Man turned Cork apartment in 'cocaine factory', court hears

A hospital porter turned an apartment into a cocaine factory with a multi-million euro earning potential after meeting an Irishman in Thailand who told him how to go about it – and this evening he was jailed for twelve years.

Kevin Kelly (aged 26), of 69 Hawthorn Mews, Dublin Hill, Cork, had been out on bail awaiting sentence during the Summer but his bail was revoked when he managed to obtain a passport in the name of a man who had died, Detective Sergeant Lar O’Brien said at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Following a surveillance operation at Kelly’s apartment at Brideholm, Commons Road, Cork, he was caught with €327,000 worth of cocaine – some of it in a rucksack he was carrying out of the apartment at the time of his arrest and more of it in a bedroom that was set up as a factory for cutting pure cocaine, mixing it with Manitol (a drug used for horses) and then compressing it into blocks to make it look like freshly imported pure cocaine.

As well as the drugs, a subsequent search of his bedroom at his parents’ home resulted in the seizure of €60,000 in cash.

Kelly admitted that this cash was the proceeds of drug trafficking or other crimes. He also having cocaine for sale or supply to others at the apartment at Commons Road on October 24 2006.

Because the drugs had a street value exceeding €13,000, he faced a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years and up to life imprisonment.

Judge Patrick J. Moran said: "What you were in effect doing was operating a cocaine factory from this premises that you had rented in a false name - an assumed name. That type of activity is one that goes to the root of drug-dealing, preparing the imported drug for the market.

"This drug ends up in the hands of young people, often with devastating effects for them and their families. Det. Sgt. O’Brien tells me you were doing it for financial gain. It is why people get involved in drugs.

"It is very easy money," the judge said.

An order was made for the destruction of the drugs and related paraphernalia and the forfeiture of the €60,000 to the Department of Finance. On completion of his 12-year sentence, Kelly’s name will go on the Drug Offenders Register for seven years.

There will now be an enquiry into the possibility of seizing assets that may have been derived from Kelly’s drug-dealing.