GARDAÍ LAUNCHED A series of raids on properties on the west coast last week and carried out a search on board a fishing boat in a nearby location in an operation targeting suspected organised crime. 

The Journal has learned that searches were launched across the coast of Clare on Friday. 

The searches were centred around people with connections to those working in the maritime sector. 

It has emerged that the operation focused on a fishing trawler type vessel which had apparently sailed from a location on the south coast more than a week ago.

Contact with its onboard transponder, known as Automatic Identification System (AIS), was lost five days before the craft appeared in a small harbour on the west coast. 

Sources have said that gardaí were waiting for the boat, with officers concealed in a camper van style vehicle, and that they then searched the vessel. 

Other searches also took place near the location but nothing was found. It is understood two men were questioned at the scene. 

Sources have said that neither the Irish Air Corps or the Naval Service were involved in the operation and the Joint Task Force, which handles major drugs trafficking incidents, was also not called up. 

One source said that the loss of transponder signal on the fishing boat, which appeared to have been sailing off the Cornish coast when contact was lost, may have caused a response from the gardaí.

It is understood that the operation did not involve national units and may have been run by gardaí stationed in the mid-west.  

In a one line statement a Garda spokeswoman confirmed that an operation had taken place and a number of searches had taken place. 

It is the latest incident in which gardaí were involved in countering suspected drug trafficking on the west coast. 

In January there was an operation off Kerry and there has also been a number of incidents elsewhere in the country – with a number of people charged and before the courts.