Ireland 'an easy touch' for drug gangs with consignments coming in 'every day'
The scene near Leap, West Cork, last month, where gardaí intercepted a major drug smuggling ring.
Ships carrying large drug consignments are coming into Ireland “every day of the week” with only about 10% being detected by authorities, sources say.
A record 3.15 tonnes of cocaine and heroin with an estimated street value of €280m was seized in 2023. If this represented just 10% of total imports, some 31.5 tonnes of those drugs alone would have been imported and trafficked through Ireland last year.
Ireland’s depleted navy — with just one ship currently operational — has left the country vulnerable to drug cartels and traffickers, said former navy commander Eugene Ryan. Mr Ryan is a founding member of the European anti-drug trafficking organisation MAOC-N.
The deadly Mexican Sinaloa cartel now has its tentacles in Ireland and the Kinahan cartel has “had a huge impact” on the country, with contacts reaching across the world and through the deep web.
“But any cartel will get involved in importing drugs into a weak country," Mr Ryan said.
"And Ireland is weak at the moment.
“I have no doubt there are motherships going around full of drugs and they're being dropped off in pre-designated areas,” Mr Ryan said.
“These motherships are coming over all the time. They're either coming by yachts, coming on merchant vessels like the MV Matthew [which was intercepted last September off the Cork coast with a record 2.23 tonnes of cocaine], or they're coming on smaller vessels, like rig tenders [which service oil rigs].”
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said last month it was "nearly impossible" to know what quantities of drugs were being trafficked into Ireland. He also said organised crime groups now see Ireland as a target.
Sources have indicated there are designated positions off the Irish coast which are used by merchant vessels to drop drugs onto the sea bed to await later collection.
And cocaine consignments appeared to be dropped off ships in Donegal and Denmark recently, which were never retrieved by gangs.
Some 850kg of cocaine worth an estimated €58m washed up in Denmark this month.
Some gardaí have indicated this botched delivery may have been linked to a suspected attempt to smuggle drugs into Tragumna pier in West Cork days earlier.
Last July, packages of cocaine, weighing some 60kg and worth some €4m, washed up on beaches in Donegal.
Gardaí suspected they had been dropped overboard by a larger boat and were due to be picked up at sea by drug smugglers.
Mr Ryan was involved in intercepting two of the biggest cocaine seizures in the Irish State — in the infamous Dunlough Bay operation and the yacht off Castletownbere, also in West Cork.
He said the timing of the Tragumna operation was interesting, coming just before St Patrick’s Day.
“If I was a narco, I would say, when’s the best time to hit Ireland? Probably around St Patrick’s Day, probably around Easter. Because the one ship will be alongside somewhere, crew will be on rest and recreation, there’ll be nothing out there [at sea].
“I can see us being an easy touch now.”
