Heroin smuggler gets four years

A 21 YEAR OLD woman who imported £80,000 worth of heroin for a north Dublin criminal gang has been jailed for four years.

A 21 YEAR OLD woman who imported £80,000 worth of heroin for a north Dublin criminal gang has been jailed for four years.

Heroin addict Emma Mooney was caught at Dublin Airport during a joint operation by gardai and the Customs Service against the gang, which brings in the drug from Liverpool, Garda David Levins told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Mooney (21) of Dorset Street, Dublin city centre, told gardai she needed £100 a day for her drug habit. She said she was approached on Sean McDermott Street "by a person she did not want to name" to fly to Liverpool the next day to collect the drugs for a £300 fee.

She hoped to use some of the money to put up bail for her boyfriend to allow him to get out of jail on temporary released the rest was to buy drugs, the court, heard.

READ MORE

Mooney pleaded guilty to importing the drugs into Dublin Airport on February 1st, 1995.

Judge Cyril Kelly noted that since she pleaded guilty to the offence in January she had not cooperated fully with urine analysis. He fixed a review date for January 15th, 1998, saying the court would want reports then showing she was not using drugs.

Garda Levins said gardai from the divisional task force in Santry combined with the Garda drugs unit in Harcourt Square and the Customs National Drugs Team to investigate the north Dublin gang.

Mooney was arrested as part of that operation when she stepped off a flight from Liverpool.

She had concealed the drugs internally in condoms.