ARMED gardai, Customs officers and the Naval Service have intercepted the largest consignment of cocaine ever seized in the State. Initial estimates put the size of the haul found on a boat which took shelter in Cork at the weekend at up to 100 kilos.
This would make it more than twice the size of the cocaine seizure at Moneypoint, Co Limerick, last month.
Four people have been arrested. Two of them are British, another is understood to be from the Caribbean island of St Lucia and a fourth is Polish.
The four are being held under new legislation which allows for suspected drug traffickers to be detained for up to seven days without charge.
They are the first people to be detained under the new law, which was passed this summer as part of the Government's "crime package".
Naval Service divers are to examine the outside of the vessel this morning as the search of the interior continues.
So far, the search has uncovered what appears to be about 100 kilos of cocaine hidden in the body of the ship. However, the cocaine was still in place on the vessel last night, so the actual amount could not be determined. It is possible that further searching will reveal more packages of the drug.
The cocaine will be not be moved until Garda officers have completed fingerprinting and other technical examination of the area in which it was stored.
The Customs Service said that the 40 kilos of cocaine found at Moneypoint last month had a street value of £32 million, suggesting that if the cocaine found yesterday proves as pure as the Moneypoint haul, and amounts to 100 kilos, it could be worth more than £60 million.
The Sea Mist was originally a Norwegian trawler, but has been converted into a pleasure craft by increasing the accommodation space on board. It had set out from Venezuela in South America and appears to have had a final destination in northern Europe - possibly Poland.
An examination of the navigation charts on board indicated that the vessel travelled from Venezuela to Trinidad, and from there to the Azores, halfway across the Atlantic. Its next destination was the port of Brest in France, from where it was to head to the Kiel Canal and into the Baltic Sea.
The fact that a Polish national was on board suggests it may have been bound for that country.
The vessel appears to have got into difficulties on Saturday off the Cork coast in a Force 9 gale. The 60 foot vessel should have been able to handle such seas, but sources said yesterday that it had engine trouble, so the crew decided to seek shelter along the Cork coast.
The boat was due to head back out to sea yesterday, but was boarded by armed gardai along with Customs and Naval Service officers. A Customs sniffer dog named Dusty was also taken aboard. Naval Service engineers pinpointed areas of the vessel which should be searched.
A field test on a small amount of the white powder found on board indicated that it was cocaine. Its level of purity will be determined later at the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Dublin.
The vessel has been brought to the former Verolme Dockyard near Cobh, where it was under heavy guard last night. It is berthed at the end of a jetty, well out of public view and in an enclosed area. Garda Special Branch officers were patrolling the jetty.
Having originated in Venezuela - which has a border with Colombia, the largest cocaine producing country - it is possible that the vessel has been under surveillance by international intelligence agencies since its voyage across the Atlantic began.
The four men arrested on the vessel were being detained last night in the Bridewell in Cork under Section 2 of the 1996 Criminal Justice Act.