Two men held after seizure of almost €33m of crystal meth at Port of Cork
A MAN with links to local politics in the south and a businessman remained in custody last night after their arrest over the largest seizure of crystal meth in the State’s history.
Both men, aged in their 40s, were detained after more than half a tonne of the drug was seized at the Port of Cork on Friday morning.
One of the world’s most dangerous drug cartels, with senior facilitators based in Co. Kerry, are suspected of being behind the smuggling of almost €33m worth of the synthetic drug. The drugs are believed to have been controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel that featured in crime drama series Narcos: Mexico.
‘Seized more than 540kg of the drug’
Gardaí seized more than 540kg of the substance in a container and believe the drugs were not for the Irish market, but for sale abroad.
Gardaí are investigating where the consignment came from, and if it was shipped here from a traditional crystal meth manufacturing country.
The MoS has learned investigating gardaí believe the huge consignment was imported from Columbia and was destined for Australia.
The other, less likely, possibility gardaí are investigating is whether the drugs were manufactured here.
A source said: ‘Gardaí suspected the drugs originated in Columbia and were on their way to Australia. But with machine guns seized too, anything is possible.’
The huge seizure is largely the result of ‘dedicated and persistent’ work of the local Kerry Divisional Drugs Unit.
It is understood the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau became involved in the operation in the latter stages.
A source told how the same local drugs unit faced being disbanded last year, amid the controversial plan to revert to pre-pandemic rosters, which engulfed the force.
They said the record seizure may not have been made if the unit had been broken up under the roster Garda Commissioner Drew Harris tried to bring in last year.
The source said: ‘The crazy thing about this whole investigation that has been lost, is this huge seizure was a result of hard investigative work that the local Kerry Divisional Drugs unit was doing for the past while.
‘The [national] Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau rowed in at the end.
‘This is the very same divisional drugs unit that they wanted to disband five months ago, with the rosters that the guards on the ground are still fighting.’
The two people arrested, both Irish nationals, were detained in Kerry and gardaí suspect they were working as facilitators for the major international drug trafficking operation.
The men are currently detained at garda stations in the Southern Region under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007. They can be held without charge for up to seven days.
One of the men has previous criminal convictions for assault and is well known to gardaí, while the second has been involved in business locally for years.
The seizure follows the confiscation of more than 2.2 tonnes of cocaine off the Cork coast in a military-garda-customs operation last September. Separately, in another successful drugs seizure, a man was arrested yesterday after cannabis and cocaine with an estimated street value of almost €6.5m have been seized at Rosslare Europort.
The drugs seized include around 288.6kg of herbal cannabis, 72.8kg of cannabis resin and 3.3kg of cocaine, with an estimated value of €6,443,640.
The man, aged in his 40s, is currently being detained at a garda station in Co. Wexford.
The drugs were discovered when an accompanied freight unit which had earlier disembarked a ferry from Dunkirk, France, was stopped and searched. Revenue said this was due to risk profiling and the assistance of Revenue’s mobile x-ray scanner and detector-dog Jasper.