A man whose fingerprints linked him to a storage container with nearly €500,000 worth of cannabis inside has been jailed for five years.
Tomasz Lorenc (32) with an address at The Hill, Clon Brugh, Aikens Village, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of possessing cannabis for sale or supply on August 24th, 2018.
A total of €467,000 worth of cannabis was found inside a rented 40-foot metal storage container at Meadowfield Storage in Saggart after gardaí obtained a search warrant, Garda Josh Doran told Mr Lorenc's sentence hearing on Tuesday.
The storage unit was rented under a name that gardaí were unable to find any record of. This name later turned out to be an alias of Mr Lorenc's, Karl Finnegan BL, prosecuting, told the court. Mr Lorenc was tracked down after his fingerprints matched those taken from the drugs.
Wanted
Mr Lorenc is originally from Poland and has been living here since about 2014. He used an alias because he is wanted in Poland for an assault charge and there is currently an outstanding European warrant for his arrest, the court heard.
The court heard he has one previous conviction in the UK for drug importation. He will be returned to Poland once he has served his sentence here.
After he was arrested, Mr Lorenc exercised his right to silence, so little is known about how or why he got involved in the drugs operation, Lorcan Staines SC, defending, told the court.
A psychologist report before the court said Mr Lorenc suffered from addiction, depression and other mental health issues. He told the psychologist that he agreed to hold the drugs after he built up a drug debt.
Sentencing him on Tuesday, Judge Melanie Greally said she believed the offence was within the mid-range of offending. She handed down a sentence of five years and backdated it to when Mr Lorenc went into custody in September 2020.
