Couple detained after €1.4m cocaine seizure

TWO non-nationals were being detained by gardaí last night following the discovery of €1.4 million of cocaine concealed in a car they were driving.

The seizure, one of the largest in recent years in Cork, took place following a lengthy surveillance operation involving a number of police forces.

Two Polish nationals, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s, were stopped as they were driving through the South Mall in Cork city at about 11am yesterday.

The Peugeot car they were driving was then taken to Togher Garda Station, where a team of detectives stripped it down.

After a number of hours they found 20kgs of the drug concealed within the vehicle.

The couple were stopped by members of the Garda National Drugs Unit and detectives from the Cork City Divisional Drugs Unit, based in Anglesea Street Garda Station.

A senior garda spokesman said yesterday that the man and woman had been under surveillance when their car was stopped.

He said that the operation had been carried out following co-operation with a number of other police forces, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency (SDEA) and Dutch police.

Detective were interviewing the man and woman last night through the aid of an interpreter.

The drugs will be sent under armed guard to garda headquarters in Dublin, where they will be forensically analysed.

The garda spokesman said it wasn’t certain if the cocaine was destined for the Cork market alone, as such a quantity was very large. “We are very pleased with the operations,” the spokesman added.

The man and woman were being questioned under Section 2 of the Drugs of the Drugs Trafficking Act. Under that legislation, they can be detained for up to seven days without charge.

It is understood as a result of the seizure, a number of follow-up operations were taking place last night in Border areas, which involved gardaí and PSNI drugs squad detectives.

Meanwhile, for the second time this week, an explosive devise was used in an attack on a house in Limerick.

Early yesterday, a home made nail bomb was detonated at the front of a house in Sunnyside Court, Southill.

Nobody was injured in the explosion at the home of a man whose brother’s house was attacked at the weekend. Yesterday’s incident is thought to have been linked to the earlier bomb attack on Sunday afternoon in which a grenade was thrown into the front sitting room of the house in Colbert Avenue, Janesboro.

Gardaí suspect that Eastern European-made grenades are being brought into the city with drugs.

The grenade used in Sunday’s attack caused extensive damage to the house in which a couple and their four children were residing.

Some of the children had left the room in which the grenade exploded, minutes before the attack.

Explosive devices of various kinds have been used by the main feuding gangs.

Gardaí say they are very concerned that a grenade was exploded in an attack, the first time this has happened in the city.