Gardaí raid another premises af ter €33m seizure of crystal meth
GARDAÍ have raided another premises in an ongoing investigation into a crystal meth trafficking operation following the seizure of €33million worth of the drug last week.
Last Friday, officers seized more than 540kg of the substance in a container at the Port of Cork. They believe the drugs were not for the Irish market, but for sale abroad.
Two men were arrested in relation to the find and continue to be questioned.
They cannot be named for legal reasons but will have to be charged or released by tomorrow.
This latest search was carried out on Sunday by gardaí at a commercial premises in Waterford. ‘As part of ongoing investigations in connection with the large drug seizure made at Cork Port on Friday, a search was carried out by gardaí at a premises in Waterford city on Sunday evening,’ gardaí said.
One of the men arrested is a well-known businessman from Kerry. He has held several highprofile positions in his community and was considering a run in the local elections, multiple sources have told the Irish Daily Mail.
His arrest has come as a massive shock to locals who would have described him as a ‘pillar of the community’. His family’s business, which he had taken over and started to run, is very well-known in the Munster area.
The other arrested man is a relative of a Sinn Féin member in Kerry. In relation to the businessman, gardaí believe he has links to Morris O’Shea Salazar, an Irish-Mexican man who grew up in Killorglin in Co. Kerry who is a highranking member of the feared Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
The seized drugs, gardaí believe, were sourced from the Sinaloa cartel in Colombia. Officers are working on a theory that the drugs were to be packaged and processed in Ireland before being moved on to Australia.
The well-known arrested man is believed to have been using his own business to conceal the drugs before they were shipped.
Sources have explained that while investigations are at an early stage, there is a theory that this drug-trafficking enterprise has been operational for years and that hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of drugs may have been moved through Ireland.
One source told the Mail: ‘These men, but especially the businessman, have been on the Garda radar for a while now.
‘This guy has been hiding in plain sight. There are tonnes of pictures of him shaking hands with high-profile politicians, sports stars and big-name financiers. All the while, gardaí believe he has been involved in the movement and processing of meth and ecstasy.
‘There’s a lot to this and the Waterford search was related to information gardaí received about where they thought some of the drugs cash might have been hidden. What you have is a sophisticated trafficking system which has gone under the radar for a long time.’
Gardaí are also in the process of figuring out how the arrested men were allegedly able to contact the Sinaloa cartel and what devices they used to do so. It is hoped by gathering this information, gardaí can pinpoint the exact location of the origin of these drugs.
Another source added: ‘This is now an international investigation. Gardaí are contacting police in Colombia, Mexico as well as in Australia, a country that has a big problem with meth.’
O’Shea Salazar spent part of his childhood in Co. Kerry, where he was arrested on several occasions. The dual citizen came to Ireland following the death of his father in a road crash in South America.
The family settled in Killorglin, the hometown of O’Shea Salazar’s father, where they stayed for nearly a decade. O’Shea Salazar is currently wanted in Chile after he was accused of being linked to the Sinaloa – one of the most dangerous cartels in the world, once headed up by the infamous drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.
Chile is now trying to extradite O’Shea Salazar from Mexico. Prosecutors in the South American country allege that he was a leading member of a network that would import cocaine from Bolivia, which would then be shipped to Europe.
The meth seizure on Friday of last week follows the confiscation of more than 2.2 tonnes of cocaine off the Cork coast in an operation carried out in September 2023.
‘Under the radar for a long time’