Customs and gardaí seize 15m worth of herbal cannabis

CUSTOMS officials and gardaí seized nearly six tonnes of herbal cannabis yesterday with a street value of 15 million euro , the largest seizure of its type ever made in the State.

In a follow-up operation, a 42-year-old Dutch man was arrested and detained under Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act and taken to Killarney Garda station for questioning.

The drugs, hidden in a container which came from Thailand, were concealed behind concrete garden furniture. Customs officials say while the bulk of the drugs was destined for Britain, a portion may have been earmarked for the Irish market.

The discovery was made in Dublin port yesterday morning when customs officers became suspicious of a container that had arrived there last Friday.

“The container was identified through routine profiling. We then deployed an operational team and a labrador sniffer dog, Harvey, who reacted to the container,” customs executive enforcement officer Brian Smith said.

He said officers found the drugs concealed behind concrete garden benches. “They were quite heavy and difficult to move. They were obviously put there to deter us for searching further,” Mr Smith said.

He declined to speculate if there was a connection between yesterday’s seizure and one which was made in Cork last week.

Customs officials discovered illicit roll-your-own tobacco, which had also come from Thailand, worth more than 1 million when they opened a container at the city’s Tivoli docks. The tobacco was hidden behind heavy earthenware garden pots.

Yesterday’s shipment, which came from Bangkok, arrived in Dublin after being shipped through Singapore and the port of Antwerp in Belgium.

Customs officials said the cargo was probably worth in the region of 15 million euro, making it the biggest single seizure in the history of the state.

“Last year we seized a total of 13 tonnes of herbal cannabis in Ireland. Four tonnes of that was seized last November,” Mr Smith said.

That cargo came through Dublin port in a container but was later seized in Portarlington, Co Laois.

Mr Smith said that customs officers routinely focused on certain transit routes, including cargo originating in Thailand, which is known as a source country for drugs.

Last week customs officials in Cork alerted their European counterparts to the possibility that a major gang based in Thailand was trying to flood the continent with contraband tobacco.