Customs officials last night would not rule out the possibility of further cocaine finds on board a boat in Kinsale Harbour, Co Cork, which has already yielded over £100 million worth of the drug - Ireland's biggest cocaine seizure.
Members of the Customs national drugs team yesterday discovered a further 20kg of cocaine on board the Gemeos to add to the 140kg they found on Saturday and the 160kg they uncovered on board on Friday.
Analysis of the drug in the forensic laboratory at the Garda Technical Bureau has shown it to have a purity of around 80 per cent - making it the highest-quality cocaine seized in the State by Customs or gardai.
"It's the purest we've ever come across and we estimate it has a street value of over £100 million," said one source, adding that given such a high purity the drug was most likely to have originated in Colombia before shipment via the Caribbean.
At approximately £102 million, the Kinsale seizure is worth over twice the value of the previous biggest cocaine haul, when gardai found £47 million worth on the Sea Mist in September 1996.
Although gardai found 599kg of cocaine on the converted trawler when it suffered engine trouble and put into Cork Harbour, it was not as pure as that seized in Kinsale. One man was later convicted and jailed for 17 years.
Yesterday, Mr Brendan Mulcahy, of the Customs National Drugs Team confirmed the search of the Gemeos will continue today. "There's at least another day's painstaking search involved, so we're ruling nothing out."
The latest seizures on board the Gemeos were made under the floor of the saloon, where customs officers found 12kg, while they also found a further 8kg behind a forward bulkhead to add to the 140kg they found on board on Saturday.
Saturday's finds were stashed behind specially fitted false water and diesel tanks and behind a bulkhead and showed the same degree of sophistication as two caches of 80kg found under bunks on the 50-foot catamaran on Friday.
According to Mr Mulcahy, the false tanks were expertly fitted to enhance the concealment, while the drugs - which were packed in 1kg bags - were well wrapped in plastic to hinder detection by sniffer dogs.
"The construction of these tanks was very sophisticated,
while they also went to great lengths to prevent the emission of any odours that would allow detection by sniffer dogs, so we have had to do a painstaking search," said Mr Mulcahy.
Customs national drugs team officers and Cork drug squad detectives backed up by local gardai removed the boat from the water on Saturday to continue their search of the vessel as stormy weather hit Kinsale.
Meanwhile, Judge Brendan Wallace granted Garda Chief Supt Adrian Culligan a 72-hour extension order at a special sitting of Bandon District Court to allow the continued detention of two men arrested on Friday in connection with the drugs find.
The two - a 51-year-old Dublin man resident in the Canaries and an Englishman in his mid-30s who lives in the Caribbean - are being held and questioned under the Criminal Justice Drugs Trafficking Act at Bandon Garda station.
It is understood gardai have notified American police about an American who jumped ship before Customs officials pounced. The man left the boat on Thursday and is thought to have caught a flight from Dublin back to America.
Gardai believe the cocaine was intended for the British and European markets but the boat suffered engine trouble. The Gemeos made for Kinsale but failed to notify harbour authorities of its arrival on Tuesday and suspicions were aroused.
Gardai don't believe there is any link between the arrival of the boat in Kinsale and a suspected major international drugs trafficker who lived in the west Cork seaside town until late last year.