TWO FIRST-time drug couriers, who abandoned €245,000 worth of drugs and spent a day and a half walking from Kildare to Dublin, were each sentenced to four years in prison at Mullingar Circuit Court yesterday.
Jason Bertles (31), Iona Villas, Athlone, and William “Tom” Quinn (27), Brawny Square, Athlone, were sent to collect a package from Johnstownbridge and return to Athlone on May 11th, 2007.
Both men were to be paid €500 to collect what they believed to be a few kilos of cannabis. The package was later found to contain 25 kilos of cannabis and one kilo of cocaine.
The men set off with Quinn using his own car and Bertles using his own mobile to arrange a meeting with a man in Johnstownbridge, Enfield, Co Kildare.
However, before the pair arrived in Johnstownbridge, Det Garda John Costello had noticed the pair acting suspiciously as he drove an unmarked squad car on the Dublin-Galway motorway.
He followed the men who, on noticing the squad car, panicked and abandoned their vehicle and Quinn’s keys at Dunfierth Park housing estate in Johnstownbridge. The pair then took off through fields and walked the railway line to Connolly station in Dublin.
Gardaí later searched the vehicle and discovered the drugs in the boot of the car. Gardaí in Athlone were able to identify the two men from Det Garda Costello’s description.
When the two men arrived in Dublin, they called the man who had sent them to collect the drugs. He drove to Dublin and brought the pair to the home of one of their relatives in Ennis, Co Clare, where he gave them €1,000 each.
From there the pair fled to London but quickly ran out of money and decided to return home. Bertles was arrested during a Garda search of a house in Co Longford on May 20th. Quinn handed himself in to the Garda the following day.
Both men admitted to the offence and told gardaí they had collected the drugs from a man in a red transit van at Johnstownbridge shortly before abandoning their car.
Ken Fogarty, defending Bertles, described the men’s efforts as “ham-fisted” and said the pair had walked for a day and a half to Connolly station with only three or four euros between them. “Their involvement in the drugs trade appears at best to be a ham-fisted effort,” he told Judge Anthony Kennedy.
According to Det Aidan Lyons, the men were “total amateurs” who, he believed, had never been involved in the drugs trade before.
Judge Kennedy agreed saying “the execution of their mission was hugely inept” and their “attempt at doing a runner is somewhat pathetic”.
He described the offence as out of character for the defendants and commended Det Garda Costello for his excellent police work.