GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING the largest cocaine seizure in the history of the State are expected to obtain extensions to the period of detention of three Britons arrested on board the yacht Dances with Waves, which was caught carrying the drugs 160 miles off the Irish coast.
The three men, who are aged 52, 44 and 42 and are from the Devon area, were arrested under drug-trafficking legislation which allows gardaí to detain suspects for up to seven days. After 48 hours they must obtain a court order allowing further detention.
The first 48 hours of detention is due to expire at about 6pm and it is expected that gardaí will bring the three men, who are being held at Bantry and Bandon Garda stations in west Cork, before a special court sitting tonight to extend their detentions.
Meanwhile, the haul of cocaine packed in 75 25kg packages and weighing 1.875 tonnes, was last night transported for analysis to the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Dublin under tight Garda security.
Scientists will try to establish the purity of the cocaine, which will determine its ultimate street value, but early indications suggested that the drugs were worth at least €500 million. This estimate makes it larger than the Dunlough Bay seizure, and the biggest in the history of the State.
Dances with Waveswas brought into Castletownbere yesterday by Naval Service personnel and moored at Dinish Island, where Customs officers and Garda technical experts began an examination of the vessel.
A specialist Customs team searched the vessel before customs and gardaí began removing the cocaine. The 25kg bags were packed together into packages which had been wrapped in hessian and held in the yacht's storage area, beyond the galley.
Officers began removing the cocaine from the vessel at about 1.15pm amid tight security, with a large force of gardaí armed with Uzi submachine guns policing the operation. The drugs were then brought by van to Bantry Garda station for transport to Dublin. It was unclear last night where the drugs were destined for, but Det Supt Pat Byrne of the Garda National Drugs Unit said it was most likely that such a consignment was destined for Europe rather than just Ireland, given the volume of drugs involved.
While Naval Service experts will study charts found on the vessel to try to establish whether the smugglers intended landing the drugs in Ireland and shipping them on to Britain, all indications are that they planned to bring them directly into Britain.
Although it is understood that gardaí found a reference to Baltimore harbour in west Cork in one of the logs, there was no evidence of any gang members or logistics being put in place in west Cork to collect the drugs. It is now thought the boat may have been headed for Liverpool.
Gardaí believe the three-man crew flew from Britain to Trinidad in the early summer to collect the boat, but Dances with Waveswas in such poor condition that they spent several months getting her repaired and made seaworthy.
They believe the drugs were collected somewhere off the Trinidad coast and the boat set sail for Europe about a month ago. However it endured a stormy crossing in which the vessel lost its dinghy, almost capsized and suffered damage to her sails.
It is understood the vessel was tracked across the Atlantic by US intelligence agencies and that the Irish agencies moved in following intelligence from the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Britain.