Man jailed over €1million drugs haul in Kilkenny
The judge took into account that the defendant has no family in this jurisdiction
An eight-year prison sentence was handed down to a defendant at Kilkenny Circuit Court who was convicted of having €1.17 million worth of cannabis for sale and supply in Kilkenny City in October, 2022.
Slavomir Bubuscak who had an address at Redwood, Castle Gardens, Kilkenny at the time of the offence was convicted by a jury of the offence following a trial at Kilkenny Circuit Court last December. A sentencing hearing took place before Judge Cormac Quinn at Kilkenny Circuit Court on Monday.
A detective sergeant from the National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau gave evidence at Monday’s hearing of how members of customs and revenue had intercepted a package a warehouse in Clondalkin in Dublin on October 6, 2025 which consisted of two large palettes.
Cannabis valued at over €1million was found hidden among the shipment of biscuits which had a delivery address at the ‘The Pantry Patisserie’ at the Hebron Road. The detective sergeant told the court that the delivery address and location was ‘fictious’.
The court heard that the Eircode given was in fact a location of a lock up area in the Hebron Road area of Kilkenny City, which had been rented by the accused.
Gardaí became aware that the accused had rented the lock up facility and that the owner of the facility thought he had rented it to him for a legitimate reason.
The consignment, which came from Seville in Spain, contained two palettes which were labelled as biscotti and contained 36 boxes. Revenue officials intercepted the drugs on October 6, 2022 when they opened two of the boxes and found that they also contained vacuum packed green plant material which they believed to be cannabis.
Revenue officials contacted gardaí and a joint operation was set up between the Revenue and Customs and gardaí and it was decided that a controlled delivery would take place.
The controlled delivery took place on October 7, 2022 and it was planned that the location would be the lock up facility on the Hebron Road. When gardaí, posing as legitimate hauliers made contact with the number on the package they were given a new delivery address at Tubs & Tiles on the Dublin Road. The detective sergeant told the court that the premises is in no way associated with the offence in any way and that a surveillance team were in place throughout the day on October 7.
VEHICLE OF INTEREST
The surveillance team identified a Mercedes Sprinter van as being a vehicle of interest.
The van was registered to the defendant who was observed at the location on the Dublin Road with the person who accepted the package. The detective sergeant also told the court that the person who accepted the package at the Dublin Road location also had nothing to do with the operation.
The court heard that the defendant had a contract to provide delivery services to Tubs & Tiles. On the day in question the defendant had asked a third party to accept the package and to hold it for him. The third party accepted the package from undercover gardaí who were posing as delivery men and he told them that he was accepting it on behalf of the defendant who had been at the location earlier and was going to return later. The third party then using a forklift began to unload the consignment and was arrested. Armed gardaí were present at the location at the time.
The detective sergeant said that the it is accepted that the third party was ‘totally innocent’ and was unaware of what was contained in the package.
Gardaí then carried out a wider search and located the Mercedes Sprinter van and the defendant, who was driving the van at the time, was arrested. A mobile phone was located in the vehicle along with ID cards for the defendant and an envelope with identical delivery dockets as the ones attacked to the drugs shipment, and the vehicle was seized.
SEIZED
The drugs were also seized by gardaí and Revenue and contained 72 boxes, 59 of the boxes contained one kilo of cannabis herb vacuum packed and hidden among the biscuits.
The mobile phone, belonging to the defendant and found in the van was also seized and the phone number on the label of the consignment was recorded on his phone as “Store”. The defendant was interviewed on four occasions by gardaí but made no admissions.
His home address at Redwood at Castle Gardens, Kilkenny was searched under warrant and gardaí took possession of a bag of biscotti identical to those contained in the boxed with the cannabis. At the time of the search there was a male present at the address, who was known to the defendant. A phone belonging to the male was seized by gardaí.
Gardaí also searched the storage unit at the Hebron Road under warrant and found a large amount of open boxes of biscuits. The open boxes are identical in the type of packaging to the ones that contained the cannabis in the controlled delivery. It also contained the same phone number as the one stored on the defendant’s phone under the name “Store”.
Gardaí were able to retrieve a deleted thread of messages between the defendant and the male, who was present at his home at the time of the garda search. There was a message from the defendant to the male saying “biscuits coming tomorrow” to which he replied “Okay champ” with a fingers crossed emoji.
Invoices dated from July 6, 2021 were found in the van along with an original shipping which would have been outside the consignment were also found in the van and had the same sender details as the consignment which was seized in Kilkenny on October 8, 2022.
The court heard that the defendant had always maintained a not guilty plea.
‘MID-LEVEL’
The detective sergeant said that it is the belief of the investigating gardaí that the defendant’s role was both ‘courier and storeman’ and that he was ‘at the mid-level of the operation’.
Defence barrister, Barry Ward said that his client was on bail subject to conditions from his arrest up until his trial in 2025 and added that his client had complied with his bail conditions and was granted permission to return to Slovakia on a number of occasions and did so and returned to this jurisdiction. Bubuscak has been remanded in custody since a jury convicted him of the offence following a trial at Kilkenny Circuit Court which finished on December 12, 2025.
“He was mid-level in this operation. He was not directing the operation but he was aware of what was going on,” Mr Ward SC adding that his client has ‘no trappings of wealth’.
“He has found the time in custody exhausting. He does accept the jury finding in the trial,” added the defence counsel who also told the court that his client had admitted to gardaí that the phone found in the van belonged to him and that he had given the gardaí his pin number to unlock the device.
Mr Ward also informed the court that his client is a Slovakian national who has been in Ireland for a long period of time and has a work history here.
“He was following instructions but he was aware of what was going on. He has support from his family and is supported by friends in court today. His wife and parents are in Slovakia.
‘NOT A KINGPIN’
“He is suffering from depression and is taking medication and has no trappings of wealth. He was not a kingpin, a leader of this gang. He was working to support his family. He clearly made a mistake in getting involved in this.”
The defendant has one previous conviction, which was viewed as a spent conviction by the judge.
"This is a de facto first offence, he was not enjoying enormous profit from his criminal activity,” added Mr Ward.
Judge Cormac Quinn complimented the gardaí, Revenue and Customs on ‘a very professional investigation’ and said that he was treating the previous conviction as a spent conviction. He also remarked that he accepted that the defendant was not making ‘huge amounts of money’ but added that he had to take into account the amount of the drugs seized and the harm to society.
The judge also noted that there were mitigating factors in the case including that the defendant is a foreign national and has a wife and a 11-year-old son in Slovakia and has no family in this jurisdiction.
The judge convicted the defendant under section 15 (a) of The Misuse of Drugs Act and sentenced him to eight years in prison. He suspended the final 12 months for 12 months on condition that the defendant enter a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour in prison and for 12 months on his releases and backdated the sentence to December 12, 2025.