Ireland's Revenue service confirmed that the MV Matthew left Cork harbour Saturday after nearly three years in custody, ending a management and maintenance bill of roughly EUR17 million for the freighter at the center of the country's largest cocaine seizure. [1]

Authorities seized 2.2 tonnes of cocaine from the Panama-registered ship in September 2023, but because the vessel was needed as evidence until December 2024, the state paid to maintain engine, electrical and ventilation systems aboard a 28,000-tonne asset that earned nothing while consuming public money. [1]

An international shipping company later acquired the ship for a nominal $1 and accepted the obligation to tow it to Varna, Bulgaria, a transfer price that recovers none of the state's carrying cost and instead places future towing and operating expenses elsewhere. [1]

The spectacular 2023 number was the estimated EUR157 million value of the seized cocaine, yet the more instructive receipt is the cost of preserving the platform on which it was found, because evidence custody imposed a real expense even while criminal cases proceeded. [1]

No verified X post was recovered, and the EUR17 million is neither the drugs' value nor a sale price and cannot prove officials could lawfully have released the vessel earlier, but it records what a major seizure demanded after the cameras left.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco