A MAN in his 20s was being questioned in Wexford Garda station last night following the seizure of cannabis resin with an estimated street value of £3.84 million.
The 380kg of cannabis was found in the water tank of an articulated lorry's refrigeration unit. It was carrying lettuce which apparently came from Spain.
The lorry had been on the Cherbourg ferry which docked in Rosslare at around 9.30 a.m. yesterday.
The Garda investigation will now try to establish the intended destination of the haul.
Customs officers carrying out routine "profiling" of traffic from the ferry stopped the truck and its driver.
A spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners said he was not aware if they had information that the truck might be carrying drugs.
Asked whether the British police had any involvement, he said this was a "purely customs operation".
Customs officers used a probe at the end of a fibre optic cable which allowed them to ascertain that a water tank used to supply the refrigeration unit, had within it another sealed tank. The drugs were in this second tank.
Such searches for hidden compartments using fibre optic technology are now common.
The driver, who is from Co Louth, is being held under the Criminal Justice Act (Drug Trafficking) 1996, which allows gardai to hold him for up to seven days.
The customs spokesman said the truck had driven through Spain and France before boarding the ferry at Cherbourg.
The cannabis resin was in 250kg bars, wrapped in cellophane.
"Because it came from Spain that indicates it may be North African in origin," the spokesman said.
The largest cannabis find to date was last November when 1,200kg of cannabis was found on board a boat at Kilrush, Co Clare.
Large cannabis hauls are kept by gardai until all legal actions related to the finds are completed. They are then destroyed. In the past large quantities of cannabis have been burnt in ESB peat burning stations in the midlands.