€10m Costa Rica cocaine haul ‘was bound for Ireland’

POLICE in Costa Rica have seized cocaine worth €10million – which gardaí believe was destined for Ireland.

The 133kg of cocaine was concealed in a cargo of pineapples on board the vessel Polar Chile and is believed to have been bound for the Kinahan crime gang.

The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau is undertaking an investigation ‘with a significant international dimension’ arising from the seizure, at Moin Port in Limón, Costa Rica, on August 14, the gardaí said in a statement.

Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll, confirmed the involvement of Garda and Revenue officers in the inquiry.

It is highly unusual for the Garda to release details of an ongoing case, which suggests that the investigation may already be complete.

The Kinahan gang is big enough to deal directly with South American drug cartels, rather than buying from European wholesalers, as the Gilligan gang had done previously.

The Kinahans run their operations from the south of Spain, a major conduit for the European drugs trade.

Meanwhile, Spanish police have arrested a man with an Irish passport following a seizure of more than six tonnes of cannabis, worth around €18million, in Marbella.

A total of nine men and two women were arrested in the operation.