A Dutch court has jailed an Irish disc jockey for three years for international drugs-trafficking offences.
Liam Gregory Fynes, who was born in Dublin, hid 31,000 ecstasy tablets, worth more than £200,000, in a child's push car at his Amsterdam apartment, according to evidence at an earlier sitting of his trial in Zwolle. He was described as a key figure in a major drugs-smuggling operation in which hundreds of kilograms of soft drugs and tens of thousands of ecstasy tablets were shipped from Holland to Britain and Ireland.
Fynes was an associate of the convicted Cork drugs trafficker Sean O'Flynn, the court was told. O'Flynn (45) was jailed for two years for trafficking in ecstasy tablets, at Utrecht Criminal Court last December.
Convicting Fynes (41), who has addresses in Britain and Amsterdam, the presiding judge, Mr Michiel Werkhoven, said it had been proved beyond all doubt that the accused man, who was not in court, was involved in large-scale international drugs-trafficking. Defence claims that illegal methods had been used by Dutch police to trap Fynes and others on trial were utterly rejected, he said. There was clear-cut proof that this was a well-organised criminal gang involved in extensive drugs-trafficking activities to countries abroad, using the Netherlands as its base and source of supply.
A Dutch national, Dave Maertens, was also sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Maertens, together with Fynes, was named in the trial of Sean O'Flynn last year. A Dutch undercover anti-drugs unit, during an investigation code-named "Dream Team", filmed Maertens passing a bag, later found to contain 25,000 ecstasy tablets, to O'Flynn in Amsterdam last August.
A second Dutch man, said to have played a minor role, was ordered to carry out 240 hours of community service, while two further accused Dutch men had their trials postponed yesterday.