€6k drug haul after suspect car spotted at Covid checkpoint
ALMOST €6,000 worth of speed has been seized by gardaí following a drugs raid in Killarney.
The raid – on Sunday night – resulted indirectly from Operation Fanacht, the nationwide garda mobilisation to enforce COVID-19 movement restrictions over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.
Shortly before 10pm on Sunday night, Killarney Gardaí were carrying out an Operation Fanacht checkpoint on the Rock Road in Killarney when they stopped a car.
While the car was allowed to pass through the checkpoint, the reason for its presence in the area arose garda suspicions, and a surveillance operation was put in place.
The car was followed until it stopped at a house in Killarney town, which the driver entered briefly.
The driver returned to the car a short time later and drove off but was stopped and searched by Gardaí.
In the course of the search, Gardaí located €1,400 in cash hidden under the passenger seat and a small weighing scales in the boot. The items were seized and the driver, a man in his 30s, was allowed to leave.
Gardaí then obtained and executed a search warrant at a flat in Killarney. The follow-up search uncovered suspected quantities of methamphetamine, cannabis, and ecstasy along with zip-lock bags and another weighing scales.
Gardaí said that €5,760 of suspected methamphetamine; €80 of cannabis and €10 of ecstasy were seized, and this has been sent for analysis at the central forensics lab in Dublin.
No arrests were made, but Gardaí said they are following a definite line of enquiry, and a file is to be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.