The drugs were found on a Panamanian-registered vessel in a major joint agency operation off the south-east coast of Ireland.
A 157 million euro haul of cocaine seized when an elite army unit stormed a cargo ship off the Irish coast is the largest drugs capture in the history of the state, police have said.
The vessel had been under surveillance since Friday when a multiagency operation responded to intelligence of a major international drug smuggling operation. The vessel remains stuck on a sandbank out at sea with poor conditions preventing the authorities from boarding and searching it.Three people, aged 60, 50 and 31, arrested during the course of the operation, remained in custody in police stations in Co Wexford on Wednesday.
He said such a large shipment would not have entered the state’s waters without the involvement of an Irish gang.“There is no large ship like this coming into our waters or our ports or transiting across our country, without an Irish organised criminal group involved in it. “So when you combine those two things together, absolutely, it’s inevitable that we’re going to see organised criminal groups trying to leverage on that, make more money from it, as they always do in situations like this.He said increased large shipments had also been seen in Antwerp and Rotterdam.
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