AN INTERNATIONAL drugs gang, staying in West Cork holiday homes used anti-bugging devices and a stealth speedboat in a botched operation to import €58m worth of cocaine into Ireland. 

The Special Criminal Court heard details today about the involvement of the men, who were Spanish, Dutch/Iranian, Serbian and Irish nationals. 

In court Inspector Joseph Young said that there were two reasons the suspects were caught by gardaí.

At a late night routine checkpoint gardaí stopped a car with two men onboard. They were suspicious and nervous which resulted in gardaí searching them and a written note with a list of locations and GPS coordinates were discovered. 

The next moment where it went wrong for the crime group was that a local resident, living near the secluded Tragumna Pier in west Cork contacted gardaí when he saw men trying to load a high powered Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boat (RHIB) into the back of a large truck.

They were returning having failed to meet a so-called “Mothership” off the the Needles Point on the coast of Cornwall – they returned empty handed when they missed their rendezvous.

This would lead to the arrest of ten suspects who were subsequently charged with an attempt to take possession of drugs with a value in excess of €13,000 – an offence under Section 15a of the Misuse of Drugs Act on dates between 27 February and 14 March 2024. 

The accused who have pleaded guilty are: Dutch national from Rotterdam Kiumaars Ghabiri 52; Spanish nationals Mario Angel Del Rio Sanz, 45 of no fixed address, Spain; and Anuar Rahui Chairi, 42, from Marbella; and Serbian national Aleksander Milic, 46; Pedro Pablo Ojeda Ortega, 36 of Cadiz; and Angel Serran Padilla, 40, of Malaga.

They were arrested with the lorry, a black Land Rover and the RHIB in Tragumna or in a Campervan in nearby Leap village – the area is located on the rugged coastline south of the town of Skibbereen. 

Three other men have pleaded not guilty and they will learn when their trials in the non-jury court will take place in the coming weeks.  

Young said the scheme began to unravel for the gang when two men, one of whom was Irish, were stopped at a garda checkpoint on the outskirts of the west Cork town of Bandon at the town land of Gully.  

The Inspector said that the uniform gardaí became suspicious because they were nervous and evasive when questioned at the late night roadside check. They were searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act and this resulted in them also being taken for a more thorough search in Bandon Garda Station.

During the search a note was found with several isolated landing locations along the coast, six Air B&Bs and GPS coordinates for a location.

The pier where gardaí arrested some of the men as they attempted to recover a speed boat in the early morning. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Tip from the public

Gardaí then received information from a concerned member of the public who had become suspicious of activity at the secluded Tragumna Pier. 

The early morning caller to the gardaí saw an articulated truck backed down a slipway. It was also close to a camper van. Nearby there was a black Land Rover and a white Ford transit van.

When gardaí crossed referenced the locations on the list they learned that they were all within eight kilometres of Tragumna. 

There enquiries then determined that the vehicles had been spotted at the Celtic Ross Hotel in the village of Rosscarbery.

They then checked at the hotel and found one of the gang had checked in using a Rotterdam based credit card. 

Young said at that stage that gardaí had enough to launch an operation as they believed there was an organised crime group attempting to import a large quantity of drugs. 

The garda inspector explained that the gang were due to use the RHIB to rendezvous with a “mothership” – the slang term given to a larger ship bringing drugs across the Atlantic concealed in a legitimate cargo. 

Cool Explorer

In this case the ship, the court heard, was called the Cool Explorer which had left Ecuador in early February, 2024. 

The ship was a large refrigerator vessel which was bringing a legitimate cargo from South America to St Petersburg in Russia – the drugs were concealed onboard. She was due to arrive in the Russian port on 17 March, 2024. 

The gardaí believe the gang had missed the drop off near the Cornish Coast, 30 nautical miles from Lands End, England and returned empty handed to west Cork. It is now known that on 14 and 15 March 2024 the Cool Explorer passed off the Danish coast near Jutland. 

After it passed that location 840 kilos of cocaine, worth an estimated €59m, washed ashore on a beach. A study of a GPS tracker attached to the haul showed that it matched the coordinates of the Cool Explorer.  

When a search was carried out by gardaí following the arrest of the men the Land Rover was discovered to have false plates and was in fact a vehicle stolen in Glasgow in the weeks before. A camper van, which was rented in Northern Ireland, had a GPS tracker on it which provided critical data for gardaí.

The heavy goods vehicle was registered to a company in Northern Ireland which also had an operation in Bulgaria. 

In searches the gardaí found a significant amount of nautical equipment in the Air B&Bs. This included items bought in Portsmouth in South England, in a Decathlon store in Dublin and at a marine store in Cork city. This equipment included dry suits, wet suits and electronic devices.

The technology included a satellite phone, more than 30 mobile phones, detectors to find listening or bugging devices and radios.

Gary Delaney, a former Naval Service officer now working in consultancy surveyed the RHIB that was seized. The craft was hugely powerful with three 300 horsepower engines and 57 twenty litre drums of fuel. 

It had painted its white radar dish black, and there was just one light on the craft – all to make it as undetectable at sea as possible. There was no radar reflector on the boat also and Delaney told gardaí that there was no radio systems onboard. 

“It was for the purpose of detecting but not being detected,” Young told the court. 

GPS devices, both onboard the RHIB and handheld units held by the men in the camper van all confirmed the gang was at Tragumna Pier. Gardaí also found evidence in the GPS system that the criminals had geolocation data to help them match up with the track of the Cool Explorer. They also determined that the RHIB had traveled to meet the ship off Cornwall.

The hearing is adjourned until tomorrow morning when Inspector Joseph Young continues his evidence.