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Gardaí shared this image of the massive haul this afternoon. Twitter/Gardainfo

Street value of massive cocaine haul could be 'double or treble' its estimated €157m pricetag

Members of the elite Army Ranger Wing boarded a cargo ship and seized the suspected cocaine off the south coast yesterday afternoon.

LAST UPDATE | 27 Sep 2023

THE STREET-VALUE OF the €157m drug haul off the south coast could have been even greater if the drugs were distributed, according to a senior garda.

A dramatic operation saw the Army Ranger Wing board a cargo ship and seize the suspected cocaine off the south coast yesterday afternoon.

Officers confirmed this morning that three people are currently in custody as a result of the probe targeting a South American cartel.

Members of the gardaí, Naval Service and Revenue Customs Service gave a press conference detailing the detention of the Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel, MV Matthew.

Senior Garda officers said specialists had determined overnight that the weight of the drugs as 2,353 kilos.

The weight makes it the biggest seizure ever of cocaine. In 2008, 1.7 tonnes of cocaine were seized off Cork with an estimated street-value of €650m.

But the value of the latest seizure could have doubled or even trebled according to senior officials.

Garda Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau told today’s press conference that cocaine smuggled into Ireland from South America or from across Europe will see its value increased after its cut down by organised crime groups.

He said there’s a “glut of cocaine on the market” and that more large shipments are “inevitable” for Ireland, but that security officials would aim to prevent it being an easy target.

Kelly said the current estimate for a kilo of cocaine’s street value is €70,000, but this could move depending “on the market environment or the country” at that time.

“It’s really important to note that cocaine that comes into the country from South America or in fact any European country will be cut down further so it will actually increase the value of those drugs,” he said.

“So while that value is put at €157 million at the moment, it could be a wide variety of increased values around Europe when that stuff is moved.”

Agreeing with Kelly, Commander Tony Geraghty of the Irish Naval Service said the final street value is reliant on “what the organised crime gangs intend to do with product” when they get it into its target country.

Geraghty said gangs could “either double, treble or otherwise” the value of cocaine but cautioned against speculation.

“It’s why we use the value that we do. We don’t get into the business of speculating whether they’ll cut it down five times, ten times or 20 times – we just don’t know.

“But the one thing that we do know is the weight and value and it’s on that basis that we have the value of €157m.

Geraghty added that it was “too early” to speak on the purity of the cocaine seized from the MV Matthew.

A number of organised crime groups in Ireland have the capability to smuggle drugs in as attempted on the MV Matthew, according to Kelly.

When the senior garda was asked if this incident might be related to the Kinahan group, he said he would not discuss the cartel behind the operation at the moment.

He added that an operation as with this week’s requires a “significant outlay of money”, ranging from hiring a vessel and crew, to the “corrupting of officials across the globe”.

Additional reporting by Niall O’Connor and Daragh Brophy

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21 Comments
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    Mute John Sleator
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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:07 PM

    In 2008 1.7tonne was worth 650million,In 2023 2.3tonne is worth 157million.
    Cost of living crisis must be hitting the drug dealers also these days.

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    Mute Paul Moloney
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:27 PM

    @John Sleator: That’s a good one john

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    Mute Shane Scanlan
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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:01 PM

    Street Value……I do wonder what streets the Guards are buying their drugs on……

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    Mute mainmsam
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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:11 PM

    @Shane Scanlan: asking for a friend?

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    Mute Journal Commenter
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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:56 PM

    @Shane Scanlan: “what street do you buy your drugs on? Because it’s not the same street I buy my drugs on!”

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    Mute Paul Moloney
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:28 PM

    @Shane Scanlan: I don’t know but if they ever want a better deal then they should go somewhere else

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    Mute shane o mahony
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    Sep 27th 2023, 11:17 PM

    @Shane Scanlan:at that price their probably selling around Temple bar

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    Mute Chris O'Brien
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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:04 PM

    Pointless waste of money.

    Note that there will be no follow up reporting – there never is – on the actual impact of things like this.

    We need information.

    How much do drugs polices cost taxpayers? (millions a year at least)

    What impact do they have on availability of drugs? (85% of drugs aren’t intercepted, so the educated guess would be that the impact is negligible and very tempory at best – more likely the impact is closer to zero)

    Relative to their cost, bearing in mind how badly we need money to eg pay carers, what is the point of these policies?

    Not reducing supply. Supply is unaffected.
    Not reducing deaths. We have twice the OD deaths of Portugal, which has twice our population.

    So what’s the point?

    I’m all for letting the lads shoot machine guns into the ocean, but surely that can’t justify the cost.

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    Mute Butters
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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:21 PM

    @Chris O’Brien: seeing as a kilo starts for about 2k from it’s point of origin the original value of the cocaine probably cost less than the surveillance alone.

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    Mute TheGood Feign
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    Sep 27th 2023, 8:41 PM

    @Butters: the real cost is the impact, not how much it costs to make them. It doesn’t cost much to make bullets, but they do a lot of harm. However, I would not assume to know the impact this haul would make or not make, I’m just thinking about the desperately addicted people here.

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    Mute Eamon
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:09 PM

    Great work by all involved, maybe tip of the iceberg but it keeps some of the filth off our streets.

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    Mute Michael Costello
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    Sep 27th 2023, 9:24 PM

    @Eamon: Why are people so negative. A budget amount is given for all the law enforcement agencies for the purpose of detecting and seizing drugs entering Ireland. While I agree that drugs are imported every week into Ireland a seizure like this, no matter how small people think it is, should be celebrate. How many lives has this seizure saved ?. And I don’t mean deaths from drugs. There are serious OCG running riot in this country and importation of drugs is just 1 of their sources of income. They reek havoc every where, people smuggling for slavery, prostitution, extreme porn. Let’s celebrate 1 up for the good guys

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    Mute Paddy
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    Sep 27th 2023, 4:57 PM

    On my way to Wexford for 2 x bags of strawberries…

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    Mute Brian Keelty
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    Sep 27th 2023, 6:45 PM

    @Paddy: Double dips ? On blotter paper?

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    Mute John Sleator
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    Sep 27th 2023, 7:04 PM

    @Brian Keelty: showing your age there I think lol

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    Mute Don't Forget
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:16 PM

    We should keep and it sell ourselves to pay off our debt. By bedtime tonight the Garda will estimate the haul to be now worth 600 trillion bajilloon euros.

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    Mute Ciaran O Donoghue
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:11 PM

    Has the value of cocaine decreased since 2008? I’d have thought that it went up.

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    Mute Luka Roche
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:02 PM

    Great money in Drugs.. Surprised Michael and Paschal don’t have a tax tied to it….

    Then they’d know the drug dealers

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    Mute Leonard Gardner
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    Sep 27th 2023, 5:14 PM

    Probably bound for the UK and we done them a favour

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    Mute Sickof thisshit
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    Sep 27th 2023, 6:28 PM

    By the time it’s cut up Irish dtyle6itll be 10 x that.

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    Mute Jason L
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    Sep 28th 2023, 2:30 PM

    Liked and shared hope I win!

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