright in shallow water in a spot close to Malibu Pier.

Malibu, which sits on attractive coastline less than an hour from Los Angeles, is home to celebrities including Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and "Friends" actress Courteney Cox.

Julia Roberts, Cindy Crawford, Leonardo DiCaprio and Paris Hilton are all one-time residents of the laid-back idyll.

Barrels are understood to be a favored disposal method for mobsters who want to get rid of a corpse.

Last year the receding waters of Lake Mead revealed the skeletal remains of a murder victim whose body had been stuffed into a drum, in what Mafia watchers said was probably the work of mobsters from nearby Las Vegas decades earlier.