An elite Irish army force seized a Panamanian-registered bulk cargo ship off the coast of county Cork, taking nearly 5,000 pounds of cocaine from the vessel in what is being called the largest drug bust in Ireland‘s history

Irish police have seized $165m (€157m) worth of cocaine from a cargo vessel off the coast of Cork in the southeast of the country in what is being called the biggest-ever drug bust in the history of Ireland.

Cocaine weighing 2,253kg was seized on Tuesday from the vessel “MV Matthew” travelling from South America, Director General of Revenue and Customs Gerry Harrahill said Wednesday at a news conference in Dublin.

“It is the largest drug seizure in the history of the State,” Justin Kelly, Assistant Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, Ireland’s police force, said at the conference.

“This is a hugely significant operation and it shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks which are determined to bring drugs into our country.”

Three men, aged 60, 50 and 31, were arrested as part of the operation on suspicion of organised crime and are currently undergoing questioning at Garda stations in County Wexford. Irish authorities did not rule out making further arrests.

The boat in question had been registered to the country of Panama and had been carrying a crew of 25. The fleet commander for the Irish Naval Service said that they fired warning shots during the operation as the ship had refused to comply with instructions from the Irish Navy. 

Officers said the drug shipments had been sent from major drug cartels in South America and were intended for distribution among criminal groups in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

“There’s no large shipment like this coming into our ports or transiting our country without an Irish criminal group involved,” Kelly said.

He added that police sought to send a message to underworld international drug gangs “that Ireland isn’t an easy place to import drugs into and that we will be relentless and determined to disrupt and dismantle criminal gangs.”

Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee on Tuesday called the raid “complex” and “intelligence-led”. In a statement posted to social media, she praised authorities and said the operation was a “blow to the organised crime gangs involved in drug distribution internationally.”

Tuesday’s intelligence-led operation was conducted in collaboration with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics (MAOC-N) based in Lisbon, according to a Garda press release. MAOC-N is a cooperative effort involving seven EU member nations, namely France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the UK, with financial support from the European Union.