Gardaí arrest 10 men in west Cork in blow to drug smuggling ring
GARDAÍ foiled a suspected cocaine trafficking operation off the coast of west Cork in what was described as a ‘significant’ blow to a drug smuggling ring.
Ten men were arrested on Thursday morning in three separate vehicles. Dramatic pictures show several men lying face-down in Leap, west Cork, having been detained by gardaí in a planned sting.
Another man was arrested in a truck while two others were detained in an SUV.
The men are Irish, Dutch and Spanish, sources told the Mail.
Officers believe the smugglers were due to travel out to sea and meet another vessel, where the drugs would be loaded and then brought to the Irish market.
However, gardaí had received intelligence about the plot and drafted in additional resources from around the region to carry out their own operation.
An articulated lorry was seen reversing down the slipway at Tragumna beach at around 7am on Thursday morning.
A small boat was also launched and gardaí believe it was intended to meet with a larger vessel for the drugs handover.
The 10 men had gathered there but left after becoming concerned they were being monitored.
It was after they left the slipway that gardaí sprang into action and pulled over a camper van in the village of Leap. There, they arrested most of the men. The van was searched as the men lay in front of shocked locals.
No drugs have yet been found by gardaí but officers believe they have managed to dismantle a trafficking ring which has been using west Cork as a base to import cocaine and cannabis.
Gardaí were last night monitoring the west Cork coastline to see if they could discover any bales of drugs that may have been jettisoned by the trafficking gang. Sources described the Garda operation as ‘significant’ in the fight against a trafficking organisation which they have been monitoring for some time.
One source said: ‘Gardaí arrested these men under antigangland legislation, which is an important factor as it gives them a full seven days to detain them.
‘Gardaí are going to use this time to carry out more thorough investigations with the mobile devices that they seized,’ the source added.
‘The data gathered from these phones will be able to create a detailed picture of the men’s movements before they were arrested,’ they said. garreth.macnamee@dailymail.ie
‘Investigations with seized mobiles’