Former businessman at heart of Tralee drugs case barely ...

When he was led into the Special Criminal Court he was wearing a white shirt and blue tie, no jacket, as if to say this is the new me, contrite and, most likely, scared of what he has brought upon himself. 

He has been in prison now for nearly a year. The word “catastrophic” was used more than once in court to describe what has become of his life and those of the people to whom he is closest. 

If fate had pulled him in another direction, he might today be enjoying the early straits of a career in politics.

McDonnell, the former CEO and co-owner of the Ballyseedy Garden Centre outside Tralee, has pleaded guilty to importing drugs and facilitating an organised crime group. 

The specifics involve a decision on his part to get involved with an unnamed individual — referred to here as Mr A — to import a major consignment of drugs, store the stash in his business premises and then organise to have the consignment shipped onto its ultimate destination, Australia. When the drugs were seized, in Ringaskiddy last February, the value of the seizure was put at €32m.

The bare bones, however, don’t do justice to a tale of frailty and greed that has the makings of a Netflix series.

It involved Mr A and another man, a now deceased John McGrath, setting up a front company to import the drugs. This was achieved by Cork based McGrath taking control of a company that was initially set up for legitimate reasons.

He then attempted to hire a storage area from another completely innocent party, an engineering firm. They became suspicious of McGrath’s bone fides and backed out of the deal. Mr A and Mr McGrath had to find somebody else to hold onto the drugs in transit.

Financial difficulties

This was where Nathan McDonnell came in. The sentencing hearing on Monday was told that his business was in financial difficulties. From the outside, Mr McDonnell had all the appearance of a man about town, the successful entrepreneur.

In reality, the business was having great difficulty repaying loans. 

There had been hope that the covid payments, which were granted by government to support retail businesses through the pandemic, might come to the rescue. But that wasn’t to be.

The court head that inquiries by gardaí determined that the business’s financial situation was “very precarious”. 

One former employee, who worked there in 2022, told the gardai that “by the time she was leaving it was in very poor shape”. This woman described McDonnell as a “very likeable guy with very poor organisational skills, and very chaotic”.

Meanwhile, not too far from Tralee, the gardaí were investigating an organized crime group.

This group had links across the world, most tightly with the notorious Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. The investigation consisted of gathering intelligence both before and after a raid on a premises in Listowel.

From that, phones were recovered which yielded a wealth of intelligence through encrypted messages that had been exchanged back and forth. Mr A was in contact with a man who went by the name of Sam, purporting to be based in Poland but was actually in contact from Spain.

There were covert meetings between Mr A and John McGrath in the south Munster area, “in carparks, at stops on motorways, in hotels".

This, the court was told by McDonnell’s lawyer Michael Bowman, was “to ensure secrecy and was clandestine”. The lawyer suggested to the witness, Detective Sergeant Dave Howard, that his client had nothing to do with any of this aspect of the organised crime group. The garda agreed.

As the story was being unspooled in the court, McDonnell leaned forward on the bench. At one point he spent a protracted period staring up at the high window on the wall behind where sat the three presiding judges.

In the well of the court his father and sister looked on. The court heard that McDonnell’s parents separated when he was “10 or 12” but the family remained on good terms.

The public gallery was full and included gardaí, a couple of gowned lawyers and, at one point, a procession of transition year students brought in to observe what most definitely was not just another day in the courts of criminal justice.

The drugs arrived in Ringaskiddy in October 2023 inside a machine that was ostensibly designed for separating metals.

It was brought to Ballyseedy and stored there. Some of the evidence compiled was from the CCTV system in the Ballyseedy centre. Ordinarily, such security systems are installed to monitor theft. Ironic in this instance that it was used to build a case of very serious crime against the boss.

McDonnell organised the paperwork for the export to Australia of this “machine”. He had to use contacts through family and friends over there who apparently were unaware of what was going on. 

Then last February all was ready for the shipment to be moved on. One can only imagine a sense of relief that must have coursed through McDonnell as he watched it leave Ballyseedy. Only to be walloped with a sense of dread when the gardaí came calling later that day.

'In fear of his accomplice'

His lawyer emphasised that while McDonnell knew what he was doing he was also in fear of his accomplice.

“The other individual (Mr A) has a history of personal violence and significant convictions,” McDonnell’s lawyer put it to Detective Sergeant Howard. “And he was questioned but not charged in relation to murder and in the searches that took place (of his premises) there was a large quantity of ammunition.”

The garda agreed that this was the case.

Then the senior counsel laid out the case for mitigation, mentioning the “catastrophic personal circumstances” that now befell his client. Mr Bowman told the judges: 

He was widely respected, very heavily involved in charitable fundraising for over a decade.

For a number of charities, he arranged for outings that raised in excess of €100,000 for particular charities.

During covid, the lawyer pointed out, McDonnell had arranged for what were effectively “meals on wheels” for people who had to remain in their homes.

“Not alone his reputation, but his family’s has been catastrophically damaged and there is shame and stigma,” he said. The court also heard that his three sons are all still in primary school and there are other issues around the health of family members.

Judge Melanie Greally, who was sitting with her colleagues Sarah Berkeley and Grainne Malone, asked about the state now of the Ballyseedy Centre to see “whether he has a business to return to” at some point. The lawyer said he would get the figures on the up-to-date situation.

A specific date for handing down the sentence hasn’t been identified but Nathan McDonnell is likely to hear about his fate by the end of the month.