London man carrying £1,780,000 worth of cocaine and cash arrested

A person who commits crimes for a living from London was sentenced to 21 years in prison for smuggling 10 kilograms of cocaine and a large amount of money throughout Europe.

Paul O’Brien planned a big operation to move drugs worth £1 million from the Netherlands to Ireland, going through the UK.

The 56-year-old person also made plans to move £780,000 in cash from Ireland to the Netherlands.

He arranged the agreements and talked with illegal messengers using a secure messaging system called EncroChat.

O’Brien’s plan didn’t work because the police and the NCA stopped him. They discovered that he was working with Thomas Maher, who is now a convicted criminal.

Maher, a rich boss who transported goods by road from Warrington, Cheshire, was sent to prison for about 15 years in 2020 for being involved in transporting drugs and illegal money across Europe.

The person who is 42 years old was discovered during an investigation into the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a truck in Purfleet in October 2019. They were also found to be using EncroChat to operate a transportation system.

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The police arrested a person named O’Brien at his house in Uxbridge, which is in south London. They arrested him in May 2020 because they discovered that he was the person using the username ‘ONEDIAMONDGEE’ on EcncroChat. This person was involved in organizing smuggling activities with another person named Maher.

According to the NCA, on April 4, 2020, a car and a HGV met near a village called Uddel in the Netherlands and exchanged cocaine. The cocaine could have been worth up to £1 million if it was sold in the UK.

Maher told O’Brien that their delivery people were able to bring the drugs into the UK on that same day. They made plans for the drugs to be picked up in Ireland.

On April 10, Maher helped collect £260,000 that belonged to O’Brien and took it from Louth in Ireland to the Netherlands in a car.
A month later, on May 11th, Maher arranged for another pick-up of £520,000 for O’Brien. This time, the money would be transported from Ireland to the Netherlands by couriers.

The money was being exchanged at a bus station in Drogheda when police officers who were watching intercepted the money and arrested the people carrying it, Jason Reed, who is 42 years old, Thomas Rooney, who is 53 years old, and Catherine Dawson, who is 46 years old.

O’Brien’s EncroChat device was taken when he was caught, and later on, NCA investigators arrested him for being involved in a scheme to traffic cocaine and cash.

He later admitted to three charges of planning to commit a crime in another country, and a judge at Isleworth Crown Court gave him a 21-year prison sentence on Friday.
Martin Clarke, who works for the National Crime Agency, said: ‘O’Brien is a well-known criminal who is able to team up with big-time drug dealer Thomas Maher’.

‘They worked together to transport cocaine and large amounts of money around Europe. ’

The important evidence from his EncroChat phone showed O’Brien’s illegal operation, which made him have to admit guilt.

The NCA is determined to catch the leaders of global organized crime, who believe they can separate themselves from their illegal actions and avoid punishment.

‘Maher and O’Brien discovered that we are very determined to go after people who think they’re big criminals and hold them responsible. ‘
A truck that was part of the Vietnamese migrant deaths incident was previously owned by Maher. Even though Maher sold it, it was still registered in his wife’s name.

His transportation network spread across Europe, and it was discovered in another investigation by the NCA. This network was used to transport illegal goods for organized criminals.

In May 2023, Maher had to give back over £630,000 that he made illegally after a money investigation.

On Friday, a police employee was sent to prison for illegally looking at private information and using it to warn a criminal friend. The information was about a top-secret investigation into serious crimes happening globally, which was being done through a communication platform called EncroChat.

Last month, the Metropolitan Police announced that in the past three years, they have put more than 420 individuals in prison as they were involved in illegal activities such as arranging drug transactions, cleaning dirty money, and planning violent acts using EncroChat.