A Dublin man who was working in a heroin and cocaine bagging factory has been jailed for five years by Judge Michael White.
Alan Browne was arrested after gardaí raided a flat on the Howth Road and found heroin and cocaine worth nearly €200,000 earlier this year.
They also found drugs paraphernalia, such as an electronic weighing scales, and a sawn-off 12-gauge shotgun hidden in a sock under the bed.
Browne, who was jailed for a year in Paris in 1994 for transporting seven kilos of cannabis on a train from Amsterdam, said he had clocked up a number of debts because of a heroin addiction and was offered the job to pay off some of them.
Brown (32), Brian Road, Marino, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the unlawful possession of drugs with a market value of €13,000 or more and the unlawful possession of the shotgun on July 20th, 2002.
Garda Robert Wilson told Mr Hugo Hynes BL, prosecuting, that he received a warrant to search the flat after receiving a tip-off that the drugs would be there.
Browne was the only person in the flat when it was searched. The drugs were located in a plastic bag under the mattress and the shotgun in a sock close by. Drugs paraphernalia were also found scattered throughout the flat.
Garda Wilson described the flat as a "factory" or "bagging shop" for the drugs before they were further broken down and prepared for sale on the street. He said Browne was a "cog in a massive importation and distribution network operating in Dublin at the time".
Garda Wilson added that the people behind the drugs were, and continued to be, massive players in the industry in this country. The heroin seized was worth €139,672 and the cocaine was valued at €53,096.
Browne had four previous convictions for selling drugs, three of which arose out of the same incident. The other conviction occurred when he was stopped by French customs officials in Paris after getting off a train from Amsterdam, where he had lived for a period.