A global drug trafficking ring run by Dutch and Iranian crime bosses — and most likely involving the Lebanese militant organisation Hezbollah — is suspected of being behind the failed attempt to import up to two tonnes of cocaine along the Cork coast.
Gardaí believe they have dismantled a major “logistics and landing” team organised by the ring after they arrested 10 suspects and seized a number of vehicles, including an articulated truck, in West Cork.
A range of security sources have said the depleted state of the Irish naval service — and the amount of media publicity around it — has drawn the attention of international traffickers, including South American cartels as well as European and Middle Eastern gangs.
Sources said that these criminals assess Ireland as a “point of least resistance” into the lucrative European market. One source said:
“Hence they are coming this way.”
The Irish navy currently has just one ship out on patrol at all times, compared to four ships out on patrol less than eight years ago.
The dramatic events in the small seaside village of Tragumna, near Skibbereen, and the village of Leap, climaxed on Thursday when gardaí swooped on a jeep, an articulated lorry, and a camper van.
The 10 suspects arrested were detained under anti-gangland powers, and a rigid inflatable boat, still wet, was discovered inside the truck.
On Friday night at Bandon District Court, the 10 men — one from the North, six from Spain, two Dutch nationals, and one from Serbia — had their period of detention extended by 72 hours.
“Given the size of this team, the expertise of some of them, the assets they were using, the planning involved, and the resources they had at their disposal, we believe they could have been trying to land between 1.5 and up to two tonnes of cocaine to make all that effort viable,” a senior source said.
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