A MEMBER OF the Kinahan cartel has been arrested in Spain in relation to the seizure of 1.2 tonnes of cocaine earlier this month.
The man was detained during follow-up investigations in the days after national police uncovered more than €35 million worth of cocaine on 10 November.
The seizure, which is being referred to as one of the biggest on Spanish soil, was made after undercover national police followed a British lorry driver to an area near San Sebastien in the north-west of the country.
Police then brought in a digger to move the earth which led them to large water containers buried underground. The drugs were hidden within them.
Initially there were five people arrested by Spanish police. At the time, officers said that three British nationals and two Spaniards had been arrested.
Police then arrested the Kinahan cartel drug dealer, who is is from Dublin 8, in follow-up investigations. This man has a number of outstanding warrants for his arrest in relation to drug dealing and possession in the Dublin area.
The man had been working with Kinahan dealers in the Birmingham area of England for a number of years and had travelled to Spain from the West Midlands in recent weeks.
The arrested man has been working with senior figures in the cartel who have been based near Birmingham for nearly a decade.
Earlier this year, a number of European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) were issued for senior members of the Kinahan cartel’s leadership.
At least two men, who have been running the cartel’s drug and gun enterprise, have been named on the legal documents and are wanted here for questioning in relation to seven murders and significant drug seizures.
UK police are also helping gardaí track down a number of other senior figures who have fled Ireland in recent months.
The men who have left Ireland are considered high-ranking members of the Irish Kinahan organised crime gang. While there has been a number of significant arrests and charges in relation to some alleged feud murders, gardaí see the potential arrests of these men as a serious blow to the cartel.
These are the men who order gangland murders and also direct where and when shipments of drugs are to arrive into Ireland. They also then order where drug consignments are to be cut, packaged and eventually distributed across the country.
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