Three out of four men detained by gardai under the Drug Trafficking Act after the seizure of 30,000 ecstasy tablets with a value of about £300,000, were released last night, but a fourth is to appear in court today.
The three were released pending a file being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, gardai said. The men were in a Cork-registered BMW car that was stopped and searched at the Ballymascanlon roundabout north of Dundalk, Co Louth, at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday.
Gardai from the National Drugs Unit and Dundalk were involved in the operation. Garda sources said they believed the drugs had come into the State from Amsterdam a few hours earlier and arrived at Dublin port on a truck.
The four men, one from Northern Ireland, two from Co Clare and one from Limerick, are believed to have met in a pub in Dundalk shortly before the car was stopped and searched. Under Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act they could have been held for up to seven days.
The gardai in Dundalk were tight-lipped last night concerning the fourth man who is being held in custody.