Nicola Tallant: Nathan McDonnell is not a criminal mastermind … He used his own phone and an e -mail to contact Sinaloa cartel

Gone are the designer suits, the luxury cars and the lifestyle, which many envied in his home country Kerry, where Ballysedy had become an icon of success when a once small family garden center Nathan McDonnell was handed over to the third generation of tough effort.

McDonnell, the unique famous businessman and handsome father of three children, looked tired and broken when he faced the last chapter in a story that made him more famous when every appearance in TV chat shows could ever have.

His jaw wired and equipped with two plates. He still recovered from the blows that he recorded in 'Block A' of the high -security prison last week in which a potential killer jumped him when he passed his business.

Prison are dangerous places and unknown territory for a man like Nathan who once lived an enchanting life with a series of restaurants and a huge modern garden company that he had inherited from Australia many years ago.

When his conviction of the special penalty for his role in a drug act began in which Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel ships Crystal Meth was in Ireland due to further distribution to the Lucrative Australian market, only a few were left behind under any illusion, but the party was good and really over.

McDonnell will need additional security because he begins a 12-year prison sentence for the import of meth and participation in a criminal organization, two charges for which he was guilty of his first occasion.

As early as 2023, when the property was slipped by Kerry as a stop-off point for the meth program of 32 million euros, McDonnell was in financial difficulties, as the court heard. He was faced with massive income and although he looked successful to the outside world, he was far from it.

Ballysedy, his three cafés and a burger restaurant, owed the helm to the helmsman more than 2 million euros. And more than a year later – when he was arrested after an improvised machine had been stopped with the drugs in the Cork port, he told the police that he was not far from being the examiner or the bailiff, which his 144 employees would later learn through the media reports.

“It is to endure my cross,” he told the officer towards the end of 21 interviews, which were led with him about his role in the forging of invoices, to arrange and store the machine and the drugs – a role that promised to pay him € 150,000.

He was not a criminal mastermind. His trial was announced how he had used his own telephone and business email with the murderous Sinaloa cartel when dealing with people who said the state.

But he was also not just a Gilly and had taken on detailed tasks that he had hoped that the drugs made it from Ireland to the lucrative Australia market.

Judge Melanie was Grealy Grealy when she was punished.

She read the letters that his father and sisters sent, who described him as a generous man who had taken responsibility in the past. She heard of his three boys – all in primary school – who missed her father to save his business, to save his business and save the jobs, from his exemplary behavior behind bars, in which he now works as a cleaner, and from the shame that he had brought himself and his family to himself.

At some point the judge said that his rehabilitation was practically completed, so his repentance and loss from a decision that was stimulated by greed and money was stimulated.

There was no McDonnell grabs that he would serve in prison for 12 years.

​After that, his father said his son had to pay for his mistakes. And he hoped that his story would be a warning to others not to participate in criminal activities to solve a problem.

His verdict was moved back until February 16, 2024 when he was arrested for the first time after Ballysedy was searched for and the plot was reversed.

He served a year of his 12, but it was a difficult one for someone who is so strange to prison life.

He learned about computers and biology and took a course to become a hairdresser, but it will take a long time before he can use his skills.

Breaking Bad Dad, he now has a lot of time to take into account the wavy effects of his decisions, and no more relevant than the loss of his children. As his father said, “It was a hard lesson, but he has to take his punishment.”