'Significant' quantity of suspected cocaine on Panamanian cargo ship due into Cork Port
The Marino Passage At Matthew West, Linehan Berth Old As Cargo To Makes Cork At Picture: Dan Ifi Point Way Ship In The Its Plant It
A cargo ship containing "a significant quantity" of suspected cocaine which was boarded by Gardaí and members of the Army Ranger Wing off the Cork / Waterford coast earlier today is due into the Port of Cork tonight around 8pm.
The vessel, the MV Matthew, is being escorted under armed guard by a pilot boat from Cork Harbour, as well as a tug and a naval vessel.
It is suspected of having travelled from Curacao in the Caribbean in August, having earlier left Aruba where it spent 30 hours in port.
Initial estimates suggest that there could be more than 1.5 tonnes of cocaine on board.
The cargo ship sails under the flag of Panama, and is believed to have sailed along the south coast of Ireland in recent days, before being boarded today by Irish law enforcement officers.
Gardaí and members of the elite Army Ranger Wing boarded the vessel off the coast of Cork and Waterford.
They suspect the ship is involved in a multi-million euro transnational drug smuggling operation, trafficking cocaine across the Atlantic and transferring the drugs to smaller vessels.
A second boat, a fishing trawler, continues to be monitored by the Air Corps after becoming stuck on a sandbank off the Wexford coast, suspected of trafficking up to €140m of cocaine through Irish waters.
Three men were winched off the boat yesterday and were arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling.
The vessel which is suspected of having drugs onboard when it ran aground in Wexford is suspected of having met up with another vessel off the southern coast after leaving Castletownbere on Friday.
The cargo vessel is believed to have been under the surveillance of Irish enforcement officers as part of an international operation in the past week as part of an operation that has been tracking it for several weeks.
The vessel is believed to be the mother ship in a drug trafficking operation which also involved the trawler which ran aground in Wexford on Sunday night.
Sources said the original plan by Irish agencies was to target the two vessels when they met at sea off the south coast during the weekend. However, weather conditions are understood to have mitigated against that, according to one source.
The Castlemore, which was sold last week by a Castletownbere-based fisherman, should have reached Wexford in around 20 hours. However, despite leaving Castletownbere at around midday on Friday, it did not arrive off Wexford until at least 48 hours later.
As a result, it is believed that the trawler travelled out to sea to meet up with a “mother ship”, thought to have travelled across the Atlantic with a cargo of cocaine on board.
The boat had been tied to the pier in Castletownbere for many months, having not been used by its owner, who had been trying to sell it.
One source said: “To go to Wexford from here would take about 20 hours on her. Where were they in the meantime? There are a lot of hours missing, so how far out to sea did they go?”
The source added that the trawler is medium in size and did not have to have a tracker on it.
It is understood another boat in a different part of the country had first been considered by the gang behind the enterprise, before the Castlemore was purchased.
A helicopter arrived at the stranded trawler in earlier this afternoon..
It is understood that the trawler is unmanned but with weather warnings hitting Ireland in the coming hours, authorities are in a race against time to board the vessel and inspect it.
The Air Corps helicopter may now be used to winch a crew down onto the trawler, or to drop divers into the sea who can then try to board the vessel, a source said.
It is considered too dangerous in current weather conditions and with shifting sandbanks to bring another vessel alongside the trawler, a source said.
Members of the Army Ranger Wing (ARW), the Special Operations wing of the Irish Defence Forces, may be winched onto the vessel if a navy crew cannot board the vessel in current weather conditions, a source said.
“The pressure is on them,” a source said.
“Or they may have to drop divers in the water.”
On dry land, people stood on beaches and headlands with binoculars, straining for a view of the sand-banked boat, or for bales of cocaine which some speculate may have been thrown overboard.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee congratulated those involved.
She said: "I would like to thank the members of the Joint Task Force including An Garda Síochána, Revenue Customs Service and Naval Service who, in co-operation with the Air Corps and Army Ranger Wing, successfully intercepted a major shipment of controlled drugs at sea today in challenging conditions.
"This Operation has resulted in the detention of a bulk cargo vessel originating from Latin America with a significant volume of drugs on-board, which would have no doubt been destined for Irish and European markets. It will represent a blow to the organised crime gangs involved in drug distribution internationally.
"It is true testament to the importance and strength of interagency co-operation domestically, but also with our law enforcement partners internationally, including MAOC-N, the National Crime Agency (NCA), the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) and French customs service DNRED all of which supported this operation.
"It once again shows the success of An Garda Síochána in building coalitions to tackle transnational crime.
"I would like to thank and congratulate An Garda Síochána and their partners, at home and abroad, for their success today."