State confiscates cocaine-smuggling ship MV Matthew

The MV Matthew berthed at Marino Point, Cork. The 190m long, 32m wide bulk cargo vessel, which is estimated to be worth around €9m, is to be put up for auction. Picture: Denis Minihane

The ship at the centre of the biggest cocaine seizure in Irish history has been confiscated by the State.

The MV Matthew was seized in September carrying over 2.2 tonnes of cocaine, with a conservative value of €157m but which may have a street value of some €500m.

The 190m long, 32m wide bulk cargo vessel, which is estimated to be worth around €9m, is to be put up for auction.

It has been docked in Cork Harbour since it was seized and impounded and it has been at the centre of a major Garda investigation.

Notification of the confiscation was made in the official State gazette, Iris Oifigiúil, on October 20.

It gave anyone with a claim to the vessel 30 days to contest forfeiture of the vessel and that period has now lapsed, meaning it has been confiscated.

The notice said that, on October 19, the Panamanian-registered MV Matthew was seized by a customs officer on the grounds that it is liable to forfeiture under section 17 of the Customs Act 2015.

Barrister and maritime law specialist Ciarán McCarthy said that the ship would likely be auctioned off by the State soon.

“The State has to minimise its losses,” said Mr McCarthy. “It costs the State money to have this ship in existence.

“A ship is a living thing in the sense that if you didn’t have a crew on there and you didn’t have people maintaining it, keeping its generators running, etc, it would start to deteriorate.

“Also, of course, there are mooring fees attached to it, there are port fees.

“So the State is simply stepping in and exercising its right to recoup those fees.

It’s given whoever is the owner of the MV Matthew the chance to come and claim the ship, but it’s highly unlikely they would do so given that it was found with €200m worth of cocaine on board.”

Mr McCarthy said the ship, built in 2001, is “not a very valuable ship” and it is difficult to estimate its value without inspecting it.

However, he said the ship had managed to traverse the Atlantic from the Caribbean to Cork so it was operational and its bulk alone would make it valuable for steel scrappage.

“It would be in the interest of the State to get rid of this immediately.

“I would imagine that the State will request that the local auctioneer specialised in marine matters will organise the sale of it.”

The MV Matthew’s journey to Ireland began on August 19, departing from Curaçao, a Dutch-Caribbean island north of Venezuela.

Initially named the MV Honmon, it was renamed MV Matthew shortly before its journey to Cork.

It had been bought by a newly established company registered as Matthew Maritime Inc, with an address in the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands require minimal details for company registrations, making company owners very difficult to track. 

After the ship reached Irish waters, on September 26, warning shots were fired by the LÉ William Butler Yeats naval vessel as the MV Matthew allegedly tried to flee from Irish authorities into international waters. The elite Army Ranger Wing then stormed the vessel, with officers fast-roped from a helicopter onto the ship before arrests were made.

Meanwhile, the Castletownbere-registered fishing trawler, the Castlemore, which was also allegedly used in a drugs trafficking operation but which ran aground in the days before the MV Matthew was intercepted, remains stuck on a sandbank off the Wexford coast.