Ten years for Nigerian caught with €75,000 worth of cocaine

A drugs "mule" has today been sentenced to 10 years in jail by Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for smuggling almost €75,000 worth of cocaine into the country.

Joseph Offerbuike (aged 40) formally from Nigeria, with an address in Amsterdam, told gardaí he had agreed to smuggle the drugs to get €2,500 to pay for his mother’s funeral.

He pleaded guilty to possession of the drugs after he was found to have swallowed 90 pellets of cocaine.

Sergeant Stephen Boyce told Mr Remy Farrell BL, prosecuting, that Customs and Excise officers became suspicious after a urine sample tested positive for cocaine.

Offerbuike was arrested and a later x-ray confirmed the presence of the pellets. He said he had not known precisely what was in the pellets when he was swallowing them, but knew they contained drugs.

Sgt Boyce said Offerbuike did not know the man who was to meet him at Dublin Airport and told gardaí that this other man had been given his description.

Mr Mel Christle SC, defending, said Offerbuike had moved to Holland in 1993 where he met and married a Dutch woman. He had two sisters back in Nigeria and his brother and father were dead, leaving him with responsibility for his mother’s funeral.

Mr Christle said Offerbuike had showed sincere remorse for his actions and had been forced into the situation at "a very difficult time of his life". He had fully co-operated with gardaí.

Since his arrest he had become a Samaritans "listener" for his fellow inmates in Cloverhill Prison and was unlikely to reoffend.

Judge Hogan said that despite his remorse Offerbuike had been importing a considerable amount of drugs into the country and had done so for money.

He imposed a 10-year sentence with the final three years suspended and further bound him to keep the peace for a further five years.