COCAINE WITH an estimated street value of more than €11 million and two handguns have been seized by gardaí investigating one of the largest organised crime gangs in the Republic.
A young couple were held in connection with the cocaine mixing and bagging operation controlled by a south Dublin gang and they have been under arrest in Dublin since before the weekend.
The 24-year-old woman and 29-year-old man had never come to the attention of gardaí before.
Detectives now believe the couple have been working for a crime gang involved in a gangland feud with another gang in the suburbs of Crumlin and Drimnagh, both in southwest Dublin. That feud has claimed at least 14 lives over the past decade.
Gardaí investigating the activities of one of those gangs on Sunday night raided a house on Corrib Road, Terenure, south Dublin.
The investigating team, from Kevin Street Garda station in the south inner city, discovered what they have described as a “drug mixing factory”. Cocaine with a potential street value of €9.5 million was found in vacuum-packed slabs. Two handguns were also found at the house.
Gardaí believe the drugs had been imported from continental Europe and were being stored at the Corrib Road two-bed house. The house is owned by a pensioner who had let people known to him store items in his house.
He had no idea they were storing drugs.
The house was sealed off on Sunday night and it underwent a full search yesterday.
Gardaí identified the Terenure property during the course of their investigation into drugs seized in a house in Tallaght last week. The drugs found in both properties are owned by the same gang.
Last Thursday in the Cushlawn estate in Tallaght gardaí found what they have described as a “sophisticated cocaine factory”. Cocaine and dental anaesthetic with a combined street value of €2 million were found at the house.
That find, together with the find on Sunday in Terenure, brings the street value of the cocaine seized as part of the ongoing operation to €11.5 million.
Sunday’s find was the biggest drug seizure in the Republic this year.
Gardaí believe the anaesthetic, lignocaine, found at the Tallaght house was being mixed with pure cocaine at the property to bulk it up, before the mix was being divided into bags for sale to other drug dealers.
Lignocaine is often used to bulk up cocaine because it mimics some of the effects of cocaine such as numbing the gums and throat. This makes it harder for users to differentiate between good-quality cocaine and bulked up deals.
In the Tallaght property gardaí also found weighing scales, compressing equipment and a large quantity of plastic bags, all of which were being used to process pure cocaine into bulked-up parcels for resale. Some €60,000 in cash was also found.
Gardaí believe the drugs found in Terenure on Sunday night would have been brought to the Tallaght property for “processing” had the haul not been seized.
The couple were arrested on Thursday night in relation to the Tallaght find.
They have been questioned in Kevin Street and Kilmainham Garda stations since then and can be held for up to seven days without charge.
Gardaí brought them before the courts last night and had their periods of detention extended.
Gardaí believe the couple are working for one of the leaders of one of the gangs involved in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
The gang leader spends much of his time abroad and was named as a “person of interest” during the investigation in Spain last month into the international drugs gang led by Dubliner Christy Kinahan (53).
As well as the Tallaght and Terenure properties, a number of other houses have been searched in Walkinstown, Drimnagh, Clondalkin and Rathcoole as part of the same operation since last Thursday’s initial find.