There has been a “significant” increase in the wholesale price of cocaine being imported into Ireland since the end of last year, the head of the Garda National Drug and Organised Crime Bureau has said.
Detective Chief Superintendent Séamus Boland said there has been a sharp rise in the wholesale price per kilo of cocaine since last October and the increase was probably due to large seizures of the drug by gardaí and Revenue officers.
Chief Supt Boland said a kilo of cocaine had previously been available for about €25,000 but was now reaching €40,000.
He said it was not something being experienced across Europe and explained that the cocaine trade was a “supply versus demand industry”.
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“The basic economics of that are, if supplies are short or supplies are very difficult to get in at any given time, you will normally see an increase in prices,” he said.
“This is something that has been first experienced here in Ireland at the wholesale level. That doesn’t always reflect directly then at the user or retailer level, but it is something that we would hope will impact in the near future.”
Chief Supt Boland was speaking following a number of large seizures of drugs by the Garda National Drug and Organised Crime Bureau and Revenue over recent days.
About 104kg of cocaine with an estimated value of €7.2 million was seized at Rosslare Europort, Co Wexford last Thursday while 783kgs of herbal cannabis and 70kgs of cannabis resin, worth around €16 million was seized on Saturday.
Cocaine worth an estimated €10.5 million was also seized by gardaí and Revenue officers at Dublin Port on Tuesday.
Chief Supt Boland said such seizures were having an impact on supply and it was “very positive” that these drugs would not reach local communities.
“Making these types of seizures, particularly when a route into the jurisdiction is discovered, that does impact, that disrupts, that on occasions can actually dismantle a route into the country and have significant impact on the global networks that are involved in this,” he said.
He also said “many arrests” may be made in other jurisdictions outside of Ireland in relation to two of the seizures.
Ruth Kennedy, Revenue commissioner, said to date this year over €103 million worth of drugs had been seized, with just over €33 million in recent days, describing the figures as “significant”.
Ms Kennedy said the two recent cocaine seizures were “very deep concealments” and it took sniffer dogs and X-ray scanners to find them. They had come into the country on unaccompanied freight.
Chief Supt Boland said that on a weekly basis “regular vehicles” in cities and towns across the country were being seized which had “specialised deep concealments”, some of which were difficult to access and with hydraulic entry points.
“The only reason anybody would ever be in possession of such a concealment within a vehicle is to facilitate organised crime and we are pursuing all of those groups and the possession of such a vehicle in itself can be deemed to be evidence of somebody facilitating organised crime,” he said.
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