Two men, including a former Soviet fighter pilot, who flew heroin worth over €8 million into Dublin on a light aircraft last year have been sentenced to ten and eight years in prison.
50-year-old Aradi Ignac from Kecskemet, Hungary and 63-year-old Zoltan Nemeth of Sukosd in Hungary, pleaded guilty to smuggling heroin into Weston Airport on dates between 28 November and 1 December last year.
They were caught by officers from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau who had confidential information about the scheduled landing of a specific Cessna 210 light aircraft.
Staff at Weston Airport noted that the aircraft piloted by Nemeth appeared to be tail-heavy as it was coming in to land, and that the men requested a hangar, which was unusual.
Both men said they would be staying for a few days, then left the airport in a taxi.
Gardaí then found 60kg of heroin in blocks inside black bags, hidden in the tail of the aircraft in half kilo packages, worth €8.4m.
Nemeth was arrested after he arrived back at Weston Airport while Aradi was arrested when the car he was driving was stopped on Hazelhatch Road in Celbridge.
Nemeth told gardaí he was a qualified pilot and instructor who had served in the Hungarian military between 1979 and 2005.
He said he did not know what was in the plane, although he knew the packages were illegal.
Gardaí confiscated the sums of €3,270 found on Aradi and €630 found on Nemeth.
Aradi, a father of five children, one of whom died, said he had owned a number of construction companies but was in debt to unnamed, but very dangerous individuals.
He claimed he was to have €200,000 of it cleared.
Photos of the drugs were found on his mobile phone and he admitted that he was aware he was smuggling drugs and that he had the keys to the plane. They travelled via the Netherlands and France to Ireland.
Both men had landed in Weston Airport several times over the previous two months.
They travelled either together or with a different pilot and had used the same plane and a different one.
Nemeth has no previous convictions in any jurisdiction.
Aradi has ten previous convictions, including theft, criminal damage, fraud, obstructing the operation of public interest and smuggling counterfeit goods.
Sergeant Leo Clayton agreed that Aradi had been mannerly with gardaí and had answered all questions, although he had refused to give details on any others involved because he feared for his family’s safety.
“Drugs go hand-in-hand with money-laundering and hand-in-hand with violence,” Sgt Clayton said.
Nemeth initially trained as a fighter pilot in the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.
He then worked his way back up in the Hungarian military, where he served for 25 years and raised five adult children before an amicable divorce.
He has a young child with his second wife and worked as an instructor in an aerobatic school after he retired from the army.
Judge Elma Duffy said that Aradi was higher up in “a sophisticated operation” flying a planeload of drugs into Ireland “effectively by the back door” and sentenced him to ten years in prison.
The judge also said that it was “particularly tragic” that Nemeth, who put in many years of public service in the former Soviet Union and Hungary, retiring at the level of major, had engaged in illegal activities.
She sentenced him to eight years in prison.
Both men have been in custody since their arrest last December and are on 23-hour lock up for their own protection.
