OVER 1.5 tonnes of cocaine recovered by gardaí and Customs officers from choppy seas off west Cork last year had a street value of €440 million because of its particularly high level of purity, the trial of three Englishmen was told yesterday.
Prosecution counsel Tom Creed SC told the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the 62 bales of cocaine recovered from Dunlough bay, west Cork, last July had a purity level of 75 per cent, compared to the average purity level of 12-15 per cent of most cocaine found here.
Given that cocaine is regularly added to by drug suppliers to increase the volume of the product, having a 75 per cent purity level meant the value of the entire haul was €440 million, said Mr Creed, when outlining the case against the three Englishman charged in connection with the find.
All three, Martin Wanden (45), no fixed abode, Joe Daly (41), Carrisbrooke Avenue, Bexley, Kent, and Perry Wharrie (48), Pyrles Lane, Loughton, Essex, have denied three charges relating to the seizure.
Mr Wanden, Mr Daly and Mr Wharrie all deny possessing cocaine, possessing cocaine for sale or supply, and possessing more than €13,000 worth of cocaine for sale or supply at Dunlough bay, Mizen Head, Bantry, Co Cork, on July 2nd, 2007.
Opening the prosecution case, Mr Creed said that drugs were discovered after a man calling himself Gerard O'Leary, who later turned out to be Gerard Hagan, presented himself at the farm of Michael O'Donovan near Dunlough and said three men had been in a boat that sank.
Michael O'Donovan contacted the emergency services and a rescue operation was launched. One man, who the State will say was Martin Wanden, was taken from the water and brought to hospital suffering from hypothermia, said Mr Creed.
The jury would be shown footage taken by RTÉ that showed bales floating in Dunlough bay, and some 61 bales were recovered over the next few days, with a 62nd bale being found some months later. All bales contained cocaine and totalled 1,550 kilos of the drug, he said.
Mr Creed said it would be the State's case that a ballistic rigid inflatable boat (Rib) driven by Mr Wanden and another man, Stephen Brown, had rendezvoused with a catamaran, Lucky Day, off the west Cork coast.
He said that the State would produce evidence to show that the Rib met the Lucky Day by the M3 weather buoy some 30 miles south west of Mizen Head, and that Mr Hagan, who had travelled across the Atlantic on the Lucky Day, transferred to the Rib.
Mr Creed said that the prosecution would say that it was probably intended to bring the Rib into Dunmanus bay, but that it broke down most probably as a result of somebody putting diesel in the petrol engine and it ended up in Dunlough bay with Mr Wanden in the water.
Gardaí had recovered a watertight box from the sunken Rib and found a satellite phone with GPS capability, which showed that it had made contact with another satellite phone which, the State would say, was on the Lucky Day as it crossed the Atlantic.
Mr Creed said that it would also be the State's case that a mobile phone recovered from the waterproof box on board the Rib that sank in Dunlough bay was registered to Stephen Witsey - one of two aliases used by Mr Wanden, who also called himself Anthony Lyndon.