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.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

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

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

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

And oftentimes with these seizures, it's the small things that can make the difference and that can lead. matched

To such major breakthroughs for the authorities. matched

For instance, like if you look at the major seizures over the years, you had the Genios in 1998, there was 130 million euros of drugs on that. matched

You had the Lucky Day in Dunlop Bay in 2007, there was 440 million on that. matched

Dances with Waves in 2008, 400 million, Mackayabella in 2014, 160 million, but several of those. matched

Like, for instance, the lucky day in Dunlock Bay, the only reason that those drugs were found was because one of the drug gang mistakenly put diesel into a petrol outboard engine. matched

The engine failed, the rib overturned, and you were left with millions of euros worth of cocaine bales bobbing in the water. matched

So it's the simple thing sometimes that can give the authorities a matched

Breakthrough. matched

It's not so much the value, it's the fact that it was the first. matched

It clearly showed that Ireland was part of this cooking smuggling network, which was linking notorious figures in Central America and South America with the European drugs trade. matched

And of course, what we know now is that even though the value at 55 million was relatively low, it was the spark that brought down one. matched

Of the most notorious smuggling rings in Europe, run by a guy nicknamed the Milkman. matched

And of course, he was Irish. matched

We mentioned how fortuitous it was that there was the the whole problem with the ship, the C miss that that led authorities to have a close look at it. matched

But aside from the cocaine, which was obviously a major breakthrough in terms of the seizure, the crucial things that Gardy found on board was a GPS machine and tracker and a mobile phone. matched

The mobile phone gave them a number in the UK. matched

Which we they were able to track and monitor, but crucially they were able to backtrace the memory of the GPS. matched

And the GPS matched

showed the exact smuggling route that the sea mist had undertaken. matched

Showing 241–260 of 552 · page 13 of 28