Over €2 million worth of cannabis has been found in Co Laois hidden in a consignment of vegetables.
At 9.30am on Monday morning, gardaí responded to a report of “unusual activity” on a rural road in the village of Emo outside a storage facility.
On arrival, officers searched the storage facility and its surrounding areas. They focused on a number of pallets containing boxes of vegetables which had been unloaded from an articulated lorry.
These boxes were searched and found to contain 121 kilogrammes of herbal cannabis which was hidden under the vegetables. The drugs are awaiting analysis but gardaí put an estimated value on the consignment at €2,180,000.
A man aged in his 20s was arrested at the scene and is currently detained under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 in Portlaoise Garda Station. The Garda said in a statement the seizure was part of its national anti-drugs strategy called Operation Tara, “which aims to disrupt drug trafficking networks involved in the sale, supply and distribution of controlled drugs at local, national and international level”.
