Seventh arrest made over cocaine seizure from ship off Cork coast

A source said that gardaí, customs officers, navy officers and shipwrights will have to rip the MV Matthew apart internally to see if there’s anything hidden in panels.

A seventh man has been arrested in connection with the State’s largest cocaine seizure off the Cork coast.

Six men were already in Garda custody being questioned in connection with the seizure of 2.25 tonnes of cocaine which may have a street value of up to €500m.

Three of these men are Ukrainian, two are Iranian, and one is a UK national.

A seventh man was arrested for alleged organised crime offences contrary to the Criminal Justice Act 2006. He is a 48-year-old Dutch national, who was arrested on board the ship and taken to Mallow Garda Station.

All seven men are detained under section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007 which allows gardaí to hold suspects for up to seven days. They are being held at Garda stations in Fermoy, Mallow, Cobh, Cork and in Wexford.

Two men were initially arrested and detained in Wexford after they were rescued by helicopter from a fishing vessel which ran aground some 12km off the Rosslare coast on Sunday night.

More arrests were made after a 190m bulk cargo vessel was intercepted by armed elite Defence Forces members, the navy, and gardaí off the Cork coast on Tuesday.

It is believed this much larger, Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel, the MV Matthew, was due to offload cocaine onto the smaller fishing vessel before it ran aground off Wexford. Some 25 crew members were found on the larger ship.

Colombia’s biggest drug cartel, the murderous Gulf Clan group, is suspected of involvement. An Albanian-led criminal consortium is also suspected of involvement, as is an element of Irish organised crime.

Former navy commander Eugene Daly said it was conceivable that on a ship of that size, some crew may not have been aware of the cargo.

An examination of the ‘mothership’, the MV Matthew, is underway under armed guard in Cork Harbour. Searches have begun internally and will continue until at least the end of the week, said a Defence Forces source.

Divers will be sent to inspect the hull and search the vessel externally for any possible attachments that could be torpedoed or dropped to the sea floor for later collection. The interior will also be dismantled to search for drugs potentially hidden in walls and flooring.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee echoed Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s comments in Brussels, telling reporters that the seizure of 2.2 tonnes of cocaine shows Ireland is not a “soft touch”, particularly on dealing with international drug trafficking.

“I think what is clear from this week’s find is that Ireland is anything but a soft touch,” Ms McEntee said.

“This was an operation led by An Garda Síochána but working collaboratively with our Defence Forces, our Naval Services, Revenue and Customs, but also with intelligence from our counterparts right across the water and right across Europe.

“So what it shows is that we are very much in the game, that we are very much part of a joint effort to take down these organised crime gangs.”