Record £2m cannabis seizure from lorry in Carrickfergus
PSNI drug squad officers searched a lorry on Woodburn Road in Carrickfergus on 5 August 2003 and seized cannabis with an estimated value of £2 million, then the largest seizure in Northern Ireland. Three men appeared in Belfast Magistrate's Court the next day; police believed the load was bound for loyalist paramilitaries.
🇬🇧 Woodburn Road, Carrickfergus, County Antrim · United Kingdom
Drug squad officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland searched a
lorry on Woodburn Road in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, on Tuesday 5 August
2003 and seized cannabis with an estimated street value of £2 million.[1]Superintendent George McCauley, head of the PSNI drug squad, called the
find a tremendous success and said it was the single largest seizure of
cannabis ever made in Northern Ireland.[1]The Northern Ireland minister
Jane Kennedy later confirmed in Parliament that £2 million of cannabis seized
that August was the largest seizure of the drug in Northern Ireland.[2]
Four men were initially questioned by police over the find.[1]The next
day Stephen Spence, 28, from Belfast, Stephen Martin, 40, from Carrickfergus,
and Nigel Carter, 36, from Fleetwood in England appeared before Belfast
Magistrate’s Court after being arrested in connection with the seizure,
which the court report valued at £2.5 million.[3]Police believed the
drugs were bound for the hands of loyalist paramilitaries.[3]All three
were released on bail on condition they report regularly to the PSNI and to
police in Fleetwood.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
No weight for the seized cannabis is published in the opened sources.
The seizure-day report and the minister both give £2 million, while the court report calls it a £2.5 million find, and this report uses the police figure.
Four men were initially questioned, but only three appeared in court, and no outcome for the fourth is reported.
The minister's answer also records a separate £250,000 cannabis resin seizure in Belfast that September, a different event left out here.
No photograph of the seizure with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
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