Fisherman locates £1.8m drugs dump

September 1995

A chance find by a fishing trawler led to the recovery of a major haul of cannabis resin from the seabed off the Wexford coast last weekend.

Personnel from the Customs National Drugs Team, the Customs Maritime Unit and the Garda Sub-Aqua Club unearthed 180 kilos of cannabis with a street value of £1.8 million in a week-long search operation.

Drugs Team officers moved in after the skipper of a local trawler handed up a 30 kilo bale of cannabis, worth £300,000, which he hauled in while fishing off the coast two weeks ago.

Confirming that the total find was valued at over £2 million, a spokeswoman for the National Drugs Team said the fisherman passed the cannabis bale on to the gardai, along with details of where he had found it.

The Customs launched an intensive search of the area and with the assistance of the Garda Sub-Aqua Club uncovered a much larger quantity of the drug about four miles off the Hook area of the Wexford coast.

The Customs spokeswoman said it was believed the consignment, which of Moroccan origin, was destined for the Irish market because it was found so far up the coastline.

Cannabis resin is a bulky item to transport, she said, and it was not unusual for drug smugglers to dump a consignment from a larger vessel which might attract attention from members of the Customs maritime team patrolling the coastline.

Another boat could then be used to recover the consignment in smaller amounts during night-time hours, when the risk of detection might not be as great.

The National Drugs Team recently launched a Coastwatch information pack for members of the public and fishermen in particular, asking them to watch out for suspicious activity in coastal areas.

The Wexford find was evidence that the initiative was paying off, said the spokeswoman, adding that the general public were ‘ the eyes and ears of the coast’. was carried out by a subversive group, most likely the I.R.A., and that there was a ‘considerable’ local help given in the execution of the crime and the getaway.

The two cars involved, a blue Ford Cortina and a white Ford Escort, had been stolen some time before in Newry, Co. Down – lending credence to the political theory.

Both cars and the rammed security van of South East Security Ltd. have undergone intense scrutiny by Garda Technical experts, but it is believed this scrutiny has failed to yield any concrete clues as to the exact identities of the culprits.

And although the raiders drove at speed through some of the town’s most densely populated areas, residents who may have caught a glimpse of them have so far failed to come forward and help.

The recklessness of the robbers as they drove through the streets was lashed by parish administrator, Fr Noel Hartley, who hold his congregation at 11.30 a.m. Mass in Rowe Street Church that were it not for the mercy of God, innocent people on their daily business, and children playing in the streets, could have been killed.

A local Republican source that this week that Gardaí has been calling on the homes of members since shortly after the raid. Some men had been detained for questioning, but had later been released.

People from Northern Ireland who were on holiday in Wexford with members of the Republican movement had also been questioned, he added.

A report that three nuns who stopped at the scene of the crime, thinking it was an accident, were threatened by the raiders, could not be confirmed. new premises vital for future progress.

The John Street premises is completely out of date and access to it by heavy vehicles is becoming increasingly more difficult.

The Stafford brothers - Michael, George, and Jim - who run the firm have been planning the move for some time, and work on the factory started earlier this week.

Besides its bottling and manufacturing activities, teh firm is also one of the country’s biggest Wine and Spirit merchants, and the recent introduction of duty-free facilities at Rosslare has meant that the Bonded Warehouse which the family also runs at Lower John Street has expanded dramatically.

A sophisticated development plan for the firm, which the brothers have worked out to cover the next decade, estimates that by 1988, between seventy-five and one hundred people will be employed at the new plant.

And impressively, the new venture has been entirely funded by the firm’s Directors - not a penny of the £450,000 price tag having come from the Industrial Development Authority or any other Government agencies.

Sales Director, Mr. Michael Stafford, said this week that the venture had been only made possible by the whole-hearted co-operation of their employees and the local publicans, hoteliers, and business people in general, whose moral support for the move had been ‘outstanding’. He expressed thanks to them all.