Roly poly crime boss Paul Gray came out of hiding this week as he couldn’t resist tucking into Christmas dinner at his drug den pub.
The former UVF boss from Ballymena, who is under serious pressure from the UVF on the Shankill after he tried to pull the wool over their eyes, turned up at the Coach Bar’s Christmas party last weekend.
Our exclusive picture shows Gray, who was kicked out of the UVF after ripping them off to the tune of £250,000, wearing a Christmas party hat having stuffed his face with a turkey dinner and all the trimmings.
Gray has run the bar for years and locals have been left scratching their heads as to how the police allow him to continue running late night illegal drug parties and regular card schools from the haunt in Ballymena’s town centre.
Sources say Gray has been told he’s safe by UVF bosses in Belfast. It’s understood they could be waiting until after the Gary Haggarty trial before they make a move on him.
Remarkably Gray spent a few days at the home of Mount Vernon UVF hitman Darren Moore.
“When Gray went into hiding a few weeks ago the UVF on the Shankill were worried he might have gone to Heggarty and turned supergrass,” said a source.
“He knows where a lot of bodies are buried and the thing about Gray is he only thinks about No. 1.
“But it turns out he was staying with Darren Moore of all people – the same person who’s girlfriend he’s been seeing.
“Apparently he’s very tight with Moore and has been keeping him sweet with a few quid.” A fortnight ago we revealed how Gray had gone to ground after a botched attempt to stitch up his own criminal pals had gone disastrously wrong.
That incident, which we can’t go into the details of because of legal reasons, centred on Gray trying to make a killing over smuggled fags.
The notorious gambler had sunk to new depths as he attempted to blow smoke in the eyes of his own crime pals in a desperate attempt to score himself thousands of pounds.
When it all went wrong he caught the eye of his former UVF bosses on the Shankill Road who sent top man Joe ‘No Neck’ Megaw down to Ballymena to get some answers.
Now it has emerged he may have been at his work again after 10,000 illegal fags were seized in a property just a few doors from Gray’s pub last week.
Sources have told the Sunday World the contraband smokes came originally from Paul Gray.
“Those fags were supplied by Gray,” said a source. “People in Ballymena suspect he’s chucking the cops a few bones to keep them sweet.
“It’s how he gets to operate his empire without being hindered by the police.”
Police and customs officials seized the suspected counterfeit cigarettes during the search of a business premises in Ballymena last week.
Chief Inspector Stephen McCauley added: “A woman has been arrested in connection with the search which was led by HM Revenue and Customs. A small amount of rolling tobacco was also seized.”
The woman was released on Tuesday December 16 on police bail pending further enquiries.
Sources say Gray has become increasingly desperate to fund his heavy gambling problem recently.
Indeed it was his heavy gambling that saw him ousted as UVF boss in Ballymena.
It’s already been a bad year for Gray after his partner turfed him out for playing around with a young blond – who turned out to also be seeing Darren Moore.
And that came after he was finally stood down from the UVF after he was accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the terror gangs coffers.
A wide-ranging internal investigation carried out by the UVF’s Shankill Road bosses revealed that Gray and his pal Darren ‘ch*nk’ O’Neill had stashed over £250,000 in secret bank accounts south of the border.
Gray and O’Neill had been ripping off the UVF for some time before bosses on the Shankill finally took action. Gray had been running a loan sharking operation and controlled a number of drug dealers in the area.
A team of senior UVF personnel based on Belfast’s Shankill Road arrived at Gray’s pub in Ballymena in January accompanied by a leading member of the Progressive Unionist Party to tell them they were finished.
The Sunday World understands Gray was forced to hand over £10k to his former boss to save himself from being shot.
