Gardaí believe they have smashed a major drugs importation and distribution ring in the south of the country, following the arrest of three men, and the seizure of €150,000 in cash and a further €40,000 worth of drugs in a series of raids in Cork and Kerry yesterday.
The operation, involving detectives from Cork City Divisional Drugs Squad and the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab)backed up by local officers, began when detectives raided a house in Glanmire on the outskirts of Cork city at around 12.30am yesterday and seized €150,000.
Gardaí believe the money, found in a bedroom, was the proceeds of drug-dealing, and they arrested a man in his 60s under anti-money-laundering legislation. In follow-up raids, including one on a house in Wolfe Tone Street in Cork city at around 2am, a man in his 30s was arrested.
In a third operation, Cork City Divisional Drugs Squad and CAB officers, backed up by local officers in Killarney, carried out a raid on a house on the Tralee Road at around 9.30am and recovered approximately 3kg (6.6lbs) of amphetamines with a street value of €40,000. Officers also arrested a man in his 30s.
All three arrested men can be held for up to seven days.
According to a senior Garda source, the operation was part of an investigation into the activities of an organised crime gang involved in the importation and distribution of drugs in the south of the country.
Meanwhile, gardaí in Dublin were yesterday continuing to question three men arrested in connection with the seizure of a cocaine consignment with a potential street value of € 3.5 million. The cocaine is believed to have been smuggled from Nigeria to Ireland via Dublin airport by a West African gang and could represent the emergence of a new route for drugs.
The route is believed to involve shipping quantities of drugs from Nigeria to Holland, as opposed to from Spain.
The discovery of 25kg of cocaine followed an operation by the Garda National Drug Unit, with the Revenue Customs Service, in Dublin's North Strand, on Tuesday night. Gardaí discovered the cocaine hidden in wooden palettes when they stopped a van close to the Five Lamps pub at 7pm on Tuesday.
Three men, one from Nigeria and two from Dublin, all in their 30s, were arrested and detained at Store Street Garda station under section two of the Drug Trafficking Act.