Irish police work with NCA to establish identity of body found off Donegal coast

The are working together to ascertain if the man is Robert Wilkin who was due to stand trial on drugs charges later this year.
The Garda are working with the UK police on the case (Brian Lawless/PA)
PA Archive
Rebecca Black5 July 2023

Irish police are working with the UK’s National Crime Agency to identify the body of a man found off the coast of Co Donegal.

It is believed the man may be Robert Wilkin who was due to go on trial over a multi-million pound drug seizure later this year.

Mr Wilkin, who is from Northern Ireland, was arrested by the NCA in August 2021 after his lorry was stopped at Coquelles with £5.7m cocaine and heroin on board.

In a statement, the NCA said they are “working with the Irish police to ascertain whether it is the same person”.

The body was recovered in the waters around the mountain of Slieve League on Monday.

On Tuesday An Garda Siochana said the results of the post-mortem are not being released for “operational purposes”.

Gardai investigating an alleged assault in the Slieve League/Killybegs area of Co Donegal on the weekend of June 24-25 in relation to the incident arrested a man and a woman arrested who were later released without charge.

Gardai have established an incident room at Ballyshannon Garda station.

They have appealed to anyone travelling in the vicinity of Killybegs/Slieve League between the afternoon of Saturday June 24 and the evening of Sunday June 25 and who observed any activity that drew their attention to come forward.

Any road users travelling in these areas at these times who may have camera footage, including dash-cam, have been asked to make it available to investigating gardai.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in