THE captain of the ship busted for carrying €157million worth of cocaine was a top goalkeeping coach at a former Premier League star’s academy, we can reveal.
Soheil Jelveh was a highly-respected figure in the game of football in his native Iran.
Soheil Jelveh was a well-known goalkeeping coach[/caption]
Soheil pleaded guilty at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court earlier this month to possessing cocaine for supply on board the cargo ship[/caption]
The 51-year-old has been behind bars in Ireland since September 2023 following his arrest after 2.2 tons of coke was discovered onboard the MV Matthew in an operation headed by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.
The Irish Sun can reveal that when gardai arrested Jelveh from a hospital bed, he had over €50,000 in cash in his possession.
Detectives suspect he was paid up to €20,000 more for his role in the smuggling operation.
The failed cocaine transfer was “controlled” from Dubai, where the Kinahan cartel are based. The Panamanian-registered ship was owned by a company based there, Symphony Marine.
Gardai are probing whether Daniel Kinahan’s mob had a major hand in facilitating the shipment, helping to fund it and in providing logistical support.
In his initial bail hearing at Wexford District Court days after the seizure, Jelveh’s lawyer said his family were living in the UAE city at the time.
But just months beforehand, he had been coaching at unsuspecting former Bolton and Fulham star Andranik Teymourian’s football academy in Tehran.
Today the Irish Sun pictures shamed Jelveh for the first time, after he had previously covered up for the cameras, kitted out in Teymourian’s academy gear as he holds a football with goalkeeper gloves on. He remains listed on the website as a coach.
He had also been a ship captain for 20 years before his arrest.
A source said: “Jelveh was recognised as a very high level and respected goalkeeping coach in Iran.
‘MAJOR DRUG SHIPMENT’
“He had been working as part of an academy previously there. He should have stayed there, but instead got involved in a major drug shipment and has found himself behind bars on the other side of the world. And that’s where he’ll stay for some time.”
Jelveh pleaded guilty at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court earlier this month to possessing cocaine for supply on board the cargo ship.
The MV Matthew was stormed by the elite Defence Forces’ Army Rangers on September 26, 2023 when it failed to stop for the Navy patrol vessel LE William Butler Yeats.
The cocaine was recovered inside a lifeboat partially burnt after crew members deliberately set it alight.
Jelveh had already departed the ship at that stage after being medically airlifted from it the day beforehand.
He managed to bring over €50,000 in cash with him to hospital, where he was arrested by specialist gardai.
A number of phones were seized from him, including encrypted devices.
It was from these devices that cops got a trove of communications between him and others not aboard the ship.
TEXTS REVELATIONS
The texts revealed conversations about the transportation and the delivery of cocaine to a fishing vessel.
Details of the case were revealed after two of Jelvah’s co-accused went on trial after pleading not guilty.
But last Tuesday, Iranian Saeid Hassani, 39, and Filipino Harold Estoesta, 31, altered their pleas.
The latest guilty pleas mean all eight men charged over the record coke seizure have admitted their crimes.
Along with Jelveh, Hassani and Estoesta, Ukrainians Mykhailo Gavryk and Vitaliy Vlasoi, both 32, and 62-year-old Vitaliy Lapa along with Dutch man Cumali Ozgen, 49, and UK national Jamie Harbron, 31, will be sentenced at a later date.
Around 2.2 tons of coke was discovered onboard the MV Matthew in an operation headed by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau[/caption]
