Three arrested as gardaí seize heroin worth €1m in family home

GARDAÍ have dealt a blow to a big drug trafficking gang after arresting three key members red-handed at a heroin-mixing centre.

They seized 5kg of heroin, with an estimated street value of €1 million, when they raided a family home in Clondalkin, west Dublin.

The seizure brings to around 120kg the quantity of heroin seized so far this year, some 80% of the total recovered last year.

The 147kg seized in 2007 was a record total for the country and compared to previous hauls of 129kg in 2006, 33kg in 2005, 26kg in 2004 and 27kg in 2003.

Two-thirds of the heroin hauls this year have been made in west Dublin — almost half in the neighbouring suburbs of Clondalkin and Ballyfermot.

A number of garda units, including the Garda National Drugs Unit and the Organised Crime Unit, as well as local drugs units, have carried out regular operations targeting drug gangs in the area this year.

Between them they have clocked up a number of large seizures, have made significant arrests and have also confiscated firearms. Gardaí say a number of the gangs are trying to “flood” west Dublin with heroin.

In the latest operation on Tuesday night, officers attached to the Ballyfermot Drug Unit searched a house on Westborne Green in Clondalkin. When they entered the house, at 10pm, they found three adults.

One of them tried to bluff his way out of the house, but was stopped. A large bag, containing much of the heroin, was taken off him.

Officers said the house was an effective mixing factory, replete with weighing scales, mixing agents for diluting and cutting heroin, as well as a large quantity of small bags for street sale.

Some €10,000 in cash was also seized.

A 55-year-old man and a couple, both aged 33, were arrested. It is understood there were children in the house at the time. The trio were taken to Ballyfermot and Clondalkin garda stations and detained under the Drug Trafficking Act.

The suspects are considered to be relatively high up the ladder in the gang, which is centred on an old criminal family in the area.

The family has long been involved in trafficking and has built up links with gangs in Manchester and Liverpool to import of heroin.

While senior officers suspect they are now seizing a greater percentage of the overall volume, they say the demand for heroin has spread outside Dublin.

Provisional figures for this year show that at least 3.5kg of heroin have been seized in Limerick so far this year.

In addition, Limerick gardaí were involved in an operation that seized another kilo of heroin in west Dublin. Limerick gangs have developed links with a number of top drug gangs in west and south Dublin.

Limerick gangs in turn supply heroin to Cork, Galway, Kerry and Tipperary.

Large hauls this year

* 32kg (worth €6.4m) seized in Ballyfermot, west Dublin, on January 15.

* 20kg (€4m) seized in Clondalkin, west Dublin, and 5kg in a related find in Drimnagh, south Dublin, on June 19.

* 20kkg (€4m) recovered in Ashtown, west Dublin on July 7.

* 10kg (€2m) seized in Meath on March 15.

* 10kg (€2m) confiscated in Tallaght, south Dublin, on January 25.

* 6kg (€1.2m) seized in Palmerstown, west Dublin on May 20.

* 5kg (€1m) recovered in Walkinstown, south Dublin, on May 21.