A BULGARIAN MAN was this morning jailed for 10 years after he admitted smuggling €21.6 million worth of cocaine on board a cargo ship, which sailed from Brazil to Ireland last year.

In delivering the sentence at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Colin Daly said that the defendant, Kamen Petkov, had been in control of “such a large quantity of drugs that it was impossible not to conclude that thousands of lives would have been affected by such a volume of drugs”.

Following his arrest on 22 December last, Petkov told gardaí he was to be paid €150,000 for managing the drug shipment on the MV Verila, which sailed from Antoniana Port, Brazil to Foynes Port, Co Limerick, on 19 December, 2023.

Judge Daly said Petkov, (36), had “facilitated organised crime intentionally for a significant rearward”.

Petkov told gardaí he had amassed a gambling debt of €37,000 and Judge Daly said Petkov’s debt may have made him more vulnerable to involving himself in the criminal “enterprise”.

Detective Garda Adrian Cahill, Limerick Divisional Drugs Unit, told the court on Monday that the drugs recovered from the ship was considered by forensic examiners to be “pure cocaine, with a potential value of five times that amount on the street”, estimated at €105million.

Petkov, who had no previous convictions, was apprehended by gardaí after the ship was searched by Irish Customs officers using sniffer dogs, and the drugs were found hidden in an air-conditioning room after the vessel had docked at Foynes Port.

The married father of one, showed no emotion as he was led away to begin his prison sentence, which was backdated to 22 December, 2023, the date he first entered custody.