The ship of fools

IT was a sophisticated international smuggling racket that came to grief off the coast of Ireland because someone didn’t know the difference between diesel and petrol.

We heard about cocaine with a street value in excess of €1bn; South American drug factories; Mexican gangsters; mysterious phone calls and an ocean rendezvous at a weather-buoy 30 miles off the Mizen.

LIAM HEYLIN, in court for every day of evidence, tells the story of the country’s biggest drugs trial, and the Englishmen whose dreams of riches were washed away.