Gardai investigating a string of failed ‘assassination’ attempts on a former associate of ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson are finding it difficult to stack up his accounts of some of the incidents.
Car dealer Michael ‘Micky’ Frazer has shown up a number of times at Garda stations around south Dublin with allegations that he has survived broad daylight attempts on his life in busy locations around the city.
Yet it is understood that gardai are having difficulty finding witnesses to the attacks or matching CCTV footage with his version of some events.
Frazer is a marked man after falling out with his former associates in the ‘Fat’ Freddie gang over a brief affair with a woman and switching his allegiances to bitter rival Brian Rattigan.
He was shot last March at a church car park in Clondalkin, but since then officers believe that his paranoia about his safety is out of control.
Sources say he is convinced he is being followed by masked men who have placed tracking devices on his vehicles and who shoot at him randomly. And he is convinced that he sees Kinahan enforcer Paul Rice everywhere he goes.
It is understood that officers are finding it difficult to locate witnesses to a number of his reports, but are still actively investigating any alleged attempts on his life.
Earlier this month gardai were told he had been shot at in Islandbridge by two gunmen and that Frazer had fled on foot dodging bullets as he went.
An unidentified caller also indicated that Paul Rice had been spotted in the area, but officers who went to the scene failed to locate Frazer, the gunmen, or any witnesses to the attack.
The incident happened just days after he crashed into a Luas pole believing he was being followed by a mystery hitman in a Range Rover.
Frazer was driving his BMW at the time and crashed as he tried to flee from the vehicle, which officers have failed to pick up on CCTV in the area where he was driving.
The 34-year-old got out of his crashed car and flagged down a taxi, which took him to Crumlin Garda station where he reported the incident.
Frazer has also told officers that he survived a murder attempt last August in Tallaght when a masked gunman’s weapon jammed.
Rice was questioned in connection with the incident, but was released without charge. Rice himself has been living in fear since his best friend and former associate Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was gunned down in a Spanish bar last August.
“There is an enormous amount of paranoia at the moment and it is hard to decipher exactly what is going on,” a source said. “While there is no doubt that Frazer’s life is in danger, a number of his accounts of what happened just haven’t quite added up on investigation.
“He was certainly shot last March, that much we know as he had the injuries to prove it. But what has happened since seems to be a mixture of total paranoia and fear.”
