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Man who used ice cream van as cover for cocaine business gets two-year sentence

Paul Collopy had the final two years of a four-year sentence suspended.

AN ICE-CREAM van driver who sold cocaine as well as ice-lollies to customers, has been jailed for four years with the final two years suspended.

Paul Collopy used his ice cream van as a cover for a major drugs distribution business, Limerick Circuit Court heard.

Collopy, (41), of Glenbrook, Bloodmill Road, Ballysimon, Limerick, started out in life earning money delivering coal from a horse and cart, the court heard.

He pleaded guilty at Limerick Circuit Court to possessing cocaine for sale or supply.

Collopy dropped a spoon and a weighing scales on the ground, outside his home, when gardaí swooped on the property on 25 November, 2014.

At the time, he was attempting to conceal a lunchbox, which contained cocaine, between the engine and bonnet of his van, the court heard.

Detective Garda David McGrath, Limerick Garda Divisional Drugs Unit, said Collopy was selling ice-cream from a fleet of vans in public parks and sporting venues around the city.

“He was effectively caught red-handed,” the detective said.

Gardaí discovered over €6,000 of cocaine under the hood of the van, and inside “a money bag”, which was located near a window where ice-creams and ice pops were sold to members of the public.

The money bag also included two “tick lists” containing the names of customers, “who owed money for drugs”.

A drugs invoice found in the van showed €45,000 of cocaine had been sold.

Gardaí also recovered €5,000 cash in Collopy’s house. Collopy, whose family have no criminal connections, had amassed 70 previous convictions.

He was jailed for five years in December 2007 of selling €17,000 of cocaine.

Three years after his release in 2011, he was caught by gardai in Ennis with €28,000 of heroin for which he received a four-year sentence, after the final two years of a six-year term was imposed.

Detective Garda McGrath described Collopy as a “chronic cocaine and crack cocaine addict”.

“My own opinion and the opinion of the divisional drugs squad would be that he is a drugs wholesaler rather than a street dealer,” the detective told the court previously.

“He would be giving the drugs to others to break down for street dealing,” he added.

The court heard Collopy, a father of three, was “selling drugs to break even,” adding that “he had a €200 a day drug habit”.

State prosecutor John O’Sullivan said Collopy had come from “a good family with no criminal connections”.

Outlining an insight into Collopy’s life, Mr O’Sullivan said: “He started sniffing glue aged ten. He started using other drugs in his teens.”

“He was working from the age of twelve drawing coal on a horse and cart, and later in his own pick-up truck,” he added.

The court heard Collopy was now drug-free, and had achieved music and cookery certificates while in prison on remand awaiting sentence.

Today’s sentence is to run consecutively to the four-year sentence imposed at Ennis Circuit Court last June.

Read: Lunchbox of cocaine found in ice-cream van used as cover for major drugs business, court hears

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    Mute Moorooka Mick
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    Feb 26th 2019, 6:32 AM

    They will not last long with the local ‘happy campers”. They’ll figure out a way of hobbling the sat-tracking and cash-in.

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    Mute Dotty Dunleary
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    Feb 26th 2019, 6:58 AM

    @Moorooka Mick: Not unless the bicycles are made from pure steel :-)

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    Mute DJ François
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    Feb 26th 2019, 7:42 AM

    @Moorooka Mick: they said the same about Dublin bike scheme but it didn’t happen

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    Mute Moorooka Mick
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    Feb 26th 2019, 12:44 PM

    @DJ François:
    You have obviously not lived in Sligo.

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    Mute Donncha
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    Feb 26th 2019, 6:19 AM

    I would warm Sligo Council to give any of the Chinese bike companies that approach them a very wide berth. Just look up Chinese bike mountains on Google Images to see how the “free bike” companies have worked out in China.

    Also, one of them set up in Stockholm at the end of last summer. Unilaterally, I would add as they never asked, they just did it. I’ve yet to see anyone use the bikes (partly I imagine it’s because the app that activates them looks like it was made by a colour-blind 6th class student learning to code). Despite the fact they’re close to unused, they are absolutely riddled with rust only six months later. I reckon they’re death traps at this point if someone hopped on one without a helmet.

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    Mute J.P. Ness
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    Feb 26th 2019, 8:42 AM

    Sligo is too much of a kip to merit this scheme. It really is a bunghole of a place

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    Mute Garreth Byrne
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    Feb 26th 2019, 9:45 AM

    @J.P. Ness: They’d regard you as an asset at the local tourist information office. Failte go Shligig.

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    Feb 26th 2019, 1:29 PM

    @J.P. Ness: I lived in Sligo for over 11 years. Despite not being a native, I very much consider Sligo to be home. Lots of friendly, welcoming, helpful people and, despite its small size, it has so much to offer in terms of music, arts, crafts, surfing, beaches, hiking, cycling trails, mountains, lakes, fishing, pubs, places to eat and festivals. A kip it most certainly is not. What it is, however, is lacking in funding proportional to other areas of the country, though, thankfully, some of that is being addressed finally.

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    Mute john doe
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    Feb 26th 2019, 2:52 PM

    ^^don’t feed the troll ^^

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    Mute Marcus Eugene
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    Feb 26th 2019, 8:19 PM

    @J.P. Ness: Don’t feed the troll

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Feb 26th 2019, 7:52 AM

    And while they are looking for free bikes let the old people with empty large houses get out and down size to free up houses for those looking for them. FG take take take.

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    Mute James Wallace
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    Feb 26th 2019, 7:59 AM

    @Dave Barrett: first of all, what has a housing proposal by the government got to do with a bike scheme proposed by a local council? second of all, if the housing downsize scheme ever happens, it will be entirely optional. Go back to bed.

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    Mute John
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    Feb 26th 2019, 8:29 AM

    @Dave Barrett: what’s wrong with older people in council houses downsizing.people are always screaming about the housing crisis but people in social housing don’t want to have to help in any way.they just want to scream BUILD HOUSES………a lot of older people(including my parents)in private housing downsized because of their needs,what’s wrong with people who have enjoyed very very cheap houses.

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    Mute MarkS
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    Feb 26th 2019, 11:14 AM

    @John: bit of a tangent there love.

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    Mute kehe
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    Feb 26th 2019, 7:55 AM

    Will they ever learn? Undocked bikes just end up vandalised and thrown in rivers, ditches, fields etc in any city or town that’s tried the scheme.

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    Mute James Wallace
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    Feb 26th 2019, 8:19 AM

    @kehe: it doesnt happen much in Dublin. Can you name the towns in ireland where it has?

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Feb 26th 2019, 9:02 AM

    @James Wallace: does Dublin have an undocked bike scheme? I thought they were all docked.

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    Mute James Wallace
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    Feb 26th 2019, 9:12 AM

    @Karen Wellington: no they have bleeperbike, an undocked scheme. I do agree a docked bike scheme would be preferable if they don’t already have one.

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Feb 26th 2019, 10:58 AM

    @James Wallace: didn’t know that, thanks for the info

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    Mute Garreth Byrne
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    Feb 26th 2019, 9:42 AM

    In the mid-1960s student and other utopian radicals persuaded the Amsterdam authority to place ‘white bicycles’ strategically around the city centre. Anybody could use an available bike and leave it at a designated bike rack after use. The scheme lasted a short time. I hope the Sligonian authority has taken the Dutch example into consideration. Waar is mijn fiets?

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    Mute James Wallace
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    Feb 26th 2019, 10:19 AM

    @Garreth Byrne: that was before the days of mobile technology. The bikes these days, like the bleeper bikes in Dublin , require you to register a card and the bike is unlocked using smart technology and an app. No comparison to Amsterdam in the 60s. We should copy Amsterdam in the provision of safe segregated cycle tracks, though. That would work here.

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    Mute FlopFlipU
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    Feb 26th 2019, 9:00 AM

    You will probably find the any bikes that go missing up in Dublin ,them lads using the bikes to escape ,only joking now I have ties there through marriage

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    Mute John
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    Feb 26th 2019, 9:14 AM

    @FlopFlipU: I wish some of the country people would escape from Dublin.might give us a bit more room.ha ha,only joking I have family down the country.

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    Mute Michael Drumm
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    Feb 26th 2019, 8:05 AM

    Shave a madra

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