{"id":571579,"date":"2026-07-28T05:39:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/571579\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T05:39:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:39:19","slug":"lorry-driver-who-imported-more-than-e1m-of-cannabis-through-dublin-port-is-jailed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/571579\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorry driver who imported more than \u20ac1m of cannabis through Dublin Port is jailed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A truck driver has been jailed for five years for importing more than a million euro worth of cannabis through Dublin Port<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andrew Cooley (32) said he had transported the drugs as a result of a threat from drug dealers to whom he previously owed a debt, although that had been repaid a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

Cooley, of Ballyoran, Dundalk<\/a>, Co Louth<\/a>, was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court where he pleaded guilty to importing more than 50kg of cannabis at the port on June 7th last year.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Judge Elma Sheahan imposed a seven-year sentence with the final 24 months suspended on strict conditions.<\/p>\n

The court heard how the articulated lorry and refrigerated trailer Cooley was driving was stopped at the port that day and he was asked if he had anything to declare. He said he did not and that he was carrying Amazon goods.<\/p>\n

However, the inspector smelled cannabis. Thirty-one packages of the drug were found under clothing. They had a street value of \u20ac1,007,000.<\/p>\n

Cooley took ownership of the drugs, but said he did not know the value, telling garda\u00ed he did not have a weighing scale, and estimated it was worth \u201c10 grand\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was asked who was going to come looking for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t give a f**k,\u201d Cooley said. \u201cI don\u2019t have a family. They took that away from me. My kids will be better off. It\u2019s all mine. I\u2019ll smoke it all tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court was told he had eight previous convictions, mainly for road traffic matters, and had been disqualified from driving twice.<\/p>\n

The court heard he had previously been known to garda\u00ed as a drug user and had built up a debt 10 years ago. As a result of this, his parents\u2019 home had been petrol-bombed.<\/p>\n

His parents settled this debt and he had been clean of drugs since 2016 and was no longer on the Garda radar.<\/p>\n

However, his defence team said he had become involved in this offence when the same party, to whom he had previously owed the debt, found out he was driving a lorry for a living.<\/p>\n

He went into custody after this incident and a Garda information form (GIM) was served on his family members. This is an official written document issued by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to alert an individual of a credible, imminent threat to their life or safety.<\/p>\n

Cooley got compassionate bail in February when his mother died. His legal team said her death and the serving of the GIM form on his family had been a wake-up call for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A truck driver has been jailed for five years for importing more than a million euro worth of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3468,45,13553,51250,43925,9690,61,60,9689,43],"class_list":["post-571579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-amazon","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-circuit-court","tag-criminal-courts","tag-dublin-port","tag-dundalk","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-louth","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}