Two more held after €107m drug debacle

TWO men who were on the run since Monday following the record €107 million cocaine seizure off the Cork coast were arrested yesterday outside Schull following a 48-hour manhunt.

Their arrests bring to three the number of people who were in custody last night following Monday’s record €107m haul which could have a potential street value of €200m.

The pair in their 40s are believed to be members of an English gang who tried to smuggle the cocaine into Dunlough Bay, through Ireland and onwards to Europe, on Monday.

The men fled from the bay after a dinghy capsized, spilling at least 61 bales of cocaine into the Atlantic.

Garda search teams backed by sniffer dogs and the Garda helicopter concentrated their search efforts in the Schull area yesterday.

The fugitives were spotted just before 10am crouching together against a ditch on a country by-road a few miles west of Schull, about 25km from the bay.

They were in a dishevelled and weakened state and offered no resistance.

They were arrested under the provisions of Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act and taken to Bantry Garda Station, where they can be held for up to seven days.

They are second generation Irish with strong family links to the Mizen peninsula and are frequent visitors to the region. It is understood the father of one of the men lived in the area and that an uncle may still live there.

Unconfirmed reports suggested that they were among four men who had been living in rented accommodation just outside Kilcrohane for the last few weeks.

Locals reported seeing a green jeep — one of three British-registered vehicles seized by gardaí — outside the rented property.

They also reported several movements to and from that property at strange times of the day and night.

A fourth man, who is in his 40s, remains in a comfortable condition in Bantry General Hospital, where he is being treated for hypothermia. He is under armed guard.

He claimed to be a South African living in Britain but Gardaí are running his fingerprint details through international databases to establish his identity.

Gardaí now believe up to eight people could have been involved in the smuggling operation. A massive garda investigation, led by Detective Superintendent Tony Quilter, is trying to unravel and trace the logistics behind the operation.

Two jeeps, a van and two dinghies are being forensically examined.

Interpol and Europol are using satellite technology to trace the movements of the so-called mother vessel which would have brought the cocaine into Irish territorial waters.

Meanwhile, Drugs Minister Pat Carey last night called on gardaí to raid middle-class parties in order to combat cocaine use.

Mr Carey said he wanted private social events in affluent areas targeted to halt the growing social acceptance of the Class A substance. He said he believes gardaí have already started raiding middle class areas and would like that increased and promised to increase awareness programmes alerting young people to the health dangers associated with cocaine.

Labour said gardaí should target all social classes in the fight against drugs but should concentrate their efforts on suppliers, not users.