Customs and Excise Officers found £40 million worth of cocaine hidden beneath bunkbeds and diesel tanks when they searched a 50-ft catamaran in Kinsale Harbour on September 4th last, Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday.
The 320 kilos of the drug were carefully wrapped in packaging and concealed beneath the bunks in both port and starboard cabins as well as beneath diesel tanks in a forward annex of the boat, said customs officer, Mr Christopher Fitzpatrick.
Mr Fitzpatrick was giving evidence on the opening day of the trial of a Dubliner, Mr John O'Toole (52), with an address in Panama City, and an Englishman, Mr Michael Tune (39), with an address in Tenerife, on charges relating to the drugs seizure.
Both men are charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act with importing cocaine, offering to supply cocaine and possessing cocaine for sale or supply in Kinsale Harbour - all between August 31st and September 5th last.
The two are also charged with two offences under the Customs Consolidation Act - with being knowingly concerned in importing cocaine and with knowingly dealing with cocaine between August 31st and September 4th.
Mr Fitzpatrick said the drugs were found during an intensive four-hour search of the Gemeos and a quick test of one of the packages confirmed it was cocaine.
Opening for the State, prosecution counsel, Mr John Edwards SC, earlier had said the court would hear that forensic analysis of the drug would show it was 75 per cent pure cocaine, which would give it an estimated street value of £40 million.
Mr Fitzpatrick said Mr O'Toole told him he was the owner of the boat and that he had sailed it to Kinsale from Tenerife, via the Azores, to get better winds and it had taken them around 20 days.
But when he examined charts on the Gemeos, he found lightly erased fixes - or markings used by navigators to plot their course - showing the ship had been 400 miles east of the Bahamas in the Caribbean in early August, said Mr Fitzpatrick.
"I asked him for an explanation, why he told me he came from Tenerife and yet the charts showed the journey originated in the Caribbean," said Mr Fitzpatrick. "He told me that he had taken the boat from his wife and had decided to sail it across the Atlantic to sell it in Europe - I asked him how much he expected to get and he said £150,000 - I didn't believe him at the stage," he said.
Customs officers began searching the vessel and first uncovered drugs under a plywood base in the port cabin bunk and later beneath the tanks and under the starboard cabin bunk.
They also found 12 packets of the drug behind one set of diesel tanks, attached to a bulkhead by rubber foam which had solidified, said Mr Fitzpatrick.
Customs officers earlier had been alerted to the 50-ft catamaran in Kinsale by harbour master, Capt Phil Devitt, who noticed the boat had anchored at a mooring belonging to another boat and had failed to pay harbour dues.
Mr Billy O'Brien, a local, told the court how he had towed the catamaran to the mooring with his speed boat on September 1st. He had been out in Kinsale harbour in the speed boat when the crew of the Gemeos signalled to him to give them a tow.
The case continues before a jury and Judge Patrick Moran.