{"id":1018,"date":"2025-08-16T00:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T00:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/1018\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T00:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T00:15:11","slug":"lorry-driver-held-over-norths-largest-ever-cocaine-seizure-is-terminally-ill-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/1018\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorry driver held over North\u2019s largest ever cocaine seizure is terminally ill, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A lorry driver being held over the largest ever seizure of cocaine in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland\/\">Northern Ireland<\/a> is terminally ill, a court has heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lawyers for Giorgio Panchukov (55) argued that the case against him should be fast-tracked due to the state of his health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Bulgarian national was arrested after 185kg of drugs with an estimated street value of \u00a318.5 million (\u20ac21.45m) were seized at Belfast Port on May 19th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">National Crime Agency  officers allegedly discovered the consignment stashed in a container area of Mr Panchukov\u2019s lorry as he was set to board a ferry bound for Scotland. The court heard the cocaine had been concealed underneath a metal floor of the trailer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Panchukov, with an address in the Bulgarian city of Burgas, has been charged with aiding and abetting the importation of class A drugs. He faces further counts of possessing and being concerned in the supply of cocaine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">None of the illicit haul was found in the cab area of the accused\u2019s truck and he denies knowing anything about the drugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Panchukov has remained in custody since his arrest because no suitable accommodation is currently available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">But during a further hearing at Belfast Magistrates\u2019 Court, his legal team argued that a decision should now be taken on whether to prosecute him on the evidence because of his health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Barrister Sean O\u2019Hare said: \u201cHe has a terminal illness, his family are in Bulgaria and it is virtually impossible to get medical information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Panchukov did not seek bail and was remanded in continuing custody until next month, when a further update will be provided. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lorry driver being held over the largest ever seizure of cocaine in Northern Ireland is terminally ill,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,954,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-1018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}