Seven jailed over international cocaine smuggling operation

Seven men who conspired to import more than 600kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of €42m (£36.2m) have all been jailed for between 10 and 12 years in the Republic of Ireland.

Three of the men on board a ship containing the drugs that travelled from the Amazon and docked off the coast of County Clare were Filipino.

The other four men, with addresses in the UK, were part of a "landing cell" that was intended to collect the drugs with an inflatable boat and take them to a location in County Kerry.

The three men from the Philippines are 36-year-old Hanz Pangahin, 44-year-old Christopher Ampo and 29-year-old Feljon Lao. They were each sentenced to 10 and a half years.

Miljan Koprivica, 46, of Bollin Drive in Manchester, was sentenced to 12 years.

Conor Costello, 31, of Earhart Park, Madamsbank Road in County Londonderry, was sentenced to 10 and a half years.

Gary Monks, 40, of Amulree Place, Glasgow in Scotland, was sentenced to 10 years.

Ryan Watson, 32, of Mailerbeg Gardens, Modiesburn in Glasgow, was sentenced to 10 and a half years.

All seven men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import drugs between 18 December 2024 and 15 January 2025 and were operating in "structured and organised" cells under the control of others.

Det Insp Boyce said the ship subsequently anchored in the Shannon Estuary on 12 January.

As the ship was sailing to Irish shores, Watson, Monks, Costello and Koprivica arrived into Ireland on separate dates after 6 January.

These men were arrested on 12 January on a rigid inflatable boat at Meenogahane pier in County Kerry after collecting the cocaine from the MV Royal and dropping it to Carrigaholt Pier in County Clare.

Their phones were seized and examined. This led gardaí (Irish police) to identify the MV Royal.

A team from Revenue and Customs, working with gardaí, boarded the ship on 15 January and arrested Lao. Pangahin and Ampo were arrested two days later.

They were a transport cell and had loaded the drugs on to the boat in Brazil.

The cocaine was located in 24 bags secured in the front of the ship.

The ship sailed under a Maltese flag.

Gardaí discovered a WhatsApp group involving someone known as "Emaar Boss", who had a Finnish SIM card and claimed to be based in Dubai.

This person was controlling the "cell" of three men on board the MV Royal, issuing instructions as to their arrangements to meet Watson, Monks, Costello and Koprivica in the inflatable.

Monks was a former British soldier who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Costello and Watson had maritime experience.

Watson, Monks, Costello and Koprivica , who were "the landing cell", were communicating with a person in charge known as "Albert", a pseudonym, who had an Argentinian SIM card.

"Everything they were doing was clearly under instruction," Det Insp Boyce said.

Boyce said someone known as "Danny Greene" was also issuing instructions to the landing cell, sending them the co-ordinates of the MV Royal on 9 January, as the ship was sailing up the west coast of Ireland.

Boyce also said that messages from Costello to "Danny Greene" showed there were "hierarchical powers in charge of these cells".

Greene outlined the roles of the men in the cells.

He also instructed them to "dump all electrics" after the job.

The judge said the men were part of a sophisticated international drug smuggling operation with cell structures and connections to Dubai, Afghanistan, Brazil and the UK.

All men had pleaded guilty and the sentence hearing outlining the case took three days.

The judge said all seven men were carefully recruited for their skills.