Crystal meth businessman Nathan McDonnel faces losing half of €795k Kerry home

Revenue has secured a High Court order appointing a receiver over half the proceeds of Nathan McDonnell’s €795,000 Tralee home sale

Nathan McDonnell ran up a debt of €125,135 to Revenue in unpaid income tax between December 2020 and December 2023. File photo: Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus LTD

A 44-year-old Kerry businessman who was jailed for 12 years for importation of the State's largest ever crystal meth seizure now faces having part of the proceeds from the impending sale of his €795,000 family home forfeit to the taxman, the High Court heard.

Nathan McDonnell, who ran the long-established Ballyseedy Garden Centre in Tralee, Co Kerry, allowed his business to be used to store a machine containing more than €32 million of the drug which came from an organised crime group with links to the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. It was intended that the machine which the drugs were in would be transported onwards to Australia.