Six men have been arrested by gardaí following the seizure of the MV Verila, which was found to be carrying 300kg of cocaine in Limerick earlier this week.
The bulk carrier was detained in Foynes Port, Co Limerick on Tuesday in a joint Revenue and Garda operation. On board, officers found 300kg of cocaine worth about €21 million.
The cocaine was broken down into six 50kg bundles wrapped in plastic, with buoyancy aids and GPS trackers attached to each bundle. Gardaí believed the smugglers intended dropping the drugs off at sea for collection by others.
Revenue officers are still searching the 190m-long vessel to determine if it contains any more contraband while gardaí have been conducting voluntary interviews with the 18-strong crew who are mostly from Bulgaria.
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On Friday, five male crew members aged 50, 46, 44, 41 and 35 were arrested on suspicion of importing controlled drugs into the country. They are being held for questioning at various Garda stations around Co Limerick. On Friday night, gardaí said they arrested a sixth man, aged 32, as part of the investigation.
The Garda said investigations are ongoing. According to a garda source, the fact the drugs were equipped with buoyancy aids and GPS trackers suggests they were not intended for importation at Foynes. It is unclear if other bundles had already been dropped off at sea.
Gardaí have been examining mobile phones, satellite phones and other electronic equipment found aboard the MV Verila for fingerprint and DNA evidence to determine which of the crew were using the devices.
If an examination of the phones by garda technical experts then reveals the devices were used to communicate with other people and vessels involved in the huge drug smuggling operation, gardaí will be able to identify which crew members they must focus on.
Gardaí will be able to match any fingerprints and DNA evidence found on the phones and on the drugs themselves with any fingerprints or DNA samples taken from any member of the crew that they might arrest in relation to the huge cocaine smuggling operation.
The MV Verila is owned by a company called Verila Navigation Limited based in Valletta in Malta. The ship is also registered in Malta and she is managed by a Bulgarian shipping company called Navigation Maritime Bulgare which is headquartered in Varna and manages a fleet of 70 vessels.
The ship, which was built in 2022 at the Jiangsu Yangzijian shipyard in China, is currently valued at $24 million and appears to have spent the last few months on a triangular route, journeying between Europe and South America and North America before returning to Europe.
Gardaí are liaising with the Maritime Analysis Operations Centre Narcotics (MAOC-N) based in Lisbon in Portugal to try to establish the MV Verila’s movements over the past few months and where she may have picked up and delivered drugs.
The most recent records show that MV Verila left Santos in southern Brazil on November 4th and headed for Quebec in Canada, arriving there on November 23rd before continuing on to Hamilton on Lake Ontario where she arrived on November 27th before departing on November 30th.
The ship then returned to Hamilton on December 5th and spent two and a half days in port before departing again on December 8th. It spent eleven days crossing the Atlantic before arriving at the Shannon Estuary and docking at Foynes on Tuesday morning.
She has been subjected to six standard inspections including one by the Russian authorities in the Black Sea last February, one by the US Coastguard at Tampa in Florida last July and one the Canadian authorities at Hamilton last August. No deficiencies were found during any of the inspections.
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