Gardaí investigating the massive cocaine seizure in west Cork were last night searching for a man after receiving a report from a woman who went to check on a vacant holiday home near where suspects for the drug smuggling operation are believed to have been staying.
Gardaí believe that the man, who fled when the woman disturbed him at a vacant holiday home in the Kilcrohane/Ahakista area on the Sheep's Head peninsula near Bantry, may be a member of a drug smuggling gang who came to west Cork during the last three months.
Detectives now believe that a total of eight men travelled over from the UK for the operation.
Four men have been arrested. Gardaí think two gang members have returned to the UK and they are searching for two whom they believe to be in hiding in west Cork. Gardaí believe that one of the gang members still at large is, like one of the arrested men, second-generation Irish, born in the UK but with strong family ties with the Sheep's Head area. They believe that he has a good knowledge of the locality from holidaying there regularly over the past 30 years or so.
Gardaí yesterday mounted checkpoints on roads around Ballydehob as well as combing houses and farm dwellings in the belief that either this man or another member of the gang may still be in the area.
Meanwhile gardaí are expected to go to court today to seek a 72-hour extension to the detention of a man in his 40s who claims to be South African and who was arrested after he was discharged from Bantry General Hospital on Thursday afternoon.
The man was brought to hospital after being rescued from the sea near where the cocaine was found in Dunlough Bay.
He is being questioned at Bantry Garda station along with a man in his 20s while two other men in their 40s are being questioned at Bandon Garda station.
Gardaí have already obtained 72-hour extensions to the detention of these three men but may have to go to court again if they wish to detain them for the remaining 48 hours of the seven-day detention available under drug trafficking legislation.