E500m drugs haul suspects face CAB probe
The operation by the Irish, Dutch and US authorities led to the seizure of chemicals, which had the potential to make 50 million ecstasy tablets and 2.5 tonnes of amphetamine drugs with a potential street value of over E500 million.
The chemicals, known as PMK and BMK, were found in more than 40 200-litre drums, which came through Rotterdam, via China.
The Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) confiscated the haul after they swooped on a warehouse in the Greenmount Industrial Estate in Walkinstown, Dublin on Wednesday.
A total of six people four men and two women, all in their 30s and 40s were arrested at the scene or during follow-up searches on houses in Walkinstown and Drogheda. Five of the six arrested are from China and one is from Afghanistan, although some of them have Irish passports. They were detained under the Drug Trafficking Act and can be held for up to seven days.
The Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Garda National Immigration Bureau have been brought in to assist in the investigation.
"We're not sure if this was their first time operating, but there are probably others doing it," said a garda source.
He said the CAB had been called in. "There's huge profits to be made in this. CAB will look at their assets. They have a legitimate company and company accounts, so CAB will investigate that."
Meanwhile, it emerged that the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had assisted in the operation. The investigation began after Dutch authorities noticed there were Irish company names involved in the consignment of chemicals that came into Rotterdam.
They alerted Irish police who followed the haul through Dublin Port, which it entered on Tuesday, and onto Walkinstown.
The GNDU, meanwhile, contacted the DEA's London office in order to trace the source of the shipment.
The gang was transferring the oil from the barrels in to individual small cartons for shipment onto the Netherlands when the GNDU pounced.
The Netherlands is still the primary producer of Ecstasy, but has some of the tightest controls on precursor chemicals which can be used to make the drug.
Garda sources yesterday said there "wasn't a shadow of doubt" that had the chemicals gone through, that some of the ecstasy produced from them would have been trafficked back to Ireland.
Gardaí have expressed concern that increasing production of precursor chemicals in China and a shift in production of ecstasy to eastern Europe was leading to an increase in production and a drop in prices.
More than two million ecstasy tablets were seized last year in Ireland more than the previous seven years added together.
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