Over 1.5 tonnes of cocaine recovered by gardaí and customs 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 today.
Prosecution counsel, Tom Creed SC told the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the 62 bales of cocaine recovered from the sea at Dunlough Bay in 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 add to the product, having 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) of No Fixed Abode, Joe Daly (41) from Carrisbrooke Avenue, Bexley, Kent and Perry Wharrie (48) from 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 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 and one man, whom the state will say was Martin Wanden, was fished from the water and taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia, said Mr Creed.
The jury would be shown footage taken by RTE which 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 that it would be the State's case that a Ballistic Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) fitted with two 200 horse power Yamaha engines and driven by Mr Wanden and another man, Stephen Brown had rendez-voused with a catamaran, Lucky Dayoff the West Cork coast.
He said that the State would produce evidence to show that the Ballistic RIB met the Lucky Dayby 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 Daytransferred to the RIB.
Mr Creed said that the prosecution would say that it was probably intended to bring the RIB into 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 Pele box from the sunken Ballistic 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 Dayas it crossed the Atlantic.
The state would produce evidence of communications between these two satellite phones which will track the progress of Lucky Dayacross the Atlantic while they would also produce evidence that Mr Hagan was a crew member of the Lucky Dayin Barbados in May, he said.
Mr Creed said that it would also be the state’s case that a mobile phone recovered from the Pele waterproof box on board the RIB which sank in Dunlough Bay was registered to Stephen Witsey — one of two aliases used Mr Wanden who also called himself Anthony Lyndon.