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Reporter competition thirty-five entrant

Stefan Copiimulti: €1.12m of cocaine behind a dashboard opened by two fobs

A Garda surveillance operation stopped Stefan Copiimulti driving a Hyundai with a concealed compartment around its radio. Inside was cocaine valued at €1.12 million. His explanations about the car and its keys were contradicted by Garda evidence, and the Moldovan national ultimately pleaded guilty.

Published 31 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger
€1.12mValue of cocaine recovered
6.5 yearsPrison sentence
19 June 2023Offence and custody date
No priorsRecord reported at sentence

This was not a roadside discovery made by chance. The sentencing evidence said Gardaí received confidential information about a Hyundai, mounted surveillance and stopped it while another vehicle travelled in convoy.

The court reporting identifies Copiimulti as the driver and records his guilty plea. It does not name the driver or occupants of the second vehicle, establish a criminal organisation charge or attribute the ownership of the drugs to any other named person. This file therefore stays with the offence proved against Copiimulti.

A compartment built to conceal contraband

Gardaí found a secret compartment around the Hyundai's radio. They forced it open and recovered cocaine valued at €1.12 million. Fobs found in the vehicle operated the hiding place: pressing two of them together opened the compartment.

The Hyundai was registered to Copiimulti's brother. Judge Martin Nolan said the vehicle had been adapted to carry drugs and contraband. Copiimulti was cooperative when stopped and supplied his name, address and phone PIN.

Three explanations tested against evidence

Cooperation at the scene did not make his initial account accurate. The sentencing report records three explanations that were tested against physical or video evidence.

The distinction matters: the first two accounts were expressly described in court as false or contradicted. His criminal liability for the drugs is established by his plea and sentence, not by speculation about matters outside that conviction.

Guilty plea and six-and-a-half-year term

At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Copiimulti pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled drug for sale or supply at The Ward, Finglas, on 19 June 2023. On 6 March 2025, Judge Nolan imposed a prison sentence of six years and six months, backdated to June 2023 when Copiimulti entered custody.

The quantity and the specially adapted vehicle made the offence serious. The judge nevertheless departed from the presumptive ten-year minimum. The mitigation recorded in court included Copiimulti's early guilty plea, cooperation, admissions in interview, work history and absence of previous convictions. Judge Nolan said he did not believe Copiimulti would offend again in view of that clean record.

A prison governor's report described him as an enhanced prisoner working as a barista in the prison kitchen. Defence counsel also relied on letters, including one from his wife, and submitted that imprisonment would be harder for him as a foreign national. Those were mitigation submissions and do not alter the conviction or the drugs recovered.

His recorded time in Ireland

The court was told that Copiimulti is a Moldovan national. He first came to Ireland in 2007 as an amateur boxer. He returned with his wife in 2008, but the family remained for only about one year after he found it difficult to obtain work. They returned again in 2017. He had worked briefly as a builder in Ireland.

That chronology is the extent of the published immigration evidence located for this file. The reports do not identify the basis on which Copiimulti entered or resided in Ireland, record an asylum application, establish unlawful residence or disclose any deportation or removal decision. Moldovan nationality alone proves none of those things.

Chronology

What the public-cost figure can and cannot show

No cited source publishes a person-specific total for the surveillance, arrest, forensic handling, prosecution, legal aid, court time or imprisonment generated by this case. Any claim to know Copiimulti's complete bill to the taxpayer would therefore be invented.

The Irish Prison Service reported that the 2024 average annual cost of an available, staffed prison space was €99,072. Mechanically applying that system-wide rate to the full six-and-a-half-year sentence produces a nominal capacity benchmark of €643,968.

That is not an audited cost for Copiimulti. The rate comes from one calendar year, excludes capital expenditure and is an average across the prison estate. The calculation assumes the whole headline term at one unchanging rate. It does not account for the sentence being backdated, remission, an actual release date, annual cost changes or costs elsewhere in the justice system. It must not be added to the €1.12 million drug valuation as though the two numbers represented the same kind of public loss: the drug figure is an estimated illicit-market value, not money shown to have been paid by the Exchequer.

Previous record, release and current status

The sentencing court was told Copiimulti had no previous convictions. No source located for this file records a later conviction, appeal result, release date, prisoner transfer, removal order or current residence. Absence from the located reporting does not prove that none of those events occurred.

Source limitations

The four written sentencing reports below carry the same byline and substantially the same Courts News Ireland copy across different publications. They confirm the same court record but are not four independent investigations. The Crime World episode predates sentence and confirms the plea and seizure at a high level. This file omits its wider allegation about an organised grouping because that allegation was not part of the adjudicated offence described at sentencing.

Sources

Record checked: 31 July 2026. The conviction, sentence, nationality and absence of prior convictions are reported facts; no immigration outcome or case-specific public bill is inferred.