A man who was caught with €39,000 worth of cannabis in a Dublin hotel has been jailed for five years by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Carlos Jorge De Sebra (54), a Portuguese national living in Mozambique for the last 15 years, pleaded guilty to possession of the drugs for sale or supply at the Mount Herbert Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, on March 28th, 2005.
Judge Delahunt said that although De Sebra's participation was at the lower end of the scale, the people higher up wouldn't have been able to operate without him.
Garda Paul O'Reilly told Cormac Quinn BL, prosecuting, that staff at the hotel were alerted to De Sebra after considering him to be acting suspiciously. Gardaí arrived and, on searching his hotel room, found 19.8kg (44lbs) of cannabis in plant form.
De Sebra, who had no previous convictions, told gardaí he had been paid €3,000 to bring the drugs from South Africa to be given to people in Ireland. He knew it was "grass" and said he agreed to courier it because he had no work and various debts.
Garda O'Reilly agreed with Michael O'Higgins SC, defending, that De Sebra had co-operated to a "very high degree".
Mr O'Higgins told the judge De Sebra had a partner and a child in Mozambique. He bought land there to set up a petrol station and workshop but it didn't work out, leaving him with large debts.