The former garda who leads Europe’s “first line of defence” against drug smuggling has described last week’s seizure of cocaine worth €800 million in the Atlantic as the largest maritime drugs bust ever. In 2018 Michael O’Sullivan’s agency, the EU-funded Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (Maoc), helped seize about €1.5 billion of cocaine destined for Europe. When it docked, officers found 9.5 tonnes of high-purity cocaine, worth, Mr O’Sullivan estimated, about €800 million. “You would be a long time running around in individual countries trying to seize that amount,” Mr O’Sullivan, a former assistant commissioner, told The Irish Times from his base in Lisbon on Monday. The biggest seizure Maoc was involved in in the past was five tonnes.

Source: The Irish Times February 05, 2019 00:56 UTC