TWO MEN CHARGED over a €1.6m heroin bust in Dublin last week, allegedly linked to a “transnational criminal organisation”, have been remanded in custody.

Oliver Etienne, 44, from England but living in Barcelona, Spain for ten years and 34-year-old Christina Munoz Sanchez from Barcelona were arrested on 2 May during an operation by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.

The appeared before Judge Áine Clancy at Dublin District Court this morning.

Etienne pleaded for bail on the ground that he came to Ireland on a trip with his co-accused, with whom he had shared a room with at The Clayton Hotel in Liffey Valley in Dublin. He denies the charge.

The judge, however, denied his request for bail and held that he was a flight risk. y.

Co-accused Sanchez deferred his application to be released pending trial. In seeking bail, he will utilise an EU directive allowing defendants to sign on at police stations in their own countries.

Both men have been remanded in custody, to appear at Cloverhill District Court on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.

Detectives from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau Tom McCarrick and Rioghnach O’Sullivan said neither of the men made a reply when charged with possessing heroin and having it for sale or supply at Junction 9 of the M50 on 2 May.

The offence can carry a life sentence. Objecting to bail, McCarrick said that his fellow officers received confidential information about a “transnational organised crime group involved in drug trafficking” on Friday last.

A judge was told that it was suggested that a Spanish national named Christian Munoz Sanchez and others had a large quantity of heroin in Dublin. McCarrick said that Etienne was stopped at Liffey Terrence in Lucan and was later taken to Ballymun Garda Station. 

Co-accused Sanchez was travelling in a taxi, which was stopped at the Coolock slip road, M1 South in Dublin. Searching the vehicle led to the recovery of 21 packages of heroin. 

The pair travelled by ferry from Cherbourg, France to Dublin Port in a car with another man, his mother and their dog on 24 April, the court was told. Enquiries and CCTV were said to have established that both of the men had shared a room and checked out at the same time.

They placed their luggage into a secure storage facility at the hotel in Dublin, the court was told. Etienne later went to collect the bags, one of which contained the heroin found in the taxi with Sanchez.

Encrypted messages were on Sanchez’s phone, a judge was told, but Etienne’s phone could not be accessed because he had not provided the correct PIN number.

Etienne’s defence solicitor Kate McGhee disputed the garda evidence that her client was cause red-handed, describing it as “nonsensical”. She stressed her client’s no criminal record or warrant history and would abide by bail conditions.

She said her client had no knowledge of what was in the bag. 

Ms Justice Áine Clancy agreed that gardaí had not established that Etienne had been caught red-handed, but refused to grant bail on the grounds that it was reasonably probably that he would evade justice.

Solicitor Tracey Horan,for Sanchez said her client, who listened with the aid of an interpreter, would move his bail application on Friday based on the Mutual Recognition of Decisions on Supervision EU directive.