Gardaí in Cork believe that they have smashed one of the city's main cocaine supply gangs following the arrest of four people and the seizure of almost €1 million worth of drugs in the city at the weekend.
The arrests on Saturday evening followed a ten-day surveillance operation by the Cork City Divisional Drugs Squad which has been targeting cocaine suppliers for the past number of months.
The four suspects were released without charge yesterday but a Garda spokesman said a file would be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Cocaine use has been increasing in Cork over the past 18 months and is now replacing ecstasy as the drug of choice among drug users.
Saturday's operation came to fruition after undercover officers monitoring a drug deal at a shopping centre in the city moved in and arrested a man just after he collected half a kilo of cocaine with a street value of €50,000.
The man had got out of a car in the shopping centre car park and detectives quickly surrounded the vehicle. They found ten kilos of cannabis resin with a street value of €100,000 hidden in the vehicle and they arrested the driver.
The men - who are in their early 30s and from Ballincollig and Grange - were arrested under Section two of the Drug Trafficking Act which allows for detention of up to seven days. They were brought to Togher Garda Station for questioning.
Shortly afterwards, in a follow-up operation in Rathpeacon on the northern outskirts of the city, detectives raided a house where they recovered six and a half kilos of cocaine with a street value of €650,000. The drugs were hidden on the premises.
They also seized 12,000 ecstasy tablets with a street value of €120,000 and three kilos of skunk grass - a form of cannabis - which they also believe to have a substantial street value, according to a Garda source.
"The purity of the cocaine was particularly high and we estimate that the total street value of the drugs we seized is around €1 million - it's a very significant seizure and a major blow to a gang dealing in cocaine in the city," the source said.
Gardaí arrested a couple in their early 30s under the Drug Trafficking Act following the raid on the house in Rathpeacon. They were taken to Mayfield Garda Station for questioning about the drugs hidden in their home.
On Thursday gardaí in Dublin seized cocaine with an estimated street value of €10 million. The drugs were found after a car was stopped by gardaí on the Naas Road and in a follow-up search in a premises on the Naas Road.