A man who supervised the importation of 1.5 tonnes of cocaine in west Cork five years ago has been jailed for 20 years at a London court.
Stephen Brown, who was the leader of a drugs gang operating in England, was involved in the importation of €440m worth of cocaine at Dunlough Bay.
The operation went wrong when one of the boats carrying the drugs ashore capsized.
The 46-year-old was sentenced today after pleading guilty in Britain to charges relating to the 2007 find.
Brown, of no fixed abode, had been extradited from Spain to Britain in April.
He had plotted with two other men to supply the huge consignment of cocaine to dealers across Britain.
The plot fell apart when the engine on one of the RIBs being used to transfer the drugs from a catamaran to the shore cut out, after one of the gang put diesel instead of petrol into its outboard motors.
The boat capsized in heavy seas and 62 bales of cocaine ended up in the sea off the Irish coast and were recovered by the crew of Baltimore Lifeboat.
The drugs seizure was the biggest ever made in Ireland.
