Man to be charged after major cocaine haul
The man is believed to be the second-in-command of a gang which has been left reeling by two separate police investigations in Ireland and Portugal.
Police in Portugal arrested five members of the outfit following the murder of gang member Michael "Danser" Ahern in the Algarve last Friday.
His body was found stuffed into a fridge in an apartment in the town of Albufeira. He had been badly beaten and reportedly shot.
Four of the five arrested are Irish, while a fifth is a Portuguese man, carrying a British passport.
The Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU), which had been carrying out a long-running surveillance operation on the gang here, had to move earlier than they planned as a result of the murder in Portugal.
Up to 14 searches were carried out last Friday including on the home of the gang boss, who had only recently returned from Portugal. No drugs were found at his house and officers had insufficient evidence to arrest him.
But a search of an address in Balbriggan, north Dublin, resulted in the seizure of 12 kilos of high purity cocaine, 50 to 60kg of mixing agent and a huge quantity of cash, estimated to be in the region of €500,000 and €1 million.
Gardaí are expected to pass the cash and intelligence to the Criminal Assets Bureau who could use it to target the wealth of the gang boss.
The 12 kilos of cocaine would be worth around €840,000 on the street. Given the high purity, gardaí said it could be worth three times that when cut down with the mixing agent.
GNDU officers caught the gang boss's right-hand man in the apartment. They confiscated a large number of mobile phones.
When the man's own address in Blanchardstown was searched, gardaí confiscated another three kilos of cocaine and arrested a father and son, aged in their 50s and 20s respectively.
A flat belonging to the sister of the gang boss was raided in Ballymun, north Dublin and a shotgun seized. All three people were later released.
The GNDU is understood to have had 15 members of the gang under surveillance. The gang supplies large quantities of cocaine to the Dublin and Cork regions as well as other areas.
It was the third time in just over a month that the GNDU hit the gang.
It was speculated yesterday that Corkman Michael Ahern was suspected of being an informant for gardaí and was murdered on the orders of the gang boss.
THE life of the Cork drug dealer may have come to a violent end after he came under suspicion of being a garda informant.
The gang he worked for had been hit twice in little over a month.
Significant quantities of cocaine, totalling 47 kilos, had been confiscated in two separate seizures in August.
The drugs, worth €3.25million on the street, hit the gang boss hard.
It caused him to suspect that someone in his outfit was talking to the gardaí and more consignments could be intercepted, with further arrests and prosecutions.
This may have led to an order to his crew in Portugal to murder Ahern.
'Danser' Ahern, aged 38, had a long history of involvement in drug dealing.
Born in the village of Bweeng, near Mallow, Danser was a talented boxer and won an under-16 boxing title.
He also developed a taste for crime and received convictions for joyriding and burglary.
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