Arrest expected in cocaine-smuggling probe

Gardaí were tonight poised to arrest an English man recovering in hospital who is believed to hold vital information about a botched €105m cocaine smuggling ring.

A frantic manhunt for two others was also stepped up on the Mizen Head peninsula where bales of the huge drugs consignment continue to wash ashore.

Garda sources have also confirmed an Irish man arrested at the scene in west Cork has been living in southern Spain for a number of years.

The huge 1.5-tonne haul has sparked an international police inquiry with the Garda National Drugs Unit linking up with the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Europol and Interpol to pinpoint the source and destination of the cocaine.

British authorities were tonight helping to track the owners of three English-registered 4x4s found abandoned close to where two men in a small dinghy got into difficulty at Dunlough Bay.

One of the men, who is English and in his late 40s to early 50s, is under armed garda protection in nearby Bantry General Hospital and is expected to be arrested as soon as medics give him the all-clear to leave.

The other man, who swam ashore yesterday morning around 8am to raise the alarm, is being interrogated at Bantry garda station where he can be held for seven days under the Drug Trafficking Act.

He has an address in Monaghan, but is now understood to have been living in the south of Spain for a number of years.

Sources confirmed he was not previously known to the Gardaí, who have enlisted the help of international intelligence agencies to help confirm the identity of the suspects.

House searches were being carried out on Mizen Head where a ring of security has been thrown up in an attempt to trap two men believed to have been waiting for the drugs to come ashore.

Cork city-based Superintendent Tony Quilter, who is heading up the investigation at a local level, said he believes the pair, in their forties, are still in the area.

“They were seen going through some fields and we have had an intensive search ongoing throughout yesterday and today in the Mizen Head peninsula and we’re appealing for residents in the area to report any suspicious activity,” he said.

“We have a reported sighting of a person acting suspiciously in the Mizen Head peninsula at around 9am this morning.”

Two RIB dinghies believed to have been used to ferry the cocaine from a “mother ship” off the south west coast are being forensically examined.

One was found at the scene in Dunlough Bay and the other was discovered further up the coast at Durrus during a massive search operation overnight.

Marine authorities are trawling through records of vessels that passed through the area over recent days in an attempt to identify the “mother ship”.

The Coastguard and the Irish naval ship L.E. Orla were continuing to search waters where the latest cocaine bale, thought to be worth €1.75m, washed up this afternoon.

The Navy are also contacting all ships in the area to check if they are there legitimately.

More than 40 garda officers, drawn from the area, Cork city and the Garda National Drugs Unit are at the scene.

“The immediate area around Mizen Head is still sealed off and we are liaising with a number of agencies including Customs and Naval personnel,” Insp Ger Lacey of Bantry garda station said.

While the investigation is in its early stages it is believed most of the drugs - the largest cocaine seizure in the history of the State – was destined for criminals in England.

It is suspected to have come from southern America and could have been stored as part of a larger consignment in west Africa before being distributed throughout Europe.