Garda translator’s cocaine conviction
Mother of two who worked on gangland murder probe smuggled drugs and sold them in restaurant
AN interpreter who translated for the gardaí during the investigation of an Estonian man accused of conspiring to kill a friend of the Hutch family, is herself a convicted drugs smuggler.
Kristel Meier, 37, was sentenced to three and a half years in jail after she was convicted of smuggling cocaine from Ireland into Estonia in 2011.
Meier worked with translations.ie who supply gardaí with interpreters. Speaking to the MoS from her home in Swords, Co. Dublin, she denied translating for Imre Arakas, who is accused of conspiring with others to murder James Gately between April 3 and April 4, 2017.
She refused to ‘disclose’ if she did other translating work for the gardaí. However, documents seen by the MoS show Meier translated a document seized by the force in relation to Arakas’s arrest. In an interview Mr Arakas gave to an Estonian newspaper last month – as revealed by the MoS – he claimed the ‘Irish legal system’ assigned Meier to work as his translator.
‘Busy girl. About six years ago there was an article about her in Eesti Ekspress,’ he said, adding that she was caught smuggling cocaine from Ireland to Estonia.
According to Estonian court documents seen by the MoS, mother-oftwo Meier smuggled at least 20 grams of cocaine with her partner, Frank Oneybuachi Nwaogo, into Estonia in 2011. She also sold cocaine in a restaurant in Tallinn.
The following month Meier and Nwaogo smuggled at least 110 grams of cocaine from Ireland to Estonia. Meier bought Nwaogu the tickets and he brought the cocaine to Norway, then to Finland, and on to Estonia on October 20, 2011.
Meier confirmed to the MoS that she works as a translator, but denied translating for Mr Arakas. ‘I have never done interpretation for him. And in Estonia, the newspaper is talking wrong. He said it yes, I don’t know why. I have never been an interpreter for him.’
Meier said she can’t disclose if she does work with the gardaí as that is ‘between me and them’.
‘But no, I don’t work like that. I have a company, an interpretation company. I don’t work for guards.’
When asked about her conviction for smuggling she said: ‘I don’t disclose that, particularly at my door in front of my kids. I am not talking about that, sorry.’
Asked why Mr Arakas would make those claims, Meier replied: ‘I wouldn’t know and I’ve made a complaint to the Estonian National Association of Journalists.’
Mr Arakas, 58, answered the newspaper’s questions by dictating to his wife over the course of a number of telephone calls.
He will stand trial in the Special Criminal Court later this year.