Ralph Riegel

speaker

552 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 3 Sep

Ralph Riegel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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The Indo Daily · 'The Milkman': How an Irish 'gentleman gangster' built a global drugs empire – and how it all came crashing down · 24 Aug 2026 podcast

Yeah, it was, Kevin. matched

And it was, I mean, very much a milestone date in terms of Ireland's battle against drugs. matched

There was a converted yacht called the Sea Mist, and it had veered quite significantly off its charted course. matched

It had come into Cork Harbor, and it was just off cove when I think suspicious customs and excise officers and Guardi just decided to have a look at this. matched

vessel, there was something that that tweaked their interest. matched

And when they boarded this converted trawler, 60 foot converted trawler, matched

Everything seemed normal. matched

They found matched

A secret compartment, effectively like a dumb waiter. matched

And concealed within that dumb waiter, wrapped very carefully in plastic, was 599 kilograms of high-grade cocaine. matched

Now, I suppose over the last 20-25 years we've gotten used to major seizures of cocaine, but this was 1996, and it was the first major cocaine seizure. matched

Seizure in Irish waters. matched

And it was the cocaine seizure that really underlined just how Ireland was part of this smuggling network whereby high-grade cocaine was being taken from the Medellin area of Colombia, smuggled through the jungles of Venezuela, and put on yachts and boats crossed the Atlantic and brought ashore isolated. matched

isolated coves in Ireland, in England, Wales and even Scotland to feed this massively expanding market for cocaine within Europe. matched

Yeah. matched

You're talking about the fact that i simple things can go wrong. matched

And this spice rack was clearly placed in front of a sealed opening. matched

And the officers that looked at it realized that it wasn't a normal place. matched

What was behind it? matched

There was clearly an entrance to some compartment hidden behind it. matched

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