AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA arrested a 60-year-old man in Co. Kilkenny yesterday after it was revealed that more than €10 million worth of cocaine was found in a lorry.
Gardaí uncovered 152kg of the illegal narcotic hidden in a ‘sophisticated vehicle concealment’. The heavy goods vehicle (or HGV) had been stopped on the M9 motorway between Naas and Newbridge.
Following the discovery, the vehicle was brought to Dublin Port for examination owing to the drugs’ deep concealment within the storage compartment which required specialist assistance to extract them. A specialised X-ray machine was used by customs officers who eventually found the cache behind a refrigerating unit.
The operation has subsequently led Gardaí to two business premises and a residential address in Co. Waterford, which are also being searched at this time. The man who was arrested is being held at an undisclosed garda station in the east of Ireland.
It is understood that he is heavily involved in organised crime in the southeast of the country and that he has links with both domestic crime partnerships in Dublin and internationally with South American drugs gangs. The man has apparently been a target for the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) for some time.
The GNDOCB and Waterford Drug and Crime Units targeted the HGV and properties now being searched as part of Operation Tara. The Revenue Customs Service, the Garda Dog Unit and the Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigation Unit were also on-hand to assist in the investigation.
Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis of the Organised and Serious Crime unit, has already warned business people about working with organised criminal gangs some two weeks ago. She said that today’s seizure was a ‘further example of An Garda Síochána's commitment to target the enablers and facilitators of organised crime’.
