Gardaí add €250,000 drugs seizure to €3m haul
Yesterday, gardaí combing a wood in east Cork discovered two hauls of ecstasy totalling 20,000 tablets.
The team, led by Inspector Martin Dorney, found the tablets with a street value of €200,000 covered in plastic wrapping and hidden in remote woodland near the village of Lisgoold.
The finds, which were made five miles north of Midleton, were part of an ongoing operation involving gardaí in east Cork and Dublin which has netted drugs worth more thane3 million.
“It is possible there could be even more follow-up searches,” Insp Dorney said.
Meanwhile, a dramatic raid by gardaí in a housing estate in Tralee, Co Kerry, resulted in the confiscation of over 5kgs of cannabis with an estimated street value of €50,000, as well as a firearm. One man, a local in his late 20s, was in custody yesterday.
Some 30 officers were involved in the operation at a house in Balloonagh, in Tralee on Wednesday evening.
Part of the estate was sealed off for a number of hours during the operation.
Yesterday, Garda Inspector Barry O’Rourke thanked the residents for their co-operation. Gardaí were not giving details of the firearm at this stage, he said.
The garda operation in Tralee is linked to others in the county over the past ten days. Over the weekend, a further quantity of cannabis and ecstasy tablets was confiscated in north Kerry.
Insp O’Rourke said the Tralee raid was part of “a particularly important investigation”, not only because of the amounts involved but also because of the individuals involved.
They had been “aware” of the arrested man for some time, he said.
