Record coca1ne haul spills off Ireland
Run or raise the alarm? The stark choice for shipwrecked smuggler
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<!-- Print Author name associated with the article --><!-- Print Author name from By Line associated with the article --> David Sharrock
<!-- END: Module - M24 Article Headline with landscape image (d) --><!-- Article Copy module --><!-- BEGIN: Module - Main Article --><!-- Check the Article Type and display accordingly--><!-- Print Author image associated with the Author--><!-- Print the body of the article--><!-- Pagination --> It was the moment that nobody transporting bales of high-grade coca1ne would ever wish to face: sink or swim, run and save your neck or sound the alert and condemn yourself and your partners in crime to long prison stretches?
When word first came in at Mizen Head, on West Cork’s rugged coastline, that a dinghy had capsized while carrying a group of Englishmen, the Irish rescue authorities leapt into action.
But very soon the distinctive white bales of coca1ne – about 60 in all, weighing about 1.5 tonnes in total – bobbing in the sea around the site of the stricken vessel changed the nature of the operation into the recovery of Ireland’s largest drugs haul.
The man who swam ashore and called for help found himself in the Garda station at Bantry. It was his 22nd birthday, police sources said. The unnamed man can be held for seven days under antidrugs legislation.
<!--#include file="m63-article-related-attachements.html"--> Meanwhile, one of his colleagues was recovering from hypothermia last night in Bantry hospital. Police were waiting to talk to him.
Another two men, described as being in their forties, were being hunted across the Ivagha Peninsula, the southwesternmost point of Ireland, which was sealed off by roadblocks.
Irish police said that it was their largest single seizure of coca1ne after patrol boats began plucking the 60 bales of coca1ne from the sea off Mizen Head.
The smugglers’ “rib” – the acronym for a rigid inflatable boat – appeared to have capsized in a heavy swell while carrying the drugs to the peninsula’s rugged shore, known locally as “Smugglers’ Paradise”.
When the rescuers began picking up the coca1ne they realised that another attempt to use Ireland’s vast and largely unmonitored coastline to bring drugs into Europe from across the Atlantic had just failed. As another bale of coca1ne floated ashore, there were fears that plundering of the kind shown in Whisky Galore! might be seen in coming days. The 1949 film told the true tale of how Scottish highlanders raided a shipwreck for its 240,000 cases of whisky.
Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach, told the Dail that the value of the haul was “well in excess of €100 million” (almost £70 million), and described it as a matter of concern.
Superintendent Tony Quilter said that three English-registered 4x4 vehicles had been seized, while a second inflatable boat had also been discovered at Durrus. All had been subjected to forensic science examination, he said. Europol, Interpol and European customs agencies had been recruited in the search for the mother ship, the vessel from which the gang allegedly unloaded the coca1ne bales.
Police are investigating a theory that the drugs were destined for England and Europe. They were probably brought by yacht from the Caribbean.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2023045.ece
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