DRUGS VALUED at more than €1 million and four machine guns have been seized by gardaí, while five suspects have been arrested in separate operations focused on organised crime.
The most significant of the operations was the discovery of four Ingram machine pistols at a unit in the Damastown Industrial Estate, Mulhuddart, Dublin.
The guns were found with ammunition, magazines and four silencers.
A man in his 30s is being detained under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act at Kevin Street Garda station in Dublin.
The suspect is linked to one of two gangs involved in a gangland feud in the neighbouring south Dublin suburbs of Crumlin and Drimnagh that has cost at least a dozen lives in the past decade.
As part of a follow-up operation following the find in Mulhuddart on Wednesday evening, a number of addresses linked to the gang were searched in the Dublin 8 area of the south inner city.
The operation was carried out by the central detective units in the Garda’s Dublin south central division, assisted by the emergency response unit.
In an unrelated operation, gardaí have found cannabis plants and herbal cannabis in two houses in Castleknock in west Dublin.
Members of the Garda National Drugs Unit and gardaí from the Blanchardstown drugs unit found 45kg of herbal cannabis valued at €550,000 in one of the houses.
At the second property, the Garda search team discovered 8kg of herbal cannabis valued at €96,000 and 600 cannabis plants valued at about €240,000.
Both of the properties raided on Wednesday had been fitted with sophisticated irrigation and heating systems needed to grow cannabis plants.
A Vietnamese man was arrested at one of the houses during Wednesday’s search.
Yesterday a Vietnamese father and son were also arrested at a house in Blanchardstown as part of the same operation. Cannabis valued at about €150,000 was seized at the house they were arrested in.
In an unrelated operation, an alleged cocaine importer was arrested yesterday and taken for questioning to Pearse Street Garda station in Dublin.
The Nigerian national was questioned about his alleged role in conspiring to import cocaine into the State using eastern European couriers. They are believed to have carried about €500,000 worth of the drug at a time through Irish airports.