German held in raid is ‘big fish’ of international gang

A 56-YEAR-OLD German is believed to be the “big fish” in an international drugs gang which had been storing 80kg of cocaine in a shed in a remote village in Co Cork.

Five people were arrested as part of a combined Garda/Customs operation after the drugs were seized in a shed in the village of Bartlemy, near Fermoy.

Two of them, a father and son, who were arrested in Crumlin, south Dublin, are members of a notorious crime family, which dominated the heroin trade in Dublin in the 1970s and 1980s.

Another man arrested had served a prison sentence in Holland in the mid-1990s for drugs.

It has been revealed that gardaí conducted a top-secret surveillance operation for two weeks on what is the biggest inland cocaine haul in the history of the state in order to snare the major international trafficker behind the importation.

In a highly sensitive investigation, the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU), monitored the shed at Bartlemy until the German showed up.

This strategy was adopted as a result of an “international understanding” with other foreign agencies involved in the operation, including Europol, Interpol and Dutch police.

The authorities monitored the movements of a container after it arrived in Cork from Rotterdam and was transported to the lock-up in Bartlemy.

The seizure of 80kgs of cocaine is the largest haul of the drug since the seizures of around 1.5 tonnes of cocaine off the Cork coast in 2008 and 2007.

Gardaí suspect a portion of the 80kgs was due for the Irish market and the rest for Britain.

The haul has a street valuation of €5.6 million. But as it had just been imported it is thought to be of high purity.

This would suggest it was due to be cut up with bulking agents, perhaps four-fold, bringing the total street quantity to 320kgs and total street valuation to a possible €22m.

The cocaine was sealed within wooden pallets.

The gang had hollowed out some of the wood and packed the drugs inside the space before sealing it up with a wooden front.

It is understood that it was nearly impossible to see the join.

The drugs were heavily wrapped, to prevent dogs from getting a scent and were originally hidden in a container of tinned fruit.

The German, who was living in Sweden, and a Corkman, aged 47, were arrested when gardaí swooped on the shed and seized the drugs.

A Hungarian national, aged 46, was arrested in Tivoli on the eastern outskirts of Cork.

Gardaí have also seized documentation from a house in Bartlemy and are analysing phone records.

Under drug trafficking legislation the men can be held for up to seven days.

It is expected that gardaí will take their time questioning the five men and it is also likely that there will be further arrests,

The Government’s top drug adviser welcomed the seizure saying it highlighted the fact that cocaine usage had not died with Celtic Tiger.

“I am grateful that gardaí and customs managed to seize that amount of cocaine given the impact it would have had on the street,” said Dr Des Corrigan, chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs.

He said it was “very difficult” to know where the cocaine was destined for and that it could be for onward transmission.

“I would never have thought that cocaine has gone away, even allowing for fact that a lot of people no longer had the disposable income to waste shoving it up their noses. There still are people, for want of a better word, who still have a cocaine habit that has to be satisfied on a regular basis.”

Armed gardaí oversaw the removal of the cocaine, which was taken to Dublin yesterday evening.