5 years for €6m drugs bust on yacht
Alan Buckley, 59, who is from the Douglas area, had been arrested shortly after Spanish navy officers boarded the yacht off Cadiz in late August 2012.
Security sources confirmed that Buckley, who loved the party lifestyle and expensive cars, had been recently handed a five-year and 10-day sentence in Spanish courts for his role in the drug smuggling operation.
However, Buckley who had been in custody since the arrest three years ago, and with good behaviour, could be released in less than two years.
He was arrested with his girlfriend just hours after armed Spanish navy officers boarded the Irish-registered yacht, Colin Hannah.
They immediately arrested two British crewmen on board. Later, Buckley had been picked up by Guardia Civil officers and taken to a holding cell at a Costa del Sol police station.
He had been detained by the Spanish authorities since then while his girlfriend, also Irish, had been released without charge.
Well-known to gardaí and customs in Ireland, Buckley was targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in the 1990s and reached a settlement believed to be in the region of €400,000.
The yacht was seized following a nine-month Spanish-led, anti-drug smuggling, surveillance operation.
Codenamed Operation Ciana/Fortuna, it targeted a Cork-based organised crime gang.
The operation had involved Irish Customs, the Garda National Drugs Unit, and Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.
The team had been focusing on drugs shipments between North Africa and Spain when the yacht had been seized and 500kg of cannabis found in her hull.
The 38ft yacht had left Cork in July 2010. The Spanish navy and customs put the boat under surveillance and boarded her 24 hours after she had left a Moroccan port.
It had been believed, at the time, if the yacht had not been intercepted it would have unloaded the cannabis in Ireland or Britain.
Buckley had been a regular drinking buddy of Edward ‘Judd’ Scanlon who had been jailed for 22 years in 1999 for 22 for drugs offences. Scanlon, 56, later successfully appealed the sentence but died in 2006.
