An Garda Síochána, Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau celebrates 10 years

The Garda Síochána, Garda National Drugs, and Organised Crime Bureau have been dedicated to maintaining public safety for a decade, as of March 2025.

On March 9, 2015, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau was created.

After ten years, the GNDOCB has taken €627 million in illegal substances, Cash €33,284,931, €385,591 GBP, $59,721 USD, and €20,103,030 forfeited to the state, 171 firearms and 6,586 rounds of ammunition; 1,722 arrests for drug trafficking, money laundering, firearm possession, and other offences.

The GNDOCB has intervened in multiple “threat to life” operations in which criminal gangs targeted individuals.

Operation Tara and Thor: How Gardaí are targeting drug networks and repeat offenders

To disrupt, dismantle, and prosecute drug trafficking networks at all levels—international, national, and local—that are involved in the importation, distribution, manufacturing, cultivation, local sale, and supply of controlled substances, the GNDOCB is leading Operation Tara. Operation Tara focuses enforcement efforts on drug-trafficking people and organisations based on intelligence and current criminal patterns.

To combat street-level trafficking in the nation’s cities, towns, and villages, the GNDOCB coordinates and supports Divisional Drugs Units.

Additionally, the GNDOCB supports the government-led health response to drug addiction and the well-established Drug Related Intimidation Reporting Programme run by An Garda Síochána.

Through enforcement operations based on intelligence and the most recent burglary patterns, the GNDOCB coordinates and supports Divisional resources actively targeting repeat offenders and organised criminal groups, especially those involved in rural burglaries and crimes, as part of Operation Thor.

Through the Joint Task Force on Drug Interdiction, the Criminal Assets Bureau, the Irish Naval Service, Revenue Customs, the Cross-Border Joint Agency Task Force, MAOC (N), Europol, and INTERPOL, as well as through the network of Garda Liaison Officers and contacts in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, the GNDOCB actively collaborates with other state agencies.

.The human cost of drug crime

Ireland has the fourth-highest demand for illegal drugs in Europe for South American cocaine, according to Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis, Organised and Serious Crime, who spoke at the GNDOCB’s tenth anniversary.

The deadly criminal cocaine cartels in South America and international organised crime gangs that import and deal with these harmful substances are directly linked to people’s decision to consume illegal drugs recreationally. Every cocaine line used in Ireland has a direct connection to the drug-related intimidation that occurs on Irish streets.

Assistant Commissioner Willis emphasised that these organised crime organisations and criminal cocaine cartels look for and target vulnerable people, including members of the business community, in order to use them for their illicit activities. Any person who is approached by any individual, with an ‘easy or quick’ solution to their difficulties must think twice.  If you are approached, please contact An Garda Síochána for advice and support.