Graham Hall was arrested on the Costa del Sol, accused of handling nearly £6m worth of cocaine.Graham Hall, 41, from Wallsend, North Tyneside, was apprehended on Tuesday, just hours after notorious Dublin drugs dealer Paddy Doyle was gunned down on the edge of the resort town of Estepona, west of Marbella.It was not clear last night whether Mr Hall had been released or if he was still being held by police.Spanish murder squad detectives are working with Irish officers and are trying to establish a link between the drugs haul and the death of Mr Doyle last Monday.Clues found at the scene of the brutal shooting led the Costa del Sol Drugs and Organised Crime Unit (Udyco) to set up a number of control points in the Estepona area.On Tuesday, officers approached a group of people loading furniture on to a van in the town, a popular tourist destination. On inspecting the pieces, ranging from wardrobes to sofas, they discovered the 140 kilos of cocaine hidden in secret compartments inside.Seven people, six British and one Irish, were arrested, one a youth. It is believed the drugs were to be transported back to Britain to sell on the streets, where they could be worth up to £5.8m. Mr Hall was one of those arrested along with Edward Thompson, 49, from Liverpool.Spanish police have been working in collaboration with the Irish Garda following Monday’s shooting of Mr Doyle, a known Dublin gang member and drug dealer on the Bel-Air estate in Estepona.An enforcer for a major Dublin drugs gang, Mr Doyle had to flee to Spain after being involved in a gangland feud which has claimed 10 lives since 2002.He has been personally linked with at least three shootings.
It is thought that the 28-year-old was caught in an ambush set up by a rival drugs gang, thought to be either Turkish or Russian. The shooting took place at around 2pm on Monday. The victim was travelling in the front passenger seat of the vehicle accompanied by driver Gary Hutch, also a convicted Dublin criminal, when a gunman opened fire from another vehicle.After the first shots hit the car in the windscreen, the victim threw himself from the vehicle and attempted to escape on foot. The gunman continued to fire, hitting the victim in the head and the face, apparently at point-blank range. Meanwhile, Mr Hutch lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a lamppost some 30 metres away from Mr Doyle’s body.The post mortem examination, which took two days due to its complexity, revealed that Doyle had been riddled with 15 bullets.