Machine Guns and €700,000 Worth of Narcotics Recovered in Cross-Border Garda Operation

Two men arrested after weekend raids across counties Kildare and Laois uncovered a cache of military-style weapons and substantial drug quantities.

Machine Guns and €700,000 Worth of Narcotics Recovered in Cross-Border Garda Operation

Machine Guns and €700,000 Worth of Narcotics Recovered in Cross-Border Garda Operation

A joint enforcement sweep across counties Kildare and Laois has netted eleven high-powered weapons and illicit substances valued at over €700,000. Two suspects in their forties were taken into custody and later appeared before a judge in Athy.

The weekend action, spanning July 10 through 12, formed part of Operation Tara, a sustained crackdown on organised racketeering. Units from the national drugs and organised crime directorate spearheaded the effort, drawing on reinforcements from the eastern division, Dublin's crime response squad, and the heavily armed emergency response unit.

Six separate premises were searched. Among the haul were automatic weapons, submachine pistols, seven handguns of different manufacturers, bullets, and sound suppressors. Drug packages contained heroin, cocaine, and cannabis.

The initial breakthrough came late on Friday when officers located a weapon inside a storage unit in Newbridge. The following day, follow-up searches in Athy and Laois produced ten additional firearms.

Both detainees were held under Section 50 of the 2007 Criminal Justice Act at stations in the Midlands. The weapons are slated for ballistics testing by the force's technical bureau, while chemical analysis of the narcotics will be performed by Forensic Science Ireland.

Angela Willis, an assistant commissioner for serious and organised crime, praised the outcome as a major setback for criminal networks. She credited intelligence-driven tactics and cooperation between domestic and international law enforcement partners. The operation aligns with wider European priorities under EMPACT, the continental platform for combating cross-border criminal threats.

Source: Kildare Nationalist

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)