The Kinahan cartel has been taking advantage of Donegal’s low-security coastline for drug smuggling, a BBC investigation has revealed.
The discovery of cocaine washed up on the north coast of Donegal in 2023 has been linked to a much larger shipment of the drug, which is thought to have been successfully landed at a Donegal pier.
It was headline news when bales of cocaine washed up on Tramore in Dunfanaghy in July 2023. The 36kilos have been valued at €4million.
The small fortune was thought to be lost at sea by smugglers transferring them from a large vessel onto a smaller landing boat.
July 2023: Garda forensic officers examine the drugs cache discoverd by a beach walker at a remote beach in North Donegal. (NW Newspix)
BBC Spotlight now reveals that the traffickers paid €100,000 for a fishing boat days before the transfer.
The boat met with a large cargo ship, believed to be from Colombia, to collect a half a tonne drop off the north west coast of Donegal and land it at Magheraroarty pier.
About £30 million worth of cocaine was transferred to a waiting van and driven away in “minutes”, journalist Darragh MacIntyre reveals.
MacIntyre said: “The cartels are relentless. We’ve been told that the Kinahans are centrally involved there (in the Donegal shipment).”
Ireland’s vulnerable waters were labelled as a “narcotic superhighway” in ‘The Cocaine Mothership’ documentary airing on BBC One Northern Ireland tonight at 8pm.
Cathal Berry, an ex-Irish Army commandant said: “The narcotic superhighway comes right across the Atlantic and one of the first countries it reaches is Ireland. Our territorial waters are a free-for-all really, it’s like the Wild West out there.”
Six attempts at drug smuggling into and through Ireland have been uncovered by gardaí in the last two years.
Due to a shortage of sailors, the Irish Navy may only have one or two ships at sea at any given time to patrol the coastline.
The joint investigation by BBC Spotlight and Panorama also examined links between international cartels and a 2.2 tonne shipment of cocaine found on board the MV Matthew cargo ship off the Irish coast in 2023.
Eight men have been jailed for their roles in the €157m (£135m) cocaine seizure, which was the largest in the history of the Irish state.
The cargo ship and drug haul is said to be headed by the Kinahan cartel, according to Seamus Boland, Detective Chief Superintendent of Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.
“I think it’s safe to say from our investigations we’d be satisfied that the Kinahan organised crime group is absolutely involved in this importation,” Det Chief Supt Boland said.
Spotlight asks if law enforcement can keep up with the transatlantic cocaine trade.
The Maritime Analysis Operations Centre (MAOC), which polices the transatlantic drug trade, says 100 vessels suspected of trafficking drugs to Europe were not intercepted last year because of a lack of resources.
BBC Spotlight: The Cocaine Mothership is available to watch now on the BBC iPlayer (Click here, UK residents only) and will air this Monday at 8pm on BBC One Northern Ireland.
Kinahan cartel behind huge Donegal drug smuggling ring – claim was last modified: September 9th, 2025 by Staff Writer