Irish police have confiscated a cache of military-grade firearms and narcotics worth more than €700,000 during a weekend sweep targeting criminal networks in counties Laois and Kildare, authorities said on Sunday.
The three-day operation, conducted under the umbrella of Operation Tara from July 10 to 12, yielded eleven weapons — including three machine guns and eight pistols — along with ammunition, silencers, and heroin, cocaine, and cannabis. Officers arrested two men in their 40s and detained them at midland Garda stations. Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis called the seizures a significant disruption to organised criminal activity.
The crackdown is part of a broader national push — police arrested eleven people in the past week under organised crime, firearms, and drug trafficking laws, while more than €9 million in controlled drugs, including cannabis-infused vapes and edibles, were confiscated.