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ACROSS FIVE DAYS in September 2023, the Defence Forces and other state agencies mounted one of the most ambitious maritime operations of modern times.
Their mission resulted in the capture of the bulk carrier MV Matthew and its cargo of cocaine worth €157 million – the largest drug seizure in the history of the state.
Eight men – relative bit players in the operation – were sentenced for their part in the doomed drug trafficking plan this week, following a long trial.
On Friday, we told the inside story of the origins of the smuggling operation – how the Kinahan cartel partnered up with Iranian fundraisers for Hezbollah, and how a front company (and even a legit-looking website) was set up for the single-ship cargo company.
In this piece, we’ll hear for the first time publicly from three key players involved in the military side of the multi-agency response.
They are:
Due to personal security concerns – PERSEC in military speak – they have requested we not name them.
A stock image of the crew of the LÉ William Butler Yeats 'manning the rails'. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Thursday, 22 September
On a calm September day in 2023, the LÉ William Butler Yeats sailed around Spit Lighthouse in Cork Harbour and berthed at its base at Haulbowline Island.
Six of the crew lined the bow above the black-lettered ‘P63′ call sign in salute to the people of Cobh – a tradition dating back to the Royal Navy. Bosun whistles sounded and orders were given, heavy ropes tossed ashore and tied to bright orange bollards.
On deck the crew engaged in lighthearted chatter, smoking cigarettes and discussing plans for the 48 hours at home.
The 57 men and women of the Yeats were looking forward to Guardship Duty, a midway point in their three week patrol when they take on provisions and fresh crew.
It had been a routine patrol, monitoring fishing boats across the massive Irish Exclusive Economic Zone in the North Atlantic along with occasional surveillance of suspicious boats and ships.
They were the only Irish Navy ship fully crewed and operating. The service – then, as now – was suffering a crisis of staffing, particularly of specialist technicians, and just about able to send a patrol to sea.
As the crew were readying to get the nod to finish up, the Captain took a phone call from a senior officer in Naval Operations summoning him for an urgent chat. The skipper – a slightly-built, soft-spoken hugely experienced officer – then hastily returned to the ship.
“I briefed my crew, I briefed my officers on the situation and I told everybody to make phone calls home that they wouldn’t be talking to their families and that they wouldn’t be coming home for the weekend.”
There was a job on, and the ship had to be quickly turned around.
In just over an hour they would sail back out to sea and into the rolling Atlantic past the whitewashed lighthouse at Roches Point.
As the Yeats made headway, the crew’s quarry – the traffickers behind the multi-million euro cocaine operation – proceeded with their long-prepared plan. Further east along the coast two men were piloting the Castlemore trawler out to sea to link up with the MV Matthew, having purchased the vessel from unsuspecting local fishers.
As the Castlemore was being sailed east, the Matthew – acting as the so-called ‘mothership’ in the plan – was moving south to meet up with it, having sailed across the Atlantic from the coast of Venezuela and into the Irish Sea.
The plan was a simple one at that stage for the naval ship – head to sea and position itself in a way to monitor the MV Matthew and the Castlemore. The priority was to capture whichever vessel had the drugs on board and catch those involved red-handed.
Over previous days National Surveillance Unit Garda teams had been watching the activities of five people, including a senior Dubai based criminal, as they travelled from Dublin to Castletownbere in West Cork and bought the ailing trawler.
They reported that two men – now known to be Ukrainian Vitaliy Lapa (62) and UK national Jamie Harbron (31), both of whom were sentenced on Friday – were onboard as the fishing vessel was sailed out of the harbour in the West Cork fishing town.
Back on the Yeats the crew settled into a regime of six hours on, six hours off shifts as they began to monitor the movements of the vessels.
“We arrived at a conclusion of a fairly precise position, where we expected the Matthew and the Castlemore to either rendezvous directly or where the Matthew would make a drop off,” the captain said.
As they waited, the weather took a turn for the worse. There was another arrival from the other side of the Atlantic – the remnants of ex-hurricane Nigel, which brought heavy frontal rain and high seas.
The storm would play a pivotal role in what was now known as Operation Piano.
The Yeats, navigating the rolling waves, took up a position off the Wexford coast.
The LÉ William Butler Yeats berthed in Cobh. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Friday, 23 September
By the next day other players in the Irish Defence Forces were becoming involved, including members of Ireland’s special forces. Inside an operations room in the Army Ranger Wing compound in the Curragh Camp, Co Kildare – the Rangers were monitoring the naval operation.
“We were aware that there was something taking place that involved the Joint Task Force and that taskings may arise for us,” the ARW officer said.
As the morning progressed, the covert operation to monitor the Castlemore and the MV Matthew continued. The trawler was struggling in the high seas.
The Yeats was monitoring them as the stricken vessel moved closer to the Wexford coast. But that covert observation was becoming more and more difficult.
“The weather conditions had deteriorated considerably to the point where it was quite difficult for our sensors to fully track and maintain a contact on that vessel,” the ship’s captain said.
At one point, we did lose radar contact with the vessel and we had to conduct a search over a couple of hours in order to regain radar contact.
As the seas began to roll and the wind and rain battered Ireland, the best laid plans of the drug boat crew and the security personnel watching them took a particularly dramatic turn.
The news came in at 11pm – the Castlemore had run aground on a sand bank off Wexford.
Onboard the trawler men were using phones to communicate with their Dubai-based handlers as the vessel took in water. At first they were told not to seek help, but eventually – after a cover story had been cooked up – a decision was made to seek aid and a distress signal was sent out.
Saturday, 24 September
Over the next couple of hours, the Yeats crew diverted to their rescue mission.
The two men aboard the trawler, now suffering with severe sea sickness, were taken by Coast Guard helicopter to the naval ship to be greeted on board by gardaí and Customs officers.
An RNLI vessel from Kilmore Quay attempted to pull the Castlemore off the sandbank, but that effort failed and the boat was declared a loss.
The last thing the Dubai-based gangsters did was remove the men – Lapa and Harbron – from the Signal and Whatsapp groups being used to run the operation.
The ship’s captain said he ordered his crew to care for the men and they were given dry clothes. In keeping with seafaring laws and tradition the drenched clothing they were wearing when they were rescued was washed and dried. They were also given food and medical checks.
The pair would ultimately be transferred to land and arrested by gardaí and questioned – the detention process complicated by the secrecy of the operation.
Back in Kildare, the ARW had been alerted that there was a need for a team to fly down on board an Air Corps helicopter to survey the scene.
Monday, 25 September
Searches that had been started close to the Castlemore to ensure that no drugs had gone overboard continued throughout Monday.
Members of the Army Ranger wing had been unable to gain access to the stranded Castlemore because of the waves, so instead headed back to land and set up shop at Waterford Airport as they awaited further instructions.
An Irish Air Corps image of the wrecked Castlemore off Wexford. Irish Defence Forces
Irish Defence Forces
The navy searched the area for contraband as the various authorities attempted to determine whether the drugs had been on the Castlemore or were still on the Matthew.
As the Yeats continued its monitoring of the movements of the MV Matthew, chaos was breaking out onboard the bulk carrier as those involved in the smuggling operation realised their plan for how to get the drugs ashore had fallen apart.
The captain of the Matthew, an Iranian national, Soheil Jelveh, was airlifted off the ship claiming to be suffering from a medical emergency.
Phone traffic analysed as part of the investigation showed he was struggling to keep his composure. The trial later heard that he told gardaí that there was a crew member there to kill him if the operation went badly and that his own family were in danger in Dubai.
Tuesday, 26 September
1am to 5am
The Navy Ship’s Captain said that at 1am in the morning on 26 September he was “given immediate instructions to proceed at best speed to approach the MV Matthew off the Waterford coast and be prepared to conduct a maritime interdiction operation”.
The plan initially was to use a boarding party from the Yeats in what is known as a ‘compliant boarding’.
There was a contingency plan to have the ARW on standby if it became a ‘non-compliant’ scenario.
5am to 7am
The Yeats intercepted the MV Matthew off the Wexford coast and made contact on the radio.
A voice from the ship told them they were unable to comply with any instructions.
“The initial reports that came back from the Matthew was that they had suffered an engine breakdown,” the Yeats captain said.
“They would need a minimum of 48 hours to affect repairs to the engines and they’d have to do so in situ and weren’t in a position to move or comply with any instructions to proceed to Cork Harbour.”
In a typically understated military delivery, he added: “There was a lot of back and forth between myself and the representative on the Matthew.”
7am to 8.30am
The ARW officer said that at 7am they received a “warning order” from the Defence Forces operations commander. A warning order or WARNO is a direction that tells a unit to prepare for a mission. The Rangers were told that they were to prepare to launch a maritime interdiction.
Members of the unit had practised the manoeuvres to achieve the mission on an almost annual basis. The Journal joined them on one such exercise off the East Coast and saw them launch an attack on a similar cargo ship on that occasion using three helicopters, and rigid inflatable hulled fast boats.
On this occasion only one Air Corps helicopter was available and it was the Athlone based air ambulance. It was stripped out of its medical equipment and repurposed.
A team of Rangers were immediately sent to Casement Aerodrome at Baldonnel – they were told their job was simple, to act as an immediate armed response if the situation deteriorated rapidly.
The Ranger Wing also moved support teams including medics and specialist communications experts to Waterford Airport. They also deployed helicopter refuelling technicians.
8.30am to 1pm
The Irish Air Corps helicopter pilot we spoke to received a phone call on the morning of the operation from his Chief of Air Operations and was told he’d be needed to assist the ARW in a maritime interdiction of the Matthew.
He rang the ARW commander and they came up with a quick plan. The pilot and his team, including ground staff in Baldonnel, readied the aircraft.
They loaded a general purpose machine gun (GPMG), equipped their protective armour and loaded their personal weapons.
The helicopter pilot said that there were discussions about the most likely insertion point on the Matthew, how they would perform the mission and what risks they may encounter.
The Army Ranger Wing members went through their final checklists too, before the mission began.
The ARW officer who spoke to us said they received a briefing from the Customs and Defence Forces lawyers which “confirmed their rules of engagement and as to how they will deploy for the conduct of this specific operation”.
The Rangers were sworn in as temporary customs officers to fulfil the legal requirements for them taking over a ship at sea. They checked and rechecked their equipment – some sitting quietly, others chatting – as they prepared mentally for the task ahead.
Back at the Yeats, the back and forth between the MV Matthew and the Navy ship appeared to be resulting in some progress and at 9am the Matthew agreed to make for Cork Harbour.
The State planned a boarding there.
“Things kind of calmed down a small bit and it looked like things were going our way and in the next couple of hours we would make landfall in Cork and we’d be able to do what needed to be done,” the captain of the Yeats said.
It soon became apparent, however, that the Matthew may instead be heading for open seas.
“It was reported to me by one of the officers of the watch that in fact the Matthew wasn’t headed for Cork Harbour and that his course was proceeding more or less southerly and that now we had a bigger problem on our hands,” the captain said.
The helicopter pilot said that he and his crew with the initial Ranger Wing boarding party took off from Baldonnel and headed south towards Waterford around 11am.
At sea, the Yeats’ captain and a Customs officer who was on the bridge of the ship, continued to hail the Matthew on the radio – repeatedly telling them to head for Cork.
They continuously refused.
“They maintained their course and speed, which was taking them outside of the Irish area of operations and it soon became apparent that they were making their way for Sierra Leone in West Africa.”
The Yeats captain could tell the Matthew’s intended destination by checking data from an open source ship tracker.
“It was apparent to me then that I was in hot pursuit of that ship,” he said.
I was authorised to use force, if necessary to get that vessel to comply with my instruction.
That was another understatement from the Captain. This was the moment when the state legally reached the point where it was persmissible to board and detain the vessel. It was also the moment when he could order his crew to open fire.
Gardaí later found evidence in phone traffic that the MV Matthew crew was communicating directly with their criminal controllers in Dubai who directed them to run for open water.
In line with procedure the Yeats changed its call sign to ‘Warship 63′ to signal it was entering a new phase of the operation.
Onboard the Yeats, the Captain was running through the next measures in seconds in his head. He was calculating the best tactic to bring the Matthew to heel.
Ultimately I arrived at the decision that force needed to be used.
“I started to employ warning shots from crew-operated weapons in order to force their compliance. And so we’re up at about 1pm in the afternoon now or shortly beforehand, two salvoes of warning shots were issued and delivered to no effect.”
He said that he could escalate his use of force – starting with smaller weapons first and then move up, eventually to the big deck gun on the bow of the ship. He told The Journal that he was running the calculus in his mind about hitting the Matthew to disable it, shooting a critical part of the vessel.
The firing would get closer to the ship and more lethal as it escalated.
“It didn’t get to that situation. About ten minutes before the SOF [Special Operations Force] insertion with the Air Corps, I was instructed to cease fire and to stand by to provide support to the air and SOF assets that were arriving on scene.”
Things had become very serious very quickly. “And everybody understood that. I think the guys in the Matthew understood that, but they were still making every effort they could to escape and evade.
That was their mission. I had mine, and it came to a head.
The Air Corps pilot said that as he and his crew, along with the Ranger Wing members, sat in their helicopter preparing to launch they got news that an Air Corps CASA C235 plane was in the skies above the Matthew and had a radar fix on it.
To take things to the next stage, they needed a nod from then-Tánaiste and Defence Minister Micheál Martin. That approval came.
Whatever was going to happen next was now in the hands of the Air Corps pilots and the Ranger Wing.
“We got a green light for the mission. And so we spun up the aircraft with the first air assault team. We were put on hold for a few minutes just as certain issues were worked out, and then we launched approximately thirteen-hundred hours for the airborne assault,” the pilot said.
The Air Corps helicopter begins the ARW insertion. Irish Defence Forces
Irish Defence Forces
They flew south out of Waterford and picked up radar contact with the Matthew 25 nautical miles off the south-west coast.
The pilot said that the plan all along was that it would be the so-called ‘compliant boarding’ but that option became more remote as the seconds ticked by.
“We thought they would comply with us as we went in.”
He continued: “Fifteen miles out we got visual with Matthew and the Yeats, we had set up at that point for a fastrope off the right hand side of the aircraft.
Rapidly in the helicopter the Air Corps gunner changed his machine gun to the other side of the aircraft and a Ranger Wing sniper also moved. This would help them cover the team as they roped down.
The helicopter flew in low with the CASA in a show of force that was designed to get the crew of the MV Matthew to comply.
“We’ve got 35-40 knots coming across the deck as we’re getting ready to put ropes on, the swell was pitching and rolling the vessel.
So it wasn’t perfect to go on to the deck and it was very challenging with antennas, we’d high cranes left and right and so it made us do probably the highest fast rope we’ve ever done onto a vessel.
The first Ranger, like the rest of his team wearing a specialist green immersion suit, grabbed the rope with his hands and feet. His HK 416 gun hanging on a sling, he dropped to the deck, guided by the rope.
The second Ranger put his hands onto the rope to begin his descent – the operator below him raising his gun to his shoulder, covering his colleague.
With water bursting across the bow of the ship, the deck was soaked and as slippery as an ice rink.
The second chalk of Army Ranger Wing operators boards the MV Matthew. In the doorway of the bridge an operator stands guard. Irish Defence Forces
Irish Defence Forces
1pm to 6pm
The MV Matthew fought back.
“As the deployment started the vessel turned, then probably around the second man going off the rope into the third man she basically turned left hard into us,” the helicopter pilot said.
“It severely complicated the insertion and the risk obviously went up significantly. We were able to maintain position and to basically get all the team on that we wanted.”
Throughout his interview the pilot spoke in a calm, measured voice, as if describing walking in the woods on a summer’s day. The reality was that he was just feet from disaster.
The tactic with these sorts of insertions is that the team, in this instance just less than ten, get onto the deck and begin advancing to the bridge of the ship. The helicopter usually drops down equipment bags, such as tools for cutting metal doors and other kit – but that wasn’t possible aboard the Matthew.
The helicopter needed to move away from the ship because it was starting to become too dangerous to remain in position.
“It was quite challenging maritime conditions with 35/40 knots across the deck – she’s rolling and pitching with these two big [crane] masts that are very, very close.
“And then, you know, they decide to turn into us. So we’re constantly moving trying to hold our position, trying to maintain our position.
Asked what would happen if one of the crane masts made contact with the helicopter he responded, matter-of-factly: “If we clip the blade, you know, we’re gone and in the best case, we might get to ditch it onto the vessel, push it into the sea … But it’s not good.”
On the deck of the Matthew, things were proceeding more-or-less as planned.
“Realistically, I think within about five minutes of the first personnel being on the deck, we had control of the vessel and we were able to report within 40 minutes that the vessel was fully secured,” the ARW officer said.
The Rangers made their way to the bridge where Filipino national Harold Estoesta (31) was acting as the one-man effort to try and save the trafficking operation. The man steering the vessel as the helicopter hovered was Ukrainian Vitali Vlasoi (32).
Entering, they took control of the bridge and one of the team, qualified in driving a ship, pointed the vessel in the direction for Cork Harbour.
But outside the windows, there was a fire blazing in a lifeboat.
The drug traffickers had used paint thinner as fuel to burn the cocaine. Quick thinking Rangers doused the blaze and prevented the destruction of the massive haul.
The ARW officer explained the process of taking the ship: “The priority generally will be to take the vessel underway, to control the vessel.
“That’s to dominate the people that are on the vessel, take control of some key spaces on the vessel. That means it can’t be steered in a different direction.
“It can’t be rammed into another vessel, or it can’t be scuttled.”
Army Ranger Wing operators on the MV Matthew as it arrives into Cork Harbour. Alamy
Alamy
The ARW officer said there are strict rules around how the use of force can be escalated in such missions.
“The lads moved very quickly to dominate and to be honest with you the psychological effect — particularly for personnel who were seamen who are not involved in criminal activity seeing this happening — can be quite intimidating.”
The ARW officer said that a lot of their preparation was around finding ways to mitigate risk but on Operation Piano it was impossible to limit all risk.
They contacted other state agencies, such as the Coast Guard and ambulance service to make sure that if it all went wrong the rescue services would be available.
There is constant reference by the three interviewees of learning from past experiences.
On the mission there was only one helicopter available. When The Journal reported on a training exercise previously, there were three helicopters.
Asked about the Air Corps helicopter being adapted at short-notice from its Air Ambulance function, the Air Corps pilot said:
Whatever way the ball hops on the day, you just have to deal with it.
The ship’s captain spoke of the atmosphere on the navy ship during the mission.
“It was incredibly dynamic, you know. Just from dealing with the weather conditions. And to deal with a search and rescue, to surveill two ships simultaneously whilst remaining covert ourselves. It was incredibly demanding of everybody on board.
“At the end of the day, we had the assets that we had and it was the people that made it work and I had my guys on rolling six hour shifts for more than 72 hours.
“There was a period where the entire crew was up for 24 hours.”
For the ship’s captain he said it was through the “maximum effort” that the MV Matthew mission succeeded.
“This is a massive win for the State, Navy, Air Corps, Army, ARW. Guards, JTF, Customs and Excise.
“There was a lot of things happened in that mission that nobody would have thought of prior [...] and it was only people’s ability to think on their feet and people’s ability to stay up and stay awake and stay alert and stay motivated, that was the key.”
The ARW Officer said that the key learning for Ireland’s special forces was that in many respects their concepts and tactics were correct.
“It’s kind of reinforced a lot of things that we were doing right so like this capability has been developed over almost twenty years and it’s a hugely complicated thing.”
The Ranger Wing, the officer said, have taken some “key after-action review points and lessons” and now have added them to their operations.
The MV Matthew is escorted to Cork. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
6pm
On the evening of the 26 September The Journal was in Cobh and stood with a number of former and serving members of the Naval Service who had been following the news and came out to see the ship come in, escorted by the Yeats. There was a jovial atmosphere as the off-duty navy sailors looked on.
Up on the bridge and on deck the Army Ranger Wing operators were visible – masked up for the most part and at strategic points across the deck. Outside the harbour, as the sea state eased, an extra team of naval personnel were brought to the ship to guide her home.
It has been a bruising few years for the Naval Service and the Defence Forces but the MV Matthew raid was a rare positive in a tale of under-resourcing and neglect.
The last act of the mission was to see two RHIBs from the Navy escort the battered hulk past Cobh and on past Haulbowline Naval Base.
The Yeats had sailed out in the opposite direction just five days earlier, to little notice.
This time, the terraces of the town were full of people, welcoming home the crew and their Ranger Wing colleagues.
The MV Matthew was berthed at Marino Point, at the site of the former Irish Fertilisers Plant.
An Garda Síochána took over at that point and the Ranger Wing operators walked off the gang plank and down onto the quayside. Their last act was to gather in a group – a routine they refer to as a ‘circle of truth’ – where they did a hasty debrief.
The stand down for Operation Piano had been given.
Detective Superintendent Keith Halley and his team at the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau was about to begin the painstaking work of pulling together the investigation file.
****
Reporter: Niall O’Connor • Editor: Daragh Brophy • Production: Nicky Ryan • Social Media: Cliodhna Travers • Main Image Design: Lorcan O’Reilly
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