Four charged after €31m of cocaine seized at Courtmacsherry in sea operation
Four men were charged after cocaine valued at more than €31 million was seized in a joint operation by Gardaí, Revenue, the Naval Service and the Air Corps around Courtmacsherry on Tuesday 1 July 2025.
Gardaí from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau stopped a van in the Courtmacsherry area that morning, and two men in their 30s and 40s were arrested. A rigid inflatable boat with two men on board left Broadstrand and was intercepted off the coast by crews from the Naval Service ship L.É. William Butler Yeats, with an Air Corps aircraft watching from above.
Those two men, also in their 30s and 40s, were arrested when the ship returned to Haulbowline Naval Base. Gardaí and Revenue later searched a larger ship linked to the investigation and interviewed its crew.
All four were held under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007 and were due before Bandon District Court on Thursday 3 July 2025.