A CONSIGNMENT of herbal cannabis valued at more than €2 million has been seized by the police in Greece in an operation aided by the Garda and PSNI.
The haul was seized when a truck driven by a Northern Irish man was stopped near Athens and some 100kg of the drug was found in the vehicle.
The 36-year-old driver, who was believed to be about to drive the cannabis back to Ireland, was arrested and is being held by the Greek authorities.
In a follow-up operation, the Greek police went to commercial premises in Athens where a search yielded a similar-sized haul.
There were three arrests, all of Greek nationals, at the Athens warehouse.
In Northern Ireland, the PSNI carried out four searches related to the seizure and arrested a 34- year-old man from the North.
Gardaí carried out searches in Finglas, Dublin, and in Allenwood, Co Kildare. No arrests were made.
Garda and PSNI sources said intelligence had been gathered here as part of a cross-Border operation, and believed the drugs were destined for sale on both sides of the Border.
A Dublin criminal living in Kildare was the target of the search operations here.
News of the seizure in Greece, which took place on Tuesday, emerged yesterday during the ninth Garda-PSNI cross-Border conference on organised crime held in Gormanston, Co Meath.
