THE COLLAPSE of the cocaine trade in Ireland has been about as spectacular as the property crash.

It has left drugs gangs scrambling to carve up a smaller slice of a shrinking market - and call in even the smallest of debts.

When things are tight, the underworld enforcers come out to show their strength and squeeze every penny they can from struggling dealers.
And 2013 is going to be the year when all outstanding bills are called in as the big fish try to keep afloat in an increasingly difficult market.

Infamous -

Behind the decimation of the cocaine trade and the hungry battle for survival among gangland's most deadly is the same recession that has hit the rest of us.
Five years ago, the year that Katy French died in Ireland's most infamous cocaine death, the drugs market in Ireland was at its peak and worth an estimated at£1.billion annually - with cocaine making up almost a quarter of that.

But with the crash went the jobs of thousands of young construction workers and the disposable incomes of bankers, financiers and socialites that everyone thought would last forever.
Almost overnight, the party ended and the insatiable demand for cocaine dried up.

In 2010, the value of drugs seized by Gardai had fallen to €28million. It is estimated by law enforcement agencies the world over that just one tenth of contraband is seized, which means that the drug industry was worth just €280million that year - an industry wipeout of almost 75 per cent since the peak.

It's a fall that is even more dramatic than the property price collapse and it has continued to plummet in value on an annual basis since.

Survival -

Undoubtedly there is still money to be made and there always will be, but tensions are running high as drug lords vie for survival.
And while workers are leaving these shores, the greedy drug lords are moving back so they can soak up as much as they can of the depleting market.

Over Christmas, 'Fat' Freddie Thompson was back on a mission from Spain for 'Dapper Don' Christie Kinahan. He made the flying visit to put the strong arm on dealers who owe Kinahan up to €3million in unpaid debts - money the Kinahan mob most likely desperately needs to payoff its own debts to foreign drug gangs. Sharks in the guise of Israeli and Turkish drugs gangs are circling and the time is running out for them to pay up.

Thompson was being monitored by Garda surveillance but it is understood he used his time in Ireland to visit a number of dealers in Dublin and to send a message to Limerick that 'the Dapper Don' was calling in all debts.

Bloody -

Thompson feels safer in Ireland than he has in years. Last September his mob carried out two murders in the space of a bloody 24 hours, wiping out the remaining threat from the rival Rattigan mob.

Twenty-six-year-old Gerald Eglington, Rattigan's enforcer, was shot dead in Portarlington, Co. Laois.

Then small-time drug dealer Declan O'Reilly was murdered a few hours later as a show of force from Freddie's mob.

The murders came as notorious mob boss Paul Rice returned home to Dublin after splitting with his Spanish-based partner in crime, Cerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh,

Rice is back living in Tallaght, south Dublin, where he is now trying to muscle in on Dublin's gangland scene. He is already one of the top targets for the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in 2013.

Notorious -

The 45-year-old made his name as a gangland enforcer, but has recently attempted to surround himself with notorious INLA members for protection as he uses his muscle to call in debts.

Rice was jailed in 1995 for 10 years for a series of violent armed robberies, but after his release he got involved with serious players in the drugs trade, including exiled baron Kavanagh.

Rice soon went into business with Kavanagh, who was based in Benalmadena, according to Sunday world sources.
They worked closely with the Christy Kinahan mob to organise shipments back to Dublin and the pair made millions from their Spanish base during the boom.

Kavanagh has also relocated to Ireland. He attended a crime summit in Marbella last August, where several big players decided to abandon their Spanish boltholes as they can no longer make the same money they once did on the Costa del Sol.

Even the Kinahan mob has been struggling to maintain an empire once worth € 500million, which has been collapsing since a major raid in 2010.

Subsequently, Christy Kinahan was jailed in Belgium for money laundering, which has left his son Daniel trying to hang on to what he can of the family business in Spain.

Ruthlessly -

The mob bosses are determined that the recession will not finish them and have come up with new ways to keep the money flowing. For now they are going after old debts and ruthlessly pursuing them.

It is understood that Limerick criminals owe in the region of C'l milljon to the crime lords, while they have a further €2million to collect from smaller gangs in the capital.

Everyone who owes the Kinahan and the Kavanagh mobs money has been injormed that it is time to pay up.

Just where the money will come from is another day's work. And what lies in store for those who can't pay is likely to add another bloody chapter to the story of Ireland's underworld in 2013.