Gardaí believe a Dublin man who is close to senior members of the Kinahan cartel owned an €8.5 million consignment of cannabis and cocaine seized in a pre-planned operation on Monday.
Two men, aged in their 30s and 40s, were detained for questioning after the search operation, which began when a vehicle was stopped in Co Meath. The drugs were uncovered during follow-up searches in counties Meath and Louth.
The seizure was made by members of the Garda’s Drugs & Organised Crime Bureau as part of Operation Tara, which began four years ago and targets those involved in drug dealing at local, national and international level.
The two men arrested were still being held on Tuesday night under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act. The legislation is used in operations targeting suspects alleged to be involved in gang crime and allows for them to be questioned for up to seven days without charge.
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Gardaí believe the drugs were owned by a west Dublin gangland leader, in his 30s, who has been known to gardaí for involvement in a variety of crime for more than two decades. He has already served a significant prison sentence for drug dealing.
The man has progressed into the upper echelons of the Irish drugs trade over the last decade, having graduated from involvement in robberies from when he was a teenager.
The suspected beneficial owner of the drugs is close to some of the men who managed the Kinahan cartel’s Irish operation.
The cartel’s Irish cell imploded in the years after the Kinahan-Hutch feud began as it could not withstand the pressure of the Garda investigations into those involved in the feud.
