THE jury in the biggest drugs trial in the history of the State will commence their seventh week at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Monday knowing the end of the case is looming.

A BOAT sank off the west Cork coast and €440 million worth of cocaine floated in the stormy waters as one man made it to a coastal farmhouse to alert the rescue services that another man was still in the sea.

The opening of the biggest drug trial in the history of the state got underway today with prosecuting senior counsel Tom Creed claiming that the cocaine seized in West Cork last year was found to be 75% pure, giving it a value of €440m and not €108m as originally thought.

The biggest drugs trial in the history of the State relating to the seizure of over €100m worth of cocaine off the coast of West Cork last Summer commenced in Cork city today.

THE case of Ireland’s biggest drugs haul will not go to trial until May.

ALMOST 400 witnesses have made statements to gardaí in the case of the biggest drugs haul in Ireland, it emerged in court yesterday.

MORE than 30 gardaí, several armed, cordoned off a courthouse in Cork yesterday as a fourth man appeared on charges relating to the biggest drugs haul in the history of the State.