A MAN with a history of serious drug offences has been jailed for 12 years for possessing €1 million worth of heroin in a car at the M50 toll plaza outside Dublin.
Kieran Fitzpatrick (31) finished a four-year drug sentence in 2005 but claimed he’d been under “a lot of pressure” to clear €40,000 he owed to drug dealers and agreed to take part in the heroin job.
Gardaí arrested Fitzpatrick and Thomas Whelan (28), who got a seven-year sentence last month at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, with 10 half-kilo heroin blocks in a black Nissan Micra on August 9th, 2007.
Fitzpatrick, of Oak Drive, Royal Oak, Santry, and Whelan, of Coultry Avenue, Ballymun, were covered in blue ink from the carbon paper wrapping on the heroin blocks when arrested.
They pleaded guilty to possessing the drugs. Gardaí had been following the drugs haul.