14 hours ago
Eight jailed over MV Matthew cocaine seizure
Eight men have been jailed for between 13 and a half and 20 years for their roles in trying to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine worth over €157m, the largest cocaine seizure in Irish history.
The drugs were seized following a joint garda, customs and Defence Forces operation in September 2023 after army rangers forcibly boarded a cargo ship at sea.
Six were hired in Dubai by a transnational organised crime group before flying to South America for the international drug trafficking operation.
They were arrested on board the MV Matthew, ignored instructions from the LÉ William Butler Yeats Naval Vessel five times and tried to burn the drugs on board before a team.
Two other men bought a boat, the Castlemore, in Castletownbere to collect the drugs from the mothership, but it ran aground off the coast of Wexford and they had to be rescued by the coastguard.
Ukrainians Mykhailo Gavryk and Vitaliy Vlasoi, who are both 32, 51-year-old Soheil Jelveh, 39-year-old Saeid Hassani, 31-year-old Harold Estoesta and 49-year-old Cumali Ozgen, who is from the Netherlands, all pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for sale or supply on board the MV Mathew between September 24 and 26 2023.
Sixty-two-year-old Vitaliy Lapa, who's also from Ukraine with an address at Rudenko, Repina Str in Berdyansk and 31-year-old Jamie Harbron of South Avenue, Billingham in the UK, pleaded guilty to attempting to possess cocaine for sale or supply between 21 September and 25 September 2023.
