GARDAÍ HAVE seized heroin valued at more than €1 million and discovered a cannabis growing facility on a remote farm in two separate operations in Dublin and Wicklow.
Three men have been arrested and are being questioned in connection with the finds.
During the operation in Co Wicklow gardaí found a sophisticated cannabis growing facility and 400 cannabis plants worth an estimated €250,000.
Garda sources said the plants were capable of producing several crops every year meaning the operation found yesterday could produce cannabis valued at up to €1 million annually.
The Garda National Drugs Unit and gardaí from Baltinglass were alerted to the growing facility by Revenue’s Customs officers.
The Customs officials had gone to a shed on a farm at Donard in west Co Wicklow to search for laundered fuels when they found the cannabis growing.
The location was sealed off and the investigation taken over by the Garda.
As well as the 400 plants discovered at the site, gardaí also found a heating and irrigation system, which was being used to hothouse the crop in the industrial sized growing operation.
Stores of fertiliser for the plants were also found in the shed as well as a compressor. Gardaí believe the compressor was being used to pack harvested cannabis into compact portions, making it easier to transport.
Gardaí arrested a 36-year-old man at the scene. He was detained under Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act and was taken for questioning to Naas Garda station.
The man is from Ireland and lives in Co Wicklow. Gardaí are trying to establish if he is linked to the drugs or if the shed where the growing facility was found was being rented to another person.
Garda sources said while an estimate of 400 plants had been put on yesterday’s find, such was the size of the facility it will undergo further searching today before a final total is reached.
The Co Wicklow find is the latest in a series of major cannabis growing facilities to be uncovered in the Republic. Many have been found close to the Border and have been linked to Asian gangs whose main operations have been in Northern Ireland.
However, a smaller number of more recent finds, including a facility found in a house in the village of Carrigans in Co Donegal in January and another in Ashbourne in Co Meath last week, have involved Irish people.
In a separate operation on Tuesday night, two men were arrested in connection with the seizure of heroin with an estimated street value of €1.2 million in west Dublin.
The men, aged 22 and 38, were arrested in Tallaght after the discovery of the drugs during searches of two properties in the Kilclare housing estate.
The search operations were part of a wider investigation, Operation Creeper, into serious crime and burglaries.
It was established by Assistant Commissioner Mick Feehan, who is in charge of policing in Dublin, to target crime gangs across the city, along the M50 from north Dublin to Wicklow.
The two men arrested in Tallaght are being detained under Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act at Tallaght Garda station.