How a career criminal known as 'The Vet' was finally caught with €11m of cocaine
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Who is ‘The Vet’ and why is he considered one of Ireland’s most prolific drug traffickers?
A career criminal and drug trafficker known by the nickname The Vet has been jailed for thirteen years after being copied nearly eleven million euros worth of cocaine. Michael Murphy was caught red-handed with the drug stash which was hidden in an elaborate secret compartment in his Lurry. Today I'm talking to Crimeworld's Ken Foy about how Murphy had been a key figure in the drugs trade for decades. I'm Niall Donald and this is Crimeworld, a podcast from Crimeworld.com. So can One of the most, I suppose one of the most prolific uh drug criminals in this country has now been sentenced to thirteen years a bit earlier in the summer. A guy known as the vet. Michael Murphy, like he he he really is a a a veteran criminal.
Like most people by the age he's sixty-one now, uh most people by that age of burnt out. But he just seems to have kept going.
He did. And he he had been involved in um organized crime and suspected drugs trafficking for decades.
Yeah.
Um going back, God, well over thirty years. And um I suppose he owned he owned a Hawledge company and before that he'd worked in Hawidge and d that's really he was suspected of being one of the biggest importers of uh drugs into Ireland for years. And he has uh uh notwithstanding his latest conviction, his convictions in continental Europe over the years, um, certainly backed that up, that belief that he is Um or he wa well certainly was one of the biggest drug importers into the country.
Yeah, big and and obviously a very much a prime target for Gardy, but not somebody that's that's in the papers all the time or people are particularly aware of. Now, this conviction is, I suppose, associated with the the family drugs gang, is what Gardy believed, though. Tell us about this particular seizure that he's and and and the sentence he's been given.
Yeah, so um F first off, you mentioned the family gang. So d the seizure itself involved um almost eleven million euro worth of cocaine. And it was a two-month surveillance operation that resulted in Murphy being arrested at a service station in Paulstown, County Kilkenny, in March of last year, the day after St. Patrick's Day. Uh Water detectives and the Drugs and Organized Crime Bureau basically had led this operation, which had been Ongoing for about two months uh before the seizure happened. So um ultimately the a long story short is that he got a sentence of 13 years uh in Kilkenny Circuit Criminal Court a few weeks ago.
How did the two‑month surveillance operation lead to Murphy’s arrest at a service station?
But the judge pointed out that if it wasn't for kind of there was strong strands of mitigation, um, including his early guilty plea, he would have got eighteen years. Um And that's on the guilty plea. But going back to the whole um The whole mechanics of the seizure and the fact this whole massive surveillance operation, um, there was hugely detailed and rarely detailed um evidence given, um, which we would have covered in the Sunday World and Dunk Crime World in court in relation to the whole mechanics of everything. Um, it started off with a complete a completely innocent truck driver, an employee of Murphy, um, leaving to go to
Basically he's a haulier and he's hiring legitimate truck drivers to take these hauls. In this case, this Eastern European guy is not part of the criminal gang. He just gets a job and and off he goes.
Exactly. So uh he's he's dispatched to um he's dispatched to France and Murphy doesn't uh d it's a it's a Volvo uh truck. It would end up being a truck that was busted a few weeks later by the guards here. Um Murphy doesn't travel with that truck. He travels a week later as a foot passenger. Um just so he's not connected to it, um, you know, with the CCTV and stuff that's in the ports. So he collects the truck then and uh in France and drives it to Spain, collects this massive haul of drugs. I think it was 152 kilos of coke. Um and later phone evidence would show that he took screenshots. He wasn't d this guy wasn't using any of these um encrypted phones or any of these encrypted apps, d just regular mobile phones.
But he took when he got to Spain, he took some screen grabs of the
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is ‘The Vet’ and why is he considered one of Ireland’s most prolific drug traffickers?
0:02–2:44
2
How did the two‑month surveillance operation lead to Murphy’s arrest at a service station?
2:44–5:24
3
What was the secret compartment design that hid almost €11 million worth of cocaine?
5:24–7:58
4
Why did Murphy use an innocent Eastern‑European truck driver for the final leg of the haul?
7:58–10:28
5
What role did the family drug gang and other organized crime groups play in the seizure?
10:28–13:13
6
How did earlier convictions and a prior €770 k cocaine bust shape the court’s sentencing decision?
13:13–15:37
7
What was the purpose and impact of the arson attack on Murphy’s rural home after his arrest?
15:37–18:11
8
Where is ‘The Vet’ serving his 13‑year sentence and what does his future look like?
18:11–20:53
Speakers
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