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LAST UPDATE | 5 Jul
THERE IS LITTLE doubt that the taking of the MV Matthew was a huge success story for Irish law enforcement agencies and the Irish military – it was the proof of a concept that had been promised by state agencies for decades.
The operation that led to the capture of the vessel, along with its haul of cocaine worth some €157 million, came about through sharing of information among a raft of Irish and international law enforcement and military agencies.
It demonstrated how, when it comes to large-scale crackdowns on drug trafficking, the haphazard approach of old, hoping that touts will inform the gardaí is now a lottery of the past. Operation Piano – as the operation was called – was as sophisticated as it can be, with an international web of agencies all working together.
The success of the operation, as those working in the drug policy sector explain in further detail later in this piece, must however be balanced against the reality that the demand for cocaine is apparently as high as ever.
Supply is also keeping up with that demand too – a point underscored by the fact that the street price of a bag of cocaine has not wavered from the standard €80 in recent years.
Yesterday, eight men from Ukraine, Britain and Iran, were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 20 years to 13 and a half years.
All were relative bit players in a much larger drama and, speaking after the sentencing, gardaí have vowed to continue their investigation to bring to justice those who directed the operation across the globe.
The road to successes like yesterday’s has been a long one for gardaí, customs and the military – incremental modernisation, although on a slow drip basis, has come to fruition in the fight against organised crime.
The birth of the Joint Task Force in which all of the agencies named above work as a group in largescale drugs interdictions is key. No competing agencies, everyone pulling in the same direction.
Often it takes a disaster to move State agencies forward. In many respects the failure to stop the Regency Hotel murder of Kinahan lieutenant David Byrne by members of the Hutch gang was a key catalyst. The resulting feud between the Kinahans and the Hutches enough to bring State cheque books out of locked safes.
This was the moment of realisation for those who control policy and funding to wake up to the reality that they could not fund policing on the cheap.
The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB), empowered and adequately financed in the wake of that incident is also key. One of the senior officers leading the operation went back to college in its wake and studied a masters in the law of the sea.
This is not just about the experience of dealing myopically with criminals in Ireland – the police fighting this are educating themselves to a high standard and linking up with other like-minded professionals across the globe.
The European and UK-backed initiative of MAOC-N based Lisbon, Portugal is key to their analysing of the minute movements of suspect ships. The agency was set up almost two decades ago specifically to tackle illicit drug trafficking on the seas around Europe.
The Defence Forces has a long history of successful seabourne interdictions – arresting IRA gun runners and drug gangs. But the difference with Operation Piano was the truly joint operational nature of it. Many moving parts, all advancing in the same direction.
There were years, for instance, of perfecting flying experience for Irish Air Corps pilots, with their expert personnel taking learnings from international partners at training and airshow events abroad.
But the elephant in the room must get a mention too. The reality is the Air Corps and Navy are struggling with poor resourcing and a staffing crisis. The men and women of the Defence Forces achieved their side of the tale in spite of those funding shortfalls.
The Journal has got unprecedented access to the elite Army Ranger Wing in the past as they practiced the very mission and manoeuvres they used to take the MV Matthew. But they too have been on a journey, now with better kit, tactics and a professional structure of enablers and support that rivals special forces units abroad.
Acting as a buttress, behind it all, the State has instituted robust legislation to fight organised crime. The 2016 Criminal Justice Act carried with it sections around the prosecution of people for facilitating and participating in the activities of crime gangs.
For the sailors, air crew, special forces operators and law enforcement officers this was a professional triumph – a moment they have spent their professional lives building towards.
Often there is a pejorative public discourse that takes the work of those managing the counter narcotics operations as something to be sneered at. Social media posts and public pronouncements by supposed experts speak about those endeavours as pointless.
The gardaí and international law enforcement officers we spoke to have said that they see their efforts being about dealing with the international criminals who are profiting from the sale and supply of drugs such as cocaine. For them it is not a war on drugs but a war on organised crime.
All say that their view is that the MV Matthew is just one step forward in a strategy to make Ireland as unattractive as possible for the cartels and to make sure they land their contraband elsewhere.
The more Operation Pianos that are successful the better for that strategy and there has been substantial success. Several people remain before the courts after operations in Foynes, Wexford and west Cork.
The difficulty is that is a long term strategy. The price of a bag of coke, generally around €80 has not dropped. Seizures are occuring on a regular basis across the State in communities both big and small, urban and rural.
Many experts, both here and abroad, are advocating for a more nuanced approach. That organised crime groups would continue to be targeted but that their customers, when confronted by the State, would be offered a chance to avoid a criminal conviction in return for participation in a dissuasion system.
The Journal has visited such a system in Portugal. Ireland is considering a similar approach.
Some of those ideas have already arrived here and the services are beginning to move to a more holistic medical approach.
Tony Duffin, formerly of Dublin’s Ana Liffey Project and now a consultant working in drug policy, said the broad issue is that reports from European agencies show that more people than ever are using cocaine.
Duffin, who worked with people suffering with addiction issues on the streets of Dublin, said that the recreational use of cocaine powder is one issue. He said the use of crack cocaine by heroin addicts to make a powerful concoction known as a “speedball” is another.
Duffin said drug dealers are reducing the price of these drugs to capture the custom of more of those vulnerable drug users.
“The price of cocaine powder is stable but the crack cocaine price fluctuated – not because of a shift in supply but because of the business model,” he said.
“The guards and customs are working really, really hard. No one is slacking here. It’s just that it’s in the face of a multi billion dollar industry.
“It’s a complex issue. There’s no silver bullet. There’s no simple answer or simple explanation.
“It requires quite a complex response in many ways, although, really, at the end of the day, the health education approach is simply moving the response to drug use to the health side of the house, rather than the criminal justice side of the house,” he added.
Duffin said the general accepted success rate of drugs captures is between one and ten percent for the shipments captured – that is at least 90% of drugs shipped to Ireland get through. Garda sources we spoke to believe the figures is somewhere around 5% for the shipments they catch.
Regardless of the policy side of the house the Joint Task Force has had further success this week.
On Wednesday the initiative saw a huge capture of half a tonne or €31m worth of cocaine by gardaí, assisted by the Defence Forces and Customs.
The hope is, among those involved in the operations here and abroad, that the more big shows they succeed on, the more likely it is that the problem will move elsewhere and away from Ireland.
The issue is that the recreational appetite for the white powder will still remain.
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