Kilkenny drugs haul suspect linked to cross-border crime

A businessman arrested in connection with the seizure of €10.6 million worth of cocaine was previously linked to cross-border smuggling and the IRA.

The 61-year-old is still being questioned after he was arrested yesterday driving a lorry, in which 152kg of the drug were deeply concealed.

The man is well known to gardaí and the PSNI and has been a target of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau for some time.

Gardaí said he has been a major figure in organised crime and drug trafficking for some time and is linked to Dublin and South American drugs gangs.

He was arrested when the lorry he was driving was forcibly stopped on the M9 in Kilkenny.

The cocaine was subsequently discovered deeply concealed in a refrigerated unit after customs at Dublin Port X-rayed the lorry.

Gardaí suspect the drugs may have been brought from South America on a mothership and landed from fast boats at an isolated coastal area.

The man has operated a number of companies, and was linked with smugglers and the IRA.

He was known to be a close associate of senior IRA figures involved in cross border smuggling.

The man has been a target of the GNDOCB for some time as an enabler for transnational and national organised crime groups, most notably the west Dublin gang known as 'The Family'.

He was arrested for facilitating an organised crime group involved in drug trafficking and is being detained under anti-gang legislation.

He can be questioned for up to a week

Searches were also carried out at two business premises and a residential address in Waterford and documents, mobile phones and other electronic equipment were seized.

Gardaí from the GNDOCB and Waterford Drug and Crime Units carried out the searches as part of Operation Tara.

Revenue Customs Service, the Garda Dog Unit and the Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigation Unit also assisted in the operation.

The cocaine seizure comes just two weeks after the Garda officer in charge of serious and organised crime warned business people about the dangers of getting involved with transnational organised crime groups.

That followed the sentencing of Nathan McDonnell who was jailed for 12 years last month after gardaí in Kerry discovered €32m worth of crystal meth.

The drugs had also been deeply concealed for the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, this time in an industrial machine which had been stored at the Ballyseedy Garden Centre in Tralee.

Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis of the Organised and Serious Crime unit, who warned business people two weeks ago about working with crime gangs, said that the seizure was a "further example of An Garda Síochána's commitment to target the enablers and facilitators of organised crime."

She urged people to report any suspicious activity in confidence to the Garda Confidential Line at 1800 666 111.