THE INTERNATIONAL dimension to organised crime gangs operating in Ireland was exposed last year following a massive crackdown by gardai on foreign gangs operating here.

They are involved in various criminal activity, including drug production and trafficking, robbery, human trafficking, prostitution, firearm offences and smuggling.

Gardai arrested large numbers of Asians last year involved in a multi-million euro network of cannabis grow houses across the country.
Gardai say Triad gangs, particularly the Wo Shing Wo, are heavily involved in cannabis production.

Eastern European and local gangs are also involved in the lucrative trade.

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said Irish gangs are becoming increasingly linked to foreign crime networks.
He said there are around 25 serious organised gangs in Ireland and some have links with international criminal networks in Holland, Spain and the UK.

"They remain the key locations for forging liaisons mainly due to established drug transportation routes," Callinan explained.

He said that Irish gangs located in those areas are part of East to West smuggling routes for weapons and drugs.
"Associations between Irish and Russian organised crime groups have also been observed.

They work together on drug and cigarette ventures. The presence of Russian organised crime groups in Spain is also influencing the activities of Irish criminals there."

He said five gangs operating in Ireland have significant with foreign-based gangs. The nation of these factors highlight Ireland is now firmly part of a network of organised crime gangs.

Gardai cracked down on some these global networks during the year with a series of raids on multi-million drugs operations. A key member of a
Triad gang was among those arrested as part of the crackdown.

Profits -

Commissioner Callinan said the upsurge in grow houses operated by foreign and local gangs in Ireland is of serious concern and significant profits can be made from their operation.
"They provide a very quick turnaround. If you can manage to secure safe lodging to grow your plants within eight weeks you are able to harvest these plants and begin their reproductive cycle," he said.

"Unless we catch up with these locations there is a conveyor belt of money available to these organised crime groups."

Some of the cannabis produced here is sold on the local market, while gangs also export quantities cultivated in Ireland to other countries.
As well as the Asian gangs involved in the growhouse trade, the Commissioner said a number of Eastern Europeans and local Irish gangs are involved.

The Wo Shing Wo gang are considered the main Triad gang operating in Ireland and are suspected of involvement in drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion and prostitution.

They have a significant presence in Dublin and Cork and are suspected of involvement in a network of grow houses. They usually take people from Asian countries such as Vietnam to Ireland on the promise of regular work, before forcing them to work as gardeners in grow houses to payoff the cost of getting them to Ireland.

It is understood the gangs use violence and intimidation to prevent the trafficked gardeners from going to the authorities.

Another Triad gang operating here are the '14K' who are involved in similar activities.

There are strong links between the Triads operating in Ireland and their counter- parts in Scotland and England.

There are believed to be many incidents linked to the gangs, including kidnappings, extortions and even murder, but many are never brought to the attention of the public as those targeted are too scared to deal with gardai.

While in many cases Triads operate relatively under the radar, their violent activity is sometimes carried out in public.

Last year a Triad gang carried out a vicious attack that left two men with serious injuries in Dublin.
A group of six men attacked three other men on Capel Street, leaving a large pool of blood on the footpath where the attack occurred.

The men were believed to be armed with an array of weapons, including knives, a hammer and a machete-type weapon.

Murky -

The Sunday World has previously revealed that an Eastern European mobster dubbed 'the Emperor' is one of the most shadowy figures in Ireland's murky underworld.

He is a top-ranking gangster in a Romanian crime cartel with tentacles reaching around the globe.

He has many criminal interests such as human trafficking, prostitution, racketeering and widescale fraud.
He is described by those who know him as a "franchise holder" for Eastern European criminals in Ireland, with contacts in every area of the international criminal underworld.

The mob boss is one of a handful of gangsters who take a share of cash from foreign crime gangs operating in Ireland.

Front Page



They were top dogs in the underworld;

But in 2012 Alan Ryan and Eamon Kelly found out no one was untouchable.

When the pair were shot down close to their own homes, it blew open a void in Ireland's organised crime network.
And gangland always fills a void the only way it knows how - with more brutal violence.

In death, Eamon Kelly and Alan Ryan lie within a few metres of each other in Fingal cemetery.
Gardai now fear the coming year will be every bit as bloody as the last 12 months, which saw 16 more bodies carted off to Gangland's Boot Hill.

The Sunday World was watching in 2012 as Ireland's real Love/Hate played out on the streets of our cities, towns and villages.

Last January we eerily pre-dicted who would be the main players in the violence and who needed to watch their backs.

Now Ireland's leading crime reporters reveal the bloody struggle that is about to be unleashed on our streets to fill the shoes of and Ryan.

Now Ireland's leading crime reporters reveal the bloody struggle that is about to be unleashed on our streets to fill the shoes of and Ryan.

Well not much has went on since Ireland's leading crime reports unleashed this report.

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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.

TEN YEARS of brutal gangland feuding came to a sudden stop when Gardai finally got to grips with limerick's drugs gangs.

That's the popular myth, anyway. In reality, the gangsters haven't gone away. They are rebuilding their lucrative business which, like everything else, crashed when the economy came to a sudden halt in 2008.

They are better organised and more sophisticated than ever, learning from the mistakes made in the past.

In a city where 22 people have died in gang-related killings since 2000, the drugs trade is still a cash cow, even if it's not as big as it used to be.

Many of the notorious names are now dead, like Philip Collopy. Others, like Wayne Dundon and 'Fat' John McCarthy, are in jail.
Others, like Paul Crawford and Larry McCarthy junior, claim to have turned their backs on the underworld.

When the steady flow of cash from the weekend sales of cocaine dried up, it left many gangsters with no easy way to make money.
The Dundon brothers forged a reputation based on their unwavering brutality, but it was also built on money; when it ran out, so too did their loyal sidekicks.

Enemies

Now the Dundon brothers are all behind bars, thanks partly to evidence given by people who once would have been counted as stalwart gang members.
In a pattern that has been repeated across the country, powerful strains of cannabis have taken over from cocaine as the leisure drug of choice.

In Limerick, the cannabis trade is controlled by the Keanes, Even the gangsters who are part of the rival McCarthy faction are effectively supplied by their sworn enemies.

"It's gone full circle. Ten years ago Christy Keane was the head honcho and now he is back again," a source told the Sunday World.

Last year the crime boss's nephew Joe was released from jail, along with cousin Richard Treacy, after serving six years for the manslaughter of Darren Coughlan in 2005.

Joe Keane has wasted little time establishing himself as the top mobster in a city that has no shortage of willing drug dealers.
"The two nephews are determined to build up the family business. They don't drink or smoke or do drugs. They are smart and have sworn they won't be back in jail," the source added.

A son of Kieran Keane, Joe infamously wrote a letter as a teenager promising to kill the people involved in his father's murder.
"People who set up and killed my father all will be dead by the time I am 32, now I am 14. That's a promise boys," he wrote.

The blood feud could erupt again at any moment and associates are always careful not to stray into rival territory.

They are careful to keep drug time, despite being caught with a drugs load in Belgium.

A huge stash of drugs worth over £1million seized by cops in April 2011 is believed to have been shipped to Ireland by O'Brien.

The former club and pub owner was released from jail in Belgium nearly four years ago, where he was charged over another massive drugs haul. Unlike the violent street gangsters, 'Chaser' has foreign contacts and business skills.

Supply

The Keanes and O'Brien all have links with established Dublin-based drug dealers and in turn supply dealers in other areas, such as Cork, Galway and Sligo.

Although many of Limerick's infamous gangsters are out of the picture, there are enough key players still active to ensure fur- ther battles for control of the city's gangland in 2013,stashes at arm's length, using carefully chosen 'dead-drops' to supply dealers.

Christu Keane is now based in Spain, from where he is directing the crime family s cannabis business. He was serving a ID-year jail sentence as Limerick's gang war reached its murderous height, claiming 22 lives.

Keane was released in 2009 but even behind bars he plotted a steady strategy to keep his network ahead of its rivals. Being in jail while the feud raged probably kept him alive.

It effectively left him as the last man standing.

Another figure who played a role in city's infamous drugs trade, Jim 'Chaser' O'Brien, is also back in business, according to Sunday World sources.

He was aligned to the McCarthy-Dundon faction, but fled the country fearing that he would be arrested in connection with the murder of Kieran Keane in 2003.
O'Brien stayed out of the intergang feud and avoided serious jail.
----

THIS YEAR is set to be a pivotal one in Irish organised crime, with the Real IRA and some of Dublin's biggest drugs mobs set to fight it out for the control of gangland.

After a year of massive shocks and huge changes following the murder of some of gangland's most influential players, never before has there been so much up for grabs.

With the prize of control of the capital's lucrative drugs trade at stake, there is little doubt that the next 12 months will see further bloodshed.

For years, a status quo existed where gangs dealt drugs, made lots of money and reluctantly handed a small percentage over to republican groups - be it the IRA, Real IRA (RIRA) or Continuity IRA (ClRA) - as a form of 'protection'.

The rise of the Dublin brigade of the Real IRA over the last three years started to change all that,though.
Business was traditionally conducted in a cordial enough manner, as both criminals and dissidents realised they were involved in a long-running game.

However, the emergence of Alan Ryan as the head of the Real IRA in the capital changed the rules fOT good.
He refused to play nice with drug dealers and instead of taking a few hundred euro from a mob each month, he started to demand a few thousand.

Ryan would take 40 per cent of the proceeds for himself and send the remainder up to the Northern leader-ship.
If a criminal wouldn't pay, he was threatened. If he still refused to cough up, he was either beaten or had a finger chopped off. If that didn't convince him, then he was murdered.

Violence

It wasn't just criminals, however, that Ryan went for. He also put the CIRA and former senior Provos out of business by issuing threats and generally terrorising them.
The amount of violence inflicted by Ryan and his cronies caused huge unease among the gangs and his murder at the hands of a criminal from Clontarf in Dublin last September caused shock waves that will continue to be felt this year.

In the weeks after Ryan's murder, things went back to the way they had always been.
His replacements were not feared by Dublin's biggest gangsters and they were told where to go when they demanded the same protection money the feared Ryan had been paid.

When the Northern command of the RIRA began to see the money dry up, they came down to Dublin to restore order in the terror group and impose their own choice to replace Ryan. This has led to a serious internal power struggle within the RIRA, but it is expected that the group's Lurgan-based commander Colin Duffy will win the day and he is said to be preparing to take on Dublin dealers in a bid to get them paying protection money once again.

His first salvo was ordering the murder of gangland godfather Eamon Kelly last month.The 65-year-old was an underworld patron and father figure who kept order in gang-land.He refereed in disputes and generally stopped rows between rival mobs spilling out of control.

His murder was highly symbolic and sent out the message that the Real IRA was still a major force and was not to be messed with.Gardai have received reports that Duffy's cohorts have been doing the rounds across the city, demanding the same amount in 'protection' that was paid to Alan Ryan each week.

This is set to force the hand of the criminals who, sources say, will not pay under any circumstances. It's a negotiating stance they are going to have to back up with force.

Eamon Kelly was a hugely connected man and sat on the so-called 'crime council' with Christy Kinahan that ruled on disputes and sanctioned murders and other serious acts of crime.

This means that there is a long queue of Kelly loyalists who will be looking to protect themselves against the Real IRA and make sure that they will not follow their godfather to an early grave.

Christy Kinahan was Kelly's biggest ally.

He controls a network of criminals across the capital and will be at the forefront of hostilities against the Real IRA.

So too will be Dessie 'the Border Fox' O'Hare, the feared psychopath who carried Kelly's coffin and gave an emotional oration from the altar at his funeral.

The drug dealer who organised Alan Ryan's murder has no choice but to take on the Real IRA. There is a contract on his head and he will have to come out of the shadows in 2013 and take on the dissidents.

Some gardai believe that the re-emergence of 'Fat' Freddie Thompson before Christmas was significant.
It was known that he was in Dublin to collect drugs money on behalf of Kinahan, but he may also have been putting plans in place to deal with the RIRA.

Thompson himself was threatened by Ryan and is known to have a hatred for the Real IRA, thinking that they take protection money from one set of criminals, while associating with others.

If the criminals succeed in forcing Colin Duffy and his cronies back up North, they will have dealt the Real IRA a fatal blow and ensured that the terror group will be forever left weakened.

Havoc

Never more will gangland figures have to pay the movement and the criminals will not have to worry about the next Alan Ryan wreaking havoc on their bottom line, not to mention their lives.

This will hinge on them actually uniting,which will be more difficult because of Eamon Kelly's murder.

He was the glue that held many gangs together and there is nobody obvious to step into his shoes and act as a liaison between the different gangs and ensure they keep a united front.

So there is no doubt there is a motley crew of very serious criminals who would more than give the Real IRA a run for their money. All-out war seems inevitable. The only question is, which side will strike first?

IT IS THE bloodiest Irish gangland feud in history and it is set to continue to cause death and misery in 2013.

When mobster Gerard Eglington was brutally gunned down in front of his three-year-old son and his partner's daughter last September, he had been a dead man walking for over 18 months.

Gangland hardman Eglington (27), was regarded as a key member of the Brian Rattigan mob and acted as 'muscle' for the drugs gang.
It shows how the bitterness and hatred caused by a drugs seizure in the Holiday Inn in Dublin 2001 is still capable of causing death to people who were children when the original split happened.

Gardai believe Eglington was the first of the 'new generation' of leaders of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud to be murdered.
The assassination was planned by senior gang members in revenge for a pub attack on 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's older brother Ritchie.

Savage

The murder was carried out by two of Thompsons most trusted lieutenants and shows the chubby mobster's gang are still capable of murder.

Just five hours after Eglington was shot in Portarlington, Co. Laois, Declan O'Reilly (31), was also murdered in front of his young child on the orders of Thompson's cronies.
The savage execution was arranged by two notorious mobsters who hired an erratic criminal who was previously friendly with O'Reilly to carry it out.

Gardai believe 'Fat' Freddie's core gang members are still responsible for arranging drug shipments into Ireland and for wholesaling heroin, cocaine and cannabis across the country. They include Thompson's childhood pal Graham 'the Wig' Whelan and his first cousins Liam and David Byrne.

These veteran criminals have long-established links to drugs godfather Christy Kinahan and tend to avoid direct involvement in handling guns or drugs.
However, a new generation of criminals has seamlessly taken up the baton for carrying out violence in the long-running feud.

These thugs - who are mostly in their mid-20s - have been responsible for a wave of violence over the last 12 months, including pipe bombings, stabbings and shootings.

A number of these up- and-coming mobsters have family connections to gang members who were involved in the original feud.Gardai believe both sides of the feud have access to high-powered weaponry and are involved in drug trafficking across the country.

In August, Rattigan gang associate Owen Gaffney (22), narrowly escaped with his life after a gunman fired six shots at him near his home in the Basin Street Flats in Dublin.

Detectives believe Gaffney is a key member of a new generation of criminal allied to mobster Brian Rattigan.
He is a close associate of Brian Rattigan's younger cousin Aaron Rattigan and has been repeatedly targeted as part of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.

In September, a pipe bomb was also left outside the home of one of Gaffney's crew in the Basin Street Flats by young thugs.

Gardai have previously placed him under armed protection after learning he was a target for rival gunmen.

Divided

It is believed that Gaffney's attempted assassination was carried out by associates of Ian 'Mad Dog' Maloney - a former driver for 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.
Maloney (25), - who is currently serving an 11-year sentence for his part in an armed robbery on a jewellers - is regarded as one of the leaders of the new generation of 'Fat' Freddie gang members.

Another former gangland driver, Paul Gray, is also regarded as a key figure in the ongoing feud. Gray (25), earned his criminal stripes as a driver for Graham 'the Wig' Whelan.
Gray is the brother-in-law of Ritchie Thompson and when Gerard Eglington appeared before Dublin District Court in July 2011, Gray appeared suddenly from the public gallery and assaulted the thug.

This was in retaliation for Ritchie Thompson, and Gray l; sister Catherine, being assaulted by Eglington in the Karma Stone pub on Dublin l; Wexford Street in March 2011.

A senior source has previously told the Sunday World that the murder of Eglington was a "serious blow" for the Rattigan gang.
Eglington's death means that the majority of the senior Rattigan gang members are now behind bars or have been killed.

However, there still remains a hardcore group of more than 15 young men - including a young relative of slain gangster Martin 'the General' Cahill- who are ready to aim and murder Thomnpson's associates.

Suspect

Over the last 12 months, members of the Rattigan gang have regularly been spotted in the company of RIRA murder suspect Sean Connolly,Connolly (34), is a child-hood pal of Brian Rattigan and has remained close to members of his family since his release from a prison sentence in 2010.

Despite being a so-called anti-drugs activist, Connolly and members of the rogue RIRA unit he headed up were regularly spotted in the company of Rattigan gang members.

It is believed that Connolly's reputation in the south inner city provid- ed protection for the under-fire mob.
However, Connolly is now off the streets after being charged with the murder of godfather Eamon Kelly last month.

The RIRA unit he was in charge of - based around Inchicore and Bluebell in the capital- is likely to be restructured by the dissident group's new Northern-based leadership.

RIRA chiefs are said to be disgusted at Connolly's links to drug-dealing criminals and have told his gang to disassociate from the Rattigan crew.

But while the Thompson faction is in the ascendancy, the new generation of gang members have suffered a number of damaging splits and the potential for inter-gang feuding remains high.

Last year, convicted criminal Karl Fay narrowly escaped with his life after his 16-year-old cousin Stephen Hynes was shot in the back near his home on Lismore Road.

Shooting

Gardai believe the intended target for the drive-by shooting was Fay, who was standing next to innocent Stephen.
Fay is an associate of a number of members of 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's gang and was previously cleared of murder.

He has links to an up-and-coming gang - who are mostly in their 20s - that controls the drug trade in the Charlemont Street area and Swan Grove in the Ranelagh suburb of Dublin.

The gang is heavily involved in heroin dealing and is believed to source the drugs from Thompson's organisation.
But despite his links to 'Fat' Freddie's mob, gardai believe Fay has been targeted by another arm of the gang controlled by associates of drug dealer
Gareth Chubb,Chubb (26), is a member of Thornpson's drug gang and is regarded as an up- and-coming criminal figure.

A source said: "The new generation have links to sen- ior gang members and probably worked for them at one point. But their loyalty is questionable.
"They might be considered members of the Thompson gang but really they are only interested in looking after themselves."

I HAVE had my fair share of death threats and attacks over the years, but when they are directed at my family, that is when I stand up and start to fight back.

After all my investigative work I didn't think it would be an appearance on ITV's Loose Women that would incite one of the most offensive bits of abuse that has ever come my way.

The Tweet in full read: "@donal-macintyre grassing c**t, wish Chelsea kill you and your wife."

The Twitter troll was referring to an incident three years before when a group of men attacked me and my wife because I had helped jail one of their friends and associates, an infamous Chelsea hooligan called Jason Marriner.

This was beyond a joke and I decided that I would not let it stand. I would not let this coward hide behind the cloak of internet anonymity. The offensive tweet brought all the memories of the vicious assault flooding back to my wife.

Pummelled -

A "pack of wolves" - in the words of the judge - descended upon me and at least 10 men pummelled me unconscious while my wife Ameera tried to pull them off, even placing herself between the blows and my body on the floor.The attack in the Cloud 9 bar in leafy, suburban Hampton Court, Surrey, came as she was being treated for a pituitary brain tumour.

Shortly after I appeared on ITV's Loose Women I noticed the tweet appearing in my account, from one 'alexhardy93'. The spark for the tweet came presumably from something I had said on the show.

It brought it all back to me and her - the other threats, the panic attacks, the traumatic court case which saw lames Wild (49), convicted and sentenced to nearly two years in prison for assaulting a Crown Prosecution witness.

He was a childhood friend of jason 'Marriner, who I exposed as a member of the infamous Chelsea 'Headhunter' firm of football hooligans in the BBC documentary in 2000.
The idiot who had tweeted the offensive remarks had, to my mind, incited violence and made threats to kill in a manner which the law describes a 'malicious communication'.

I wanted to confront him face to face, but first 1 decided to see how the police would handle it.
Two days after I made the initial complaint, the police came back to me and said that they could not progress the case any further because Twitter was a US company and it would require a court order there to get the information about the person who sent the offensive communication.

I told them with the confidence of a cynical crime reporter, who has seen the force at their best and worst: "I had a spare 15 minutes and 1 have got his details, his family information, his old school and even his date of birth.
"I read his tweets. Then i read his friends' tweets and when it says 'happy birthday mate' on April 25, you may safely assume that was his birthday."

A cursory look at his friends' Facebook pages revealed all the relevant details of his life.

Alex Hardy was a 19-year-old Manchester City football fan that kept some 'juicy company' and liked to shout out on Twitter. He put up a very brave face online. I wondered if he would be as brave when we eventually met.

The officer said that he would pass the information on to Manchester, where Alex Hardy lived.

After two months little was done, so I decided that I had to take matters into my own hands.
The first complaint was made on April 29 and now in the dead of winter nothing had been done. I decided I would confront my Twitter troll and challenge him directly about his behaviour arave

As I was preparing to go to Stockport, in Greater Manchester, to chase down Alex Hardy at his mum's address, I received a tweet out of the blue.
It read: "In relation to my tweet on april 26th I would like to apologise to you and your wife @donalmacintyre." Where had this come from? I was determined to find out and continued my journey to meet my online abuser.

It was about five o'clock in the evening when I knocked on the pleasant £300,000 suburban house outside Stockport and met Alex Hardy's mother.

"Do you know why i am here?" i asked a woman in her 40s."1 know you, but 1 didn't expect to see you," she said. "Alex is out." "I read the tweet and if it is genuine and he says it to me in person then 1 will drop the matter," 1 said.

It seems that community officers had told Hardy all would be fine if he tweeted an apology to me. Not surprisingly he did, just 20 minutes later; without meaning a word of it presumably, I thought. Twenty fours hours later I called by the house again, but Alex was out. I tracked down some of his haunts and left my card, inviting Alex to phone.
I was determined to track down Hardy directly, but had not figured on his parents complaining to the police about alleged harassment.

His father Paul called me to Bootle Police station, in the centre of Manchester, at midnight to complain that I was handing out business cards in various pubs in Stockport trying to track his son down and that I was recording conversations.

The complaint was quickly dismissed and the next day I arranged to meet Chief Inspector Kevin Taylor.
"Listen, if it's a genuine apology and made face to face then I am happy to put this to bed right now," I told him, It's called restorative justice, a process where offenders and victims meet up, forcing the offender to understand the human cost of his crimes,

Just before the year end, Chief Inspector Taylor led me to his office and sat me down beside the bulky 19-year-old, This time there was no bravado or arrogance, He was softly spoken and it was hard to recognise the digital thug that he was months earlier, "I'm so sorry, I never knew about your wife's illness, I was just shooting off. I never meant to cause harm," he said,

Brave

"You're telling your friends some-thing different. Apparently, you want to slit my throat," I said to him. "It's easy to apologise when the police are here,but that didn't sound genuine to me."

The Inspector suggested that Hardy was just courting this aggressive opinion for the benefit of his friends and I'm sure that was the case.
In front of me was a misbehaving child in a man's body, who now was taking his punishment with some humility.

My plan was to make him accountable to his friends on Twitter - so I suggested that we photograph a handshake between us and get him to post it online.
"If you post that online with another apology that's the end of the matter," I said. I knew it would cause him pain and embarrassment.

It doesn't take too much to track down perpetrators in cyberspace and the authorities must understand that online abuse can have a much longer and lasting impact than a physical assault. I took on my Twitter troll and this time justice won, but, for the most part, I had to do it on my own.

This is something which I certainly can't recommend to everyone, but there is a great satisfaction in divorcing the Twitter troll from the cloak of anonymity and to see a young man, devoid of arrogance, finally brought to book.

MOBSTER Fat Freddie Thornpson's family pais enjoyed a boozy farewell party to the chubby criminal before he flew back to Spain on Tuesday.

The feuding crime boss splashed out for a big night out for his friends in a city-centre pub in the capital before flying out of Dublin Airport this week.
The night out doubled as a going-away party and a 32nd birthday celebration for 'Fat' Freddie's long-term girlfriend, Vicky Dempsey.

Blonde Vicky has been in a relationship with the chubby mobster since they were teenagers and they have one son together.
Thompson was also joined by his first cousins, David and Liam Byrne, and his long-term associate Sean McGovern.

Glamorous

The two Byrne brothers are regarded as key allies of Thompson and both men spent large parts of the year on the Costa del Sol in Spain.
Liam Byrne's glamorous girlfriend, Simoan McEnroe, was also at the party.

Last March, Sean McGovern, from Windmill Park in Crumlin, and Liam Byrne, were arrested in Manchester for allegedly threatening to kill a businessman.

They were picked up along with a local criminal who has long been a target of Manchester Police's organised crime unit after they called to the home of the businessman.

Thompson spent the majority of his time in Ireland in a hotel in the Coombe in the south inner city.

Gardai believe he regularly met up with gang members in a number of bars across the city - including a pub in Newcastle, Co. Dublin.

It is believed his gang members have recently been putting the squeeze on drug dealers who owe them cash.
Thompson's trip back to Spain was nearly delayed after he lost his passport late last week.

The feuding thug - who has spent most of his life avoiding gardai - had to go into Keuin Street Garda station late last week to look for help.
He reported his travel document missing and had to fill out a passport application form, which was signed by gardai.

A source told the Sunday World that Thompson kept a relatively low profile during his visit home.
"He had very little interaction with the gardai, besides applying for a new passport. He kept his nose clean," a source said.

Thompson was extradited to Spain last November on foot of a European arrest warrant and has had to remain there ever since while an investigation into his connections with Christy Kinahan was completed.

Kinahan, from Dublin's south inner city, and 30 others were arrested in Spain as part of Operation Shovel in May 2010.
However, Thompson has been told by Spanish cops that he will not face any charges, despite the fact that he was allegedly caught on tape discussing gang activities.

Shipments

The Spanish authorities believe that Thompson is a key lieutenant of Kinahan and they have phone recordings of him and north-inner city criminal Gary Hutch talking about a firearm, with Freddie saying "that gun's too small".

Spanish police also have evidence that Thompson and Hutch travelled to Portugal and Amsterdam in 2009 to organise shipments on behalf of Kinahan.

Police claim that Thompson and Hutch - a nephew of Gerry 'the Monk' Hutch lived together in Spain and were the "right-hand men" of Daniel Kinahan, Christy Kinahan's son.
Freddie has been running his gang from Spain for the last 12 months and gardai believe he has been organising drugs shipments from his base in Marbella.

THESE WERE the scenes during a terrifying mob attack by members of a traveller clan armed with knives, metal bars and rocks.

Famous for their flash cars and millionaire traders, this year some Rathkeale travellers brought a vicious feud home for the festive season.
One of the ringleaders had been given bail just days earlier, after being convicted of a high-speed road race on Christmas Day.

The assault came just after the new year had been rung in at Rathkeale, County Limerick, where thousands of Irish travellers returned for the holiday.
Several men stormed the yard of a house and smashed windows, ornaments and security cameras in the onslaught.

Two men are caught on camera brandishing knives, while a bare-chested man tries to kick in the front door of a house.
The assault continued even after gardai had arrived at the scene at Fairgreen, in the middle of a residential area owned almost entirely by traveller families Charged

After a number of gardai were called away to deal with another incident, the officers left at the scene were unable to stop more than a half dozen men who charged into the property, The attackers are visible on the footage armed with shovels and iron bars, which they used to smash windows and hack at the back door.
Throughout the riot, rocks were thrown at the house, damaging cars and smashing roof tiles on the gated-bungalow.

Bridget Ryan, who has lived in Rathkeale for the last 30 years, said the attack came without any warning.

Her husband Roger died in November after a six-year battle with throat cancer and just days before the terrifying incident her sister Nora had also died in Co. Mayo.
The mother of 17 told the Sunday World that the mob assault had left her frightened and unable to sleep.

She admitted, however, that she was previously arrested by gardai investigating a pipe bomb attack on a wealthy traveller trader in the town.
"It had nothing to do with that," she insisted this week.

Demanded

In January 2011, Bridget was charged with extortion, amid allegations that she had demanded €24,000 from Patrick Hegarty and had threatened to blow up his house. Not long afterwards, the charges were dropped and then some months later the alleged victim died of a heart attack in Germany.

Two of those in the video of the mob attack were identified by a number of Sunday World sources this week. Brian Gammell (20) and his father Patrick are clearly visible in the video taking part in the mob attack and had already been convicted of offences over the Christmas holiday.

Gammell junior was given bail after seeking leave to appeal a two-month jail sentence imposed for the Christmas Day drag race.
He had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving after being caught in a race between a Porsche and a BMHlon a country road.Roger Boswell (19), of Setchel Grove, Cambridge, England, also admitted dangerous driving.

Drivers on the N21 had to get out of the way action when the pair raced each other between Newcastle West and Rathkeale.

Gardai had spotted the two cars accelerating at the start of the drag run and followed the cars to Rathkeale as they reached speeds of more than 140kph.
The court was told the two young men have no previous convictions and only return to Ireland once a vear from the UK, where they are working.

Judge Aneas McCarthy said it was a miracle nobody was killed during the incident. Both men were jailed for two months and banned from driving for five years.
Brian's father Patrick was also fined €350 after he pleaded guilty to a charge of using threatening and abusive behaviour to a garda after the race.

Abuvsive

Every Christmas the sudden influx of travellers can lead to tensions. In the worst incident during Easter celebrations in 2001, David 'Tunny' Sheridan was stabbed to death in a confused melee.

His cousin and brother-in-law Paddy 'Crank' Sheridan was sent for trial after being charged with murder, but was acquitted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court three days before Christmas in 2004.

Limerick TD and Fianna Fail justice spokesman Niall Collins has expressed his concerns that further cutbacks could leave officers on the ground without back-up.

"Basically there are huge concerns out there that existing gardai would have adeuate back-up in situations like this.

If the force drops another thousand you'll effectively be reducing the gardai in many parts of the country to a glorified neighbourhood watch scheme," he said.

This year, Gardai mounted an operation aimed at preventing dangerous driving by young travellers in Rathkeale over Christmas. They impounded 30 vehicles, all of which had foreign registration plates, which had to be recovered for a £135 fee at a pound in Limerick city.

Drivers whose cars were taken had been stopped and found to have been driving without a licence or insurance.
It is estimated that up to 3,500 travellers descended on the town from Britain and continental Europe this year.

The HSE said this week that a special clinic set up in Rathkeale over the Christmas period dealt with 400 consultations over the two weeks it was open.
The clinic was set to stop a surge in patients at the A&E at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick city.

Gilligan





THE SO-CALLED 'lawyer' representing drug baron John Gilligan - whose criminal gang murdered journalist Veronica Gueril1 - is facing trial multiple charges of fraud in two weeks.

Giovanni di Stefano was back spinning Gilligan's propaganda this week after two national newspapers gave him a platform to claim that his "client" wants to go straight and write his life story when freed from prison this year.

Di Stefano was described by journalists as a "lawyer".
'What the stories failed to mention, however, is that the man branded 'the devil's advocate' was speaking- while -on bail after being charged with a string of fraud offences including "falsely purporting" to be an Italian lawyer.

He was bailed on condition that he live and sleep at one of two addresses in Canterbury and London, report each Saturday to police, surrender his passport, abide by a midnight to 6am curfew and make no contact with witnesses.
Di Stefano's own lawyers say he "vigorously" denies the allegations and will plead not guilty to all charges.


Deception

But the shady con artist already has at least 19 convictions for fraud and deception and has served eight years in prison for his criminal activities.

The fact that he is still being referred to as a 'lawyer' by sections of the Irish media is astounding, to say the least. It is more than six years now since theSunday World first revealed that Di Stefano is a conman with ahsolutely no legal qualifications.

On the contrary, he is a pathological liar who has proved time and again to be a WaIter Mitty-style character who has embedded him-self with criminals in an effort to boost his own ego. An Old Bailey judge has described him as "one of nature's fraudsters" and "a swindler without scruple of conscience".

Italian police enquiries have concluded that he is not entitled to practice law there and a Eurojust report - the EU's Judicial Co-operation Unit - has said it is impossible that he could legally practice law in any other country.
Di Stefano was extradited from Spain last February after he was arrested at his villa in Majorca. His trial is due to get underway at Southwark Crown Court on January 28.

The Italian, who grew up in London, has tried very hard to cement his reputation as a 'lawyer' for some of the world's most evil, claiming to legally represent the Balkan warlord known as 'Arkan', Saddam Hussein and Moors killer ran Brady among a long list of 'celebrity' criminals and killers.

He turned his attention to Ireland after he started representing Patrick Eugene 'Dutchu' Holland, the man gardai believe assassinated Guerin on the orders of John Gilligan.
Holland, a professional hitman, was another pathological liar who passed a lie detector test while telling untruths - a skill common among psychopaths.

It was Holland who introduced Di Stefano to Gilligan, who is due for release later this year. Since then, Di Stefano has popped up time and again protesting Gilligan's innocence and his commitment to going straight.

Last week the Sunday World ran a story about fears that Gilligan hopes to return to the drug trade once he is set free from prison. Senior and reliable Garda sources say that the tiny thug has continued to try to run his empire from behind bars and has invested his hidden millions in the continuation of his once hugely lucrative business.

While not organising drug shipments, he has spent his time studying law and coming up with as many ways as possible to thwart our legal system, Days" later, a national newspaper ran a front-page story quoting bailed fraudster Di Stefano exten- sively and incredibly insisting that Gilligan, a career criminal of 40 years, is looking forward to getting out and "going straight".

It reported Di Stefano insisting the drug baron, from Ballyfermot in Dublin, only wants to become a "family man" and live out his life with his kids and grandkid - a future denied to the reporter shot dead by the Gilligan gang on the Naas Road in 1996.

Those who know Gilligan,who beat Veronica in a vicious assault before she was murdered, say that the ludicrous claims making front page news would have amused the gangster no end.

The crime lord has cost the State more than €20million, fighting the Criminal Assets Bureau ( CAB ) through the courts as it attempted to seize his Jessbrook Equestrian Centre, near Leixlip, Co. Kildare.

Last year, after a decade of legal battles, the Supreme Court gave permission to the CAB to sell the Kildare centre, including a 3,000- seat arena arid 90 acres of land and stables, but barred the sale of the main house on the estate where the court was told Gilligan's wife Geraldine lives.

In his interview this week, Di Stefano insisted that he advised Gilligan to go to Spain, but that the thug said he wanted to stay in Jessbrook - an obvious 'two fingers' to the Gardai who have worked tirelessly to strip him of what assets they could.

Another national newspaper quoted his 'lawyer' Stefano as claiming the jailed mob boss is hoping to earn enough money from writing his life story to support himself once he is out of prison.


Fortune

At one point, Gilligan was making tens of thousands a week importing drugs into Ireland. After the murder of Veronica Guerin and the Garda investigation into his gang,
officers remained convinced that he has squirrelled away a fortune in Spain where his wife Geraldine and daughter Tracey run the Judge's Chambers pub.

CAB officers, assisted by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI), identified a string of properties and businesses including the pub, five warehouses, two boats, six houses, two motor vehicles and a construction firm.

However, none were linked directly to his name and they couldn't be seized. Officers who have investigated the five-foot thug for years believe that was only the tip of the iceberg and that Gilligan had laundered countless millions that they couldn't even identify.

No doubt it amused him greatly to read of his plans to live such a sedate retirement on the proceeds of an autobiography once he gets out.

A NOTORIOUS criminal who was quizzed this week about the Christmas gangland murder of Christopher 'Git' Warren is one of the most erratic young hoods in gangland.

The violent thug - who is in his mid 20s - was arrested in the south inner city by gardai investigating Warren's murder on Monday.

Unpredictable

The suspect is an associate of veteran criminal Jimmy 'the Badger'Edgeworth (73) and has links to the 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's gang.
Detectives believe the young mobster is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable criminals operating in the capital and has been responsible for a wave of crimes.

These include armed raids on post offices, two separate pub stabbings and a number of vicious assaults. He was also responsible for carrying out a number of robberies of drug dealers in the south inner city last year.

The baby-faced thug was staking out low-level crack cocaine dealers before holding them up at gunpoint earning him the nickname 'Omar' after the character in the popular HBO crime series, The Wire.

However, the robberies came to an end after he was told he would be shot if he continued.

Since then, he has been wearing a bullet-proof vest and last year was lucky to escape without serious injury after one of his rivals attempted to run him over with a car.

Sources have revealed that detectives believe three other men were involved in last week's shooting.

Ironically, 'Git' Warren also had links to a number of men involved in the murder and was friendly with their relatives.
Gardai have information that Warren was shot in retaliation for striking a woman in a pub in a row over a drugs debt. The woman has links to a group of up-and-coming mobsters.

He was lured to the northside of Dublin on the pretence of "sorting out" the row, but was shot on arrival. Gardai believe his attackers did not mean to kill him, but intended to shoot him as part of a punishment-style attack.

Despite his injuries, Warren personally raised the alarm and phoned a pal to tell him that he had been shot. He was then picked up by his friend, who drove him to St lames's Hospital before he was taken from the car.

Speaking to the Sunday World, an eyewitness said Warren was dropped off by two men at the hospital.

She said: "Two men, one old and one younger guy, got out and went to the passenger seat. The body was completely limp and was too heavy for both men to lift.

Addict:

"The younger man called over a security guard to help and they lifted him into a wheelchair. They tried to leave, but were delayed by security. The younger guy shouted he was 'innocent' and they sped off."

Warren was one of the country's most prolific burglars and amassed more than 60 separate convictions for house robberies.

The drug addict was on temporary release from prison when he was shot. His brutal death comes nearly nine years after the murder of his brother Paul (23), shocked the nation.

Drug dealer Paul was shot dead in the toilets of a pub in Newmarket Square on February 25, 2004.

THE on-the-run sister of limerick's Dundon brothers has fallen for a notorious UK killer - despite the fact that he is serving a life sentence in prison.

This exclusive photograph shows Annabell Dundon (22) proudly hugging her new love Shane Boyd during a jail visit.

Scumbag Boyd (20) was dubbed the 'Xbox killer' after he brutally stabbed teenager Connor Black to death during a row about a games console at a house party in Manchester in 2008.
In August, Boyd was at the centre of a national controversy in Britain after it emerged that he had been using social network website Facebook to post vile threats of revenge on his release from prison.

Annabell- the younger sister of Ger, John,Dessie and Wayne - has been living in the UK since February after fleeing Limerick.
A bench warrant was issued for her arrest in June after she failed to appear in court in connection with alleged threats to kill.

Argument

However, it seems that changing countries has not improved Annabell's taste in men.
Despite never having seen him outside of a prison visit, Annabell has declared her undying love for illiterate killer Boyd and has even had his name tattooed on her body.

A source has claimed Annabell was introduced to Boyd through another Limerick woman who is involved in a relationship with one of the murderer's relatives.
Writing on her Facebook page,Annabell has said: "Love My Boy Shane Always And Forever So Haters Keep Hatin Coz His Mine And I'm His Haha."

However, Annabell will have to wait a few years before she gets her hands on her man outside the prison walls.
Boyd was locked up for life in 2009 and,under sentencing guidelines in Britain,will have to serve a minimum of 11 years.

The violent thug was just 16-years-old when he murdered Conor Black in an argument over an Xbox games console. Conor, also aged 16, collapsed and died minutes after being stabbed outside the house in Moston in August 2008.

The court heard how Boyd came out of the house and smashed his victim over the head with a can of lager, before stabbing him in the back as he turned to escape.

Boyd then stood in the road shouting that he "was the best" he "was the man"- before threatening to kill anyone who mentioned his name to police.

Clowning

Earlier this year, Boyd hit the headlines again after photographs of him, clowning around with fellow inmates at HMP Altcourse near Liverpool appeared on the social-networking site under the name 'Ben Smith'.

The killer also posted vile threats of revenge on his release from prison.
One said: "All them snakes wil (sic) get what's coming to them out next year."

Boyd had been moved to Altcourse after committing the same offence at HMP Ashfield near Bristol.

After the images were published, Connor's aunt Lynn Black blasted the prison service in the UK.
She said: "It's all well and good them saying it won't happen again but they said that last time. We've been through enough already but from what's happened so far we're not convinced they're taking it seriously.

"It's illegal to have phones in prison but he managed to get one twice. Whoever's responsible should be prosecuted and that's what we want to see, not just be told he's been moved again."

http://www.thesun.ie/irishsol/homepage/news/4805515/Dundons-charges-over-Roy-shooting.html

Dundon’s charges over Roy shooting

Murder rap ... Dundon, left, and Kileen
Exclusive
EXCLUSIVE By STEPHEN BREEN
Published: 21 hrs ago

TWO men are to be charged with the murder of innocent businessman Roy Collins.
The Irish Sun can reveal that gangland boss Wayne Dundon, 33 and his sidekick Nathan Kileen, 23, will appear before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin tomorrow.
Roy, 35, was gunned down by the evil McCarthy/Dundon crime gang as he opened up at his Coin Castle amusement arcade in Roxboro, Limerick city, on April 9, 2009.
An application was made before the Special Criminal Court yesterday to produce the two men in court.
Roy’s heartbroken family — who are in a witness protection programme outside Ireland — have been informed of the development.
A fresh file on the murder investigation was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions before Christmas.
Dundon is currently serving six years for threatening to kill his brother Ger’s former partner April Collins, and her mother Alice.
Killeen was caged for five years for threatening witnesses.

Murdered ... Roy
Eamon Ward
Both men have been informed of the decision to charge them with Roy’s murder.
It’s understood the DPP ruled to charge the pair after gardai recovered fresh evidence as part of their ongoing probe.
Roy’s dad Steve left Ireland last March after his family received death threats. The gang had targeted Roy after he testified against the thugs.
The Glock pistol used to murder him was found on July 28 last near Young Munster Rugby Club on the outskirts of Limerick city during a community clean-up.
James Dillon, 26, is already serving life for Roy’s murder.

thought it was steve collins the boxer,hes a anti-gang actvistist

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0222/368998-roy-collins-court/

Two men have been charged with the murder of Roy Collins in Limerick almost four years ago.

Wayne Dundon, 34, from Lenehan Avenue and Nathan Killeen, 22, from Hyde Road, both in Limerick, appeared before the Special Criminal Court this morning.

They were remanded in custody to appear again in court in April.

Mr Collins, 35, was shot dead on 9 April 2009 at the family business in the Coin Castle Arcade at the Roxborough Road Shopping Centre.

Justice Paul Butler refused to give a direction in relation to the reporting of or comment on the case after Dundon's counsel complained about public figures congratulating gardaí on bringing him to court.

The two men appeared before the non-jury Special Criminal Court because the three judges were told the Director of Public Prosecutions had deemed the ordinary courts inadequate for the administration of justice.

Two detectives from Limerick, Paul Crowley and Brian O'Connor, gave evidence of meeting both men in the court building this morning, cautioning them, explaining the charge to them in ordinary language and showing them the charge sheet.

Dundon's defence counsel said he was asked to bring to the court's attention the fact that there had already been a lot of media coverage of the case before it happened and that public figures, particularly in Limerick, had been congratulating gardaí on bringing Dundon to court.

Mr Justice Butler said the court was unaware of such statements and although they should be discouraged, he would not make any order or direction in relation to it.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/cou...h-29088687.html

SONYA MCLEAN – 22 FEBRUARY 2013

A Dublin man has been jailed after he was caught with €1.7 million which were part of the proceeds of a bank heist following the tiger kidnapping of a bank employee, his girlfriend and her family.

The court heard that a total of €7.66 million had been taken from the Bank of Ireland, College Green, on February 26, 2009, after a staff member, his girlfriend and her family were falsely imprisoned by a gang of armed men at their home in Kilteel, Co Kildare.

Darren O’Brien (27) of North Stand, Dublin 3, pleaded guilty on the morning of his trial to handling stolen cash in Dublin 7 on February 27, 2009.

O’Brien has 27 previous convictions, one of which includes possession of a firearm with intent. The remainder of his convictions had been dealt with in the District Court.

A co-accused Mark Donoghue (42) of Kileen, Legen, Longford, received a five year term with two suspended in March 2010 from Judge Patricia Ryan. He had pleaded guilty to a more serious charge of money laundering and had no previous convictions.

Uná Ní Raifeartaigh SC, prosecuting told Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that the Director of Public Prosecutions are not suggesting that O’Brien was involved in the bank robbery or that he had any knowledge of the tiger kidnapping.

She suggested that the court “could draw an inference”, considering the quantity of cash he was carrying, that he knew it had come from a robbery.

Judge Hogan sentenced O’Brien to seven years with 12 months suspended on strict conditions. He also gave him credit for 18 months he has spent on remand in prison awaiting sentence.

He accepted that O’Brien had pleaded guilty and had saved the victims of the tiger kidnapping having to give evidence at trial and “reliving the harrowing experience they must have endured”.

“It would be unfair to infer that he had knowledge of the tiger kidnapping…I will resist that temptation,” Judge Hogan said.

“Having said that the court is mindful that his offence was at the higher end of the scale, and involved him handling an extremely large amount of money,” he continued.

Detective Inspector Ashley O’Sullivan told the court that the victims had been held at gunpoint in their home on February 26, 2009.

The Bank of Ireland employee was then ordered to go to work at his branch in College Green where he arranged for the money to be placed in bags before it was handed out to the gang.

He had been given photographs of his girlfriend and her family and the home of another staff member to show his colleagues before the cash was taken.

Det Insp O’Sullivan told Ms Ní Raifeartaigh that that gardai received confidential information on who had control over the stolen money and had an address in Great Western Villas, Dublin 7, under surveillance hours after the robbery.

O’Brien was seen driving a sliver BMW into the estate before going into a house carrying a holdall. He left the house a short time later without it.

A blue Volkswagen later arrived into the estate along with an Opel Astra, which was driven by Donoghue. The holdall bag was then taken from the house and placed in the Astra.

Gardaí then moved in and surrounded both cars .They blocked Donoghue’s exit out of the estate but he managed to get by and flee the scene.

At least one patrol car pursued Donoghue and at the junction of the N3 with the M50 he was blocked in by a second squad car and arrested.

The holdall, which contained €1.74 million in cash, was found in the boot of the Astra and later analysis linked it to the money taken in the robbery earlier that day.

O’Brien was later arrested but Ms Ní Raifeartaigh said he “did not give any assistance to gardaí” in his subsequent interviews with them.

Hugh Hartnett SC, defending asked Judge Hogan to accept that his client didn’t know about the tiger kidnapping or the robbery.

He handed in a number of testimonials on behalf of his client and asked the court to take into account the fact that he had pleaded guilty to the offence.

When will Brian Rattigan's appeal trial be over? They said they will show the last 2 episodes of the documentary series "Cocaine wars" only after the trial is over.

Brian Rattigan's appeal trial be over?

The appeal is over on the murder charge he lost appeal this week.

So will they now show the rest of "Cocaine wars"? Are there any news on TV in Ireland ? The first 2 episodes were pretty interesting.

"Cocaine wars"?

I know about the book as i did read it were it said fat freddy was not the boss of the gang there was a show called the same name but it came off air because of court case.

I would say they will run it sometime but when ?.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0223/369275-togher-arrest/

Two arrested in connection with dissident republican activities in Cork.

Two people have been arrested in connection with an investigation into activities of dissident republicans in Cork.
The pair were arrested in the Dean Rock area of Togher at around 4pm.
Two firearms were recovered at the scene.
The men are being held at Togher Garda Station.
A follow-up operation was carried out with gardaí searching a number of homes and business premises.

http://www.herald.ie/news/secret-witness-denies-murder-29090092.html

Secret witness denies murder.

23 FEBRUARY 2013 10:40 AM

A witness giving evidence in the trial of a 29-year-old accused of murdering a man in Dublin has denied being involved in the killing.

Kevin Whelan (28), who is in the Witness Protection Programme, denied under cross-examination by the defence being involved in the killing of Ian Tobin (25) six years ago.

Bryan Ryan of Ard Caher, Louisburgh, Co Mayo has pleaded not guilty to murdering Tobin at Fortlawn Park, Blanchardstown, on May 27, 2007.

The Central Criminal Court has heard Tobin was shot through a door in a house in Blanchardstown but his brother Blake was the intended victim.

AN ORGANISED criminal network is now thought to be behind the horse meat scandal which has hit food firms across Europe.

The massive fraud was blown open by the tiny Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAl), which carried out random tests on beef products late last
year.
It exposed the massive profits made by criminal suppliers out to make a quick buck with fake food.
Horse meat trades for up to €700 a ton while beef commands €3,000, leaving a healthy profit for shadowy importers and agents willing to cash in.

Following the lead set by the FSAI, French investigators immediately launched an investigation which led to a supplier in the south of the country.

Caught

It had imported 750 tons of horse meat worth €525,OOO from Romania which became relabelled as beef, making it worth €2.25 million

The transaction was organised through a broker who used offshore companies previously linked 10 convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to reports.
The detection of horse meat in processed foods in Ireland started a series of tests right across Europe.

It's not the first time Ireland has been caught up in a fake-food scandal. Former Gaiway All-Ireland hurler Pearse Piggott escaped jail after it emerged he supplied eggs to a firm relabelling his produce as organic.

Keith Owen was jailed for three years for running the seam, in which 100 million eggs were packaged and he made €3million. Charges of conspiracy against Piggott were ordered to "lie on file" after the prosecution opted not to proceed against him and two other accused.

Last week, fruit and veg importer Paul Begley had his original six-year sentence for smuggling garlic reduced to two years.
He had imported Chinese garlic into the country labelled as apples in a bid to evade tax.

A single lorry load could net as much as €20,000 in extra profits for the smugglers. Two years before Begley was caught, officials ran a European-wide Operation Wasabi, in which 2,000 shipping containers were targeted in a bid to crack down on mislabelled fruit and veg.

But the biggest food scandal in Europe has been the supply of olive oil marketed as being extra virgin Italian.

Expensive

Italy uses and exports more olive oil than it produces so it imports from Spain, the EU's biggest producer. Cheap Spanish oil is often found to have been relabelled and sold off as a more expensive Italian variety.
Europe's worst food scandal happened in 1981 when up to 1,000 people died in Spain after cooking oil was tainted with industrial rapeseed oil, used to dilute regular cooking oil, and then sold to the public.

Other favourite seams included 'honey laundering', in which honey from one country, usually Chinese, is passed off as being local.

The packaging of farmed salmon as wild salmon has also been detected across the world.
Food safety is a huge issue in the developing world and in emerging countries such as Indian and China.

The growth in middle-class shoppers has suppliers cutting corners in a bid to cash in.
In 2008, six children died and nearly 1,000 were hospitalised in China after melamine was added to baby formula to apparently increase protein content.
Chinese manufacturers have also been caught adding hormones and tannery effluent to formulas.

eamon.dillon@sundayworld.com

GANG RAPIST Thomas O'Neill poses with his partner April Collins at their child's christening while on temporary release over Christmas.

Sex beast O'Neill can be seen smiling as he stands beside April and her brother Jimmy Jnr - a former winner of Mr Gay Cork.

April's other brother Gareth and her dad Jimmy Snr were not at the service as they are currently behind bars in connection with gangland offences.
Mum-of-three April - a former girlfriend of Ger Dundon - is likely to be a key witness in the upcoming trial of two men charged with the murder of Roy Collins.

Wayne Dundon and his sidekick Nathan Killeen were brought before the Special Criminal Court in connection with the murder of the innocent barman on Friday. Tragic Roy was gunned down as he opened up at his Coin Castle amusement arcade in Roxboro, Limerick city, on April·9,2009.

Mobster Wayne (34), only spoke briefly during the court hearing and looked tired and significantly balder since he was last photographed 18 months ago.
Wayne's wife Ann was not in court, but he was supported by his brother John's girlfriend Ciara Killeen - a sister of the co-accused Nathan.


Dumped

After leaving the court building, convicted criminal Ciara shouted abuse at photographers. This exclusive image shows 'Dundon wife' Ciara giving the finger as she drove away from the hearing.

Ciara has remained loyal to the Dundon brothers while her former pal April Collins has dumped Ger Dundon for her new rapist lover.
Sex beast O'Neill was controversially released from prison over the holiday period - just weeks after admitting to threatening to burn down the house of Euromillions winner Dolores McNamara's sister, Deirdre O'Donovan.

O'Neill- who was the ringleader of a horrific gang rape in Cratloe Woods, near Limerick, in 2004 - has been in a relationship with April Collins for the last three years.

The relationship sparked a major split in the McCarthy-Dundon gang, with Ger's brothers John and Wayne issuing threats to April following the break-up.
A source told the Sunday World that O'N eill is due out of prison permanently within the next few days.

"He was given bail at Christmas time, but will be out permanently, possibly as soon as this weekend. O'Neill is a very violent and dangerous criminal, he is not just some sex offender," the source said.

On Friday, there was tight security as Dundon and Killeen (22), stood in court as they were charged separately before a three-judge court.
The court heard the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) certify that both should be charged in the non-jury court.

In May 2010, James Dillon, originally from the southside of Limerick, was jailed for life for murdering Mr Collins.
Dundon spoke only once during the 30-minute hearing when he replied "I am" when asked by the court registrar if he was Wayne Dundon.

Both men were remanded in custody to Portlaoise Prison until April 23, when the case will be mentioned again.
In January, O'Neill (24), admitted to threatening to set fire to the home of Deirdre O'Donovan on July 25, 2011. Co-accused Dean Hehir (26), also pleaded guilty to threatening to damage the home of Ms O'Donovan's daughter, Jennifer McCarthy, on the same day.

Ms McCarthy was at home with her 12-year-old son when threats were made,Limerick Circuit Court heard. Evidence was given that Hehir said he was going to burn Ms McCarthy and her children "out of it" and O'Neill, of Limerick, shouted:

"I'm going to burn your mother out of it as well."

Ms McCarthy said she was terrified for her life and her children, and recalled how her father had died in a fire days previously. She said she was terrified by the sight of the two men.

"They were roaring up calling us piranhas. I was terrified of my life and my children were screaming," she told the court.

Judge Carroll Moran sentenced Hehir to three years imprisonment, but suspended the sentence for three years.

Assaulted

O'Neill was sentenced to three years imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended.
The red-haired offender, from The Meadows, Murroe, Co. Limerick, was jailed for 10 years in 2005 after his conviction for the gang rape in Cratloe Woods, Co. Clare, in 2004. He was only 16 at the time he and three other youths and an older man raped a 35-year-old woman in the woods.

They also falsely imprisoned the woman and a male companion, who was also assaulted.

niall.donald@sundayworld.com

This thread is rather vulgar I might say

'FAT' FREDDIE THOMPSON is facing arrest as soon as he steps foot in the country over the stabbing of the nephew of Martin 'the General' Cahill and several other violent incidents.

Gavin Guinan Cahill (34), a former member of the Brian Rattigan mob, was walking on Meath Street, in Dublin 8, five days before Christmas when he was set upon by 'Fat' Freddie and two of his pals.
Cahill suffered a number of stab wounds after the altercation, which took place in the afternoon and was witnessed by several people.

He was taken to hospital and gardai were informed about the incident. They picked up 'Fat' Freddie not far from the scene.
He was arrested and taken to Kevin Street Garda station for a search, but because Guinan Cahill refused to cooperate and make a statement of complaint,gardai had no option but to release Thompson.

Several people who witnessed the unprovoked attack also refused to help gardai.

On January 7, Thompson was back in trouble with the law after instigating a number of violent incidents in Morrissey's pub on Cork Street, following the funeral of gangland murder victim Christopher Warren.

Several fights broke out in the pub and three men were arrested, but at least 15 people were involved. Gardai are looking to question 'Fat' Freddie about the incident after they reviewed CCTV footage from the pub.

Fights

It shows Thompson starting a number of fights and when he comes back to Ireland he will be arrested and questioned.

The 32-year-old was back in Ireland for Christmas after being given permission by the Spanish authorities to travel.

He is being investigated by the Spaniards over his link to Christy Kinahan's drugs gang and as part of his bail conditions, Fat Freddie had to hand in his passport.

While he was here,he strong-armed several drug dealers who have debts with Christy Kinahan.

He is strapped for cash and told Thompson to collect as much money as he could. It is understood that the stabbing of Guinan Cahill was opportunistic.Thompson saw him walking on the street and decided to attack him for no reason.Cahill was friendly with Brian Rattigan at the beginning of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud in 2002, but then distanced himself from the gang.

In 2005 he launched an unprovoked assault on Darren Ward in Drimnagh and was jailed for five years for stabbing his victim. He also tried to slash the tyres of a taxi that Ward was desperately trying to get away in. Cahill has at least 30 previous convictions for a variety of offences, including possession of cocaine. Thompson was extradited to Spain last November on foot of a European arrest warrant and has had to remain there ever since, while an investigation into his connections with Kinahan is completed.

'Dapper Don' Kinahan and 30 others were arrested in Spain as part of Operation Shovel in May 2010.
The Spanish believe that Thompson is a key lieutenant of Kinahan's and have phone recordings of Thompson and north-inner city criminal Gary Hutch talking about a firearm, with Freddie saying "that gun's too small".

Spanish police also have evidence that Thompson and Hutch travelled to Portugal and Amsterdam in 2009 to organise shipments on behalf of Kinahan.
Police claim that Thompson and Hutch- a nephew of Gerry 'the Monk' Hutch-lived together in Spain and were the 'right-hand men' of Daniel Kinahan,Christy Kinahan's son.

Rival

The pair are also accused of being chauffeurs for Christy Kinahan and acting as his bodyguard.
Freddie has been running his gang from Spain for the last 12 months and gardai believe he has been organising drugs shipments from his base in Marbella.

He is thought to have master-minded the murder of rival Gerard Eglington from Spain in September.

Last week we exclusively revealed how Freddie and Brian Rattigan's mob have been replaced by six new gangs operating in the Dublin 8 area. Gardai have identified 200 active gang members.

mick.mccaffrey@sundayworld.com






Fat's your lot as deal is busted.

A Massive drug deal that would have sealed an alliance between Dublin and Limerick mobsters has been blown apart by elite cops.

'Fat' Freddie Thompson,already railing from a previous drug bust against his network, had set up links with remnants of the McCarthy-Dundon gang.

Last week, however,four kilos of cocaine were seized in raids in Limerick and Dublin, ending.a deal 'Fat' Freddie desperately needed. .

Led by the Garda National Drugs Unit, which Works closely with its EU counter-parts, gardai set up a sophisticated surveillance operation, according to sources.

The Dublin gangster wanted the €250,000 deal to go through in a bid to get his drugs business back on track after a series of set-backs. .

"The cocaine market has collapsed compared to 2008, but there is still a lucrative market tor whoever can get a share," a source told the Sunday World.

The top guys were caught between collecting debts and raising enough money to set up big transactions.
They can't afford to lose consignments," the source added.

The limerick gangster brought into the deal is closely associated with Fat John McCarthy, from Moyross, who was recently jailed for 14 years for possession of heroin worth €145,00Q .
•
The Sunday World revealed last week how Freddie has been under pressure from younger Dublin hoods keen to make their own mark.
The deal was set up with the limerick gang agreeing to supply Freddie's outfit in Dublin with cocaine .

Last month Gardai seized almost €7 million worth of drugs in Kildare and Dublin, .breakinq up another massive deal in which Freddie had a share.

Like the limerick mobsters his network has been caught up in a lethal feud, in Crumlin and Drimnagh, which has hit business hard .

John McCarthy has run a tightly-controlled drugs business from his Moyross base.
He has dodged the gang violence that gripped Limerick, but this drug bust is a huge blow to his empire.

THE TOP COP who put gang boss Brian Rattigan behind bars says he is relieved that Ireland's "most evil criminal" won't see the light of day for at least another 20 years.

This week Rattigan lost his appeal for the murder of Declan Gavin, which kicked off the infamous Crumlin-Drimnagh feud that has so far claimed 16 lives.
Denis Donegan, who was the Detective Superintendent in charge of the garda investigation into Rattigan,believes that the streets are far safer now the monster is in a jail cell.

"I was delighted for the whole team when 1 heard the judgement," says Donegan. "I know that Rattigan was very confident that the conviction would be overturned, but the result is a huge boost for the gardai and the complicated investigation we ran to get him jailed for life."Rattigan (33), stabbed 21-year-old Declan Gavin to death outside Abrakebabra in Crumlin in August 2001,after accusing his former pal of being a 'rat' when he escaped prosecution over a drugs seizure.

The pair ran a drugs gang operating in Crumlin, but the murder led to a massive split in the mob and a feud that still rages over 12 years after the slaying.
Donegan says the probe into the murder was one of the most challenging he ever led.
"We soon knew Rattigan was responsible, but there was huge fear in the area because of his dangerous reputation, which was certainly justified," he says.

Intimidated

"Witnesses were intimidated and some even went to jail for six months in order to avoid giving evidence and ending up as his enemy.
"We had great officers involved. The likes of Tom Mulligan, Joe O'Hara and John Doggett did fabulous work initially in building up the case against him in the face of some fierce resistance."

Gardai managed to secure a murder charge against Rattigan, but the case was later thrown out and it looked like the thug might actually get away with the vicious crime.

However, a new Detective Inspector came to work for Donegan and launched a fresh inquiry into the murder. "Brian Sutton came to Crumlin and we studied the feud and knew that if we got a fresh charge against Rattigan we would succeed in taking the sting out of it,

" Donegan says. .

"You have to remember that there were several murders in the year or so after Declan Gavin was killed, including Rattigan's brother Joey in August 2002.
"We started working with the local community and the mothers of some of the feuding criminals to build up a truce.
We made it clear we would offer support once the fighting stopped, but we also stressed that if it continued we would take a zero tolerance approach.
"Our main target was Rattigan. The month after ]oey was shot dead we launched a surprise raid on his house and caught him with €27,000 worth of heroin in a sock.
"It was a massive blow to him and a few months later we also arrested him after he shot at two brave detectives.
"This was enough to get him off the streets and into jail and we immediately started to see the results of our negotiations and a lull in hostilities followed.
"We were still working behind the scenes on the Gavin murder, especially with the forensics Rattigan left at Abrakebabra, and were able to get a new murder charge over the line."

The case came to court in January 2009,but many original witnesses changed their evidence or developed 'amnesia' in the witness box.
Arrest warrants were issued by the judge and it was clear that people were too afraid to step forward and speak against the feared mobster.

However, despite the best efforts of Rattigan, the jury found him guilty of murder, largely due to a fingerprint he had left on the window of Abrakebabra.

"I think what sunk Rattigan was the fact that his alibi was that he was sleeping with a married, older woman, but he wouldn't name here," says Donegan

Hopeful

"He was only 21 at the time and I just don't think the jury believed him and knew deep down he had stabbed Gavin.

Rattigan was hopeful that his appeal against the murder and life sentence would succeed, so gardai set about investigating him for other crimes.
Detective Inspector Brian Sutton, took over from Denis Donegan when he retired at the end of 2009 and managed to get a historic charge against Rattigan for dealing drugs from his prison cell. It was the first time such a charge had ever been brought.

Sutton had organised a raid on the criminal's cell in Portlaoise in 2008 and linked him to the seizure of five kilos of heroin after intercepting messages on his mobile phone. He was convicted at the Special Criminal court two weeks ago and will be sentenced next month.

"That was an amazing investigation. It meant that there was insurance in place if Rattigan had managed to wiggle out of the murder conviction this week. He is now facing 14 years in jail," says Donegan.

"Rattigan was always very active in prison. In fact, we linked him to the murder of Paul Warren in February 2004 through a mobile phone he had in his cell. He directed the hit from prison and was still running his gang from there.

"He was so arrogant that he took chances, but the law and good police work caught up with him in the end".

Last week we revealed how Rattigan and his bitter enemy 'Fat' Freddie Thompson have now been replaced by six gangs operating in Dublin 8 and the pair are now seen as yesterday's men.

None of Rattigan's original gang turned up in court to support him this week and the state would not even pay for Rattigan to travel from Portlaoise prison to court because of the cost of security. His era as a crime lord has now come to an end.

Denis Donegan was one of the most distinguished detectives in the history of the gardai and arrested Malcolm MacArthur in 1982 during the 'GUBU' investigation.
Despite putting dozens of killers behind bars, he regards Rattigan's murder conviction as being his biggest and most satisfying achievement.

Killers

"Brian Rattigan was one of the most ruthless and evil criminals around. People were scared stiff of him and he was utterly determined to get as many rivals as he could in revenge for the murder of his beloved brother ]oey.

Once we got him in jail we were able to put a lid on the feud and lives were saved.
"After this week he will not be a free man for at least 20 years, which is fabulous because I have no doubt he still poses a big danger to society."

IN THE heart of Bandit Country, against a cloudless blue sky,nervous neighbours identified the homestead of three of the chief suspects in the brutal murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe.

The area is a sprawling collection of houses and barns.
We pulled up at one and spotted two young men working in a yard.

We immediately recognised one of the men as one of the five names given to Gardai by PSNI officers within an hour of the brutal execution of Detective Donohoe in Dundalk last month.
The second man was his brother,another of the chief suspects.
However, there was no sign of their sister - the girl that officers believe drove the getaway car out of Dundalk and back to Bandit Country after the shooting.

The elder of the two brothers strode towards us, flanked by two large dogs. He walked directly to the passenger car window, confident and cold.
This man was afraid of no-one. He was steely and comfortable. He was among his own tribe and had nothing to fear from strangers - and certainly not from journalists brandishing nothing more than recording devices.


SaFety

My colleague Nicola Tallant kept her eyes firmly fixed on his brother and alleged accomplice. With his right hand he pulled what we presume was a mobile phone from his pocket and held it to his ear, then another from another pocket.

There was no doubt he was calling for re-enforcements.

Alternating between the phones he seemed agitated and stressed.

I turned to the man who was now standing directly at our car window and said:

"Hi I'm looking , for xxxxx, are you xxxxx? "Yeah I'm xxxxx," he hissed.

"I'm Donal MacIntyre.

We're doing a piece about the shooting of Adrian Donohoe."

He looked anxiously up the road. His apparent youth was shocking to us.

"A couple of people linked to the GAA club are down as suspects and we're just wondering if you knew anything about it, or if you had been talked to by the police?"

With a little grin and glance down the road, he said: "No, I wish to make no comment about that."

"And your sister, has she spoken to the police?" I asked.

"I must make no comment on that," he said, in a practiced manner that suggested that it was not the first time it has crossed his lips.

"And what about your brother?"

"I can make no comment," he said, as he walked away.

Our time was up. Without protection we needed to get out of Bandit Country as quickly as we could.

Just outside Crossmaglen our southern-reg car was picked up by a high-powered dark vehicle. We were being followed, tracked out of south Armagh at breakneck speed.

It is not the first time we have both experienced the odd and law-less society that exists in this region.

There is a rule: You get in and you get the hell out as quickly as you can.

You never enter south Armagh without a full tank of fuel or the fastest car you can handle. You keep your wits about you and you expect to be followed.

A number of years ago, filming a documentary on the murder of Paul Quinn in nearby Culluhanna, we had both been warned to get out of south Armagh on separate occasions. Quinn was murdered by republicans because he had shown disrespect to an IRA elder and his son.

A group of nine men had beaten him to a pulp, broken every major bone in his body and left him to die slowly. His family have never got justice.

Throughout our 48 hours inside Bandit Country this week we were undoubtedly kept under surveillance. We were circled by fast cars, eyeballed and left under no illusion that we were being watched.

Our source was met away from prying eyes and through an intermediary.

The gang leader,who Gardai believe executed Garda Donohoe, was at breaking point we were told.

He was ready to shop his lieutenant to save his own skin, insisting that it was his buddy that had pulled the trigger instead. He was also out of the country lying low.

Criminals cannot be believed - by their very nature they are the self-serving dregs of society - but surely the Church would condemn any attempt by the community to hide Garda killers.

At the parish centre Fr Joe McKeever refused to answer any questions, refused to comment, refused to tell us whether he condemned the shooting of a Garda, a father of two.

"I say what i say from the pulpit.I do not speak to the media, now goodbye," he growled.

At Crossmaglen GAA club, where all five gang members have close connections, the shutters were down. Despite repeated attempts to contact the Club PRO, Tom McKay - even calling to his family home - we received no replies. We knocked, we phoned, we knocked again, but the club did not respond.

We kept a visible presence in the village for hours in the hopes some-one would talk to us. Instead we were greeted by a steely silence.