Wanted to start this thread on here for members in USA,Canada or other countries to keep them up to date on OC in ireland,im gonna keep updating daily-weekly with all the newspaper articles,clippings and pictures.
"TO SEE IMAGE I POST BIGGER RIGHT-CLICK THEN CLICK OPEN IMAGE IN NEW WINDOW"
1. Death-list man put under jail protection as RIRA step up hunt for ryans killers.
A dublin man arrested in northern ireland this week with false passports and 60,000 in cash is in protective custody in jail over fears the RIRA plan to whack him.
"Jonathan Gill" is on a "Real IRA" hitlist after the dissidents declared war on north dublin gangsters in the wake of the murder of its former leader "Alan Ryan".
The 31 year old was charged with money laundering offence in dungannon magistrates court on wednesday and is due to appear there again next week.Authorities in northern ireland fear the well-spoken man could be attacked by revenge-thirsty dissidents and have placed him in isolation for his own protection.
Gill is the subject of a massive garda investigation because of his suspected involvment in money laundering on behalf of a criminal gang based in coolock.The criminal assets bureau (CAB) is in the final stages of a massive investigation into gill and are likely to hit him with a demand for a five-figure sum of undeclared income.
2. Infiltrate.
He is also being investigated by gardai with a view to bringing charges before the special criminals court under the anti-gangland legislation,Which would see him go on trial without a jury.
Despite being suspected of being a serious player in the coolock gangs schemes,Gill has no serious charges brought against him and only has a handful of convictions for road traffic offences.Gardai have identified at least 12 hard core members of the gang and say its a extremely tight-knit and disciplined and is impossible to infiltrate.
"Sources say that 'Jonathan Gill' or Giller as he is known is a very smart operator",He comes from the malahide area of north dublin and a respectable family. He no longer lives at the family home and spends his time moving between various locations in skerries,rush and swords.He is said to be extremely conscious of surveillance by gardai and is hard to keep tabs on.Gill attended school in leafy clontarf and teachers regarded him as being very smart.He is involved in a long-term relationship with a woman from clontarf and is a devoted boyfriend and very good to his friends,although he is said to bear grudges and is highly strung.
Gill first came to garda attention when,in his mid-teens because of his association with serious criminals and has been on gardai's radar ever since.The gang gill is involved with is just one of a number that have been targeted by the 'Real IRA' in a bid to get revenge for 'Alan Ryans' murder last september.The RIRA kingpin was shot dead close to his home in donaghmede on the orders of a criminal from north dublin who is nicknamed 'Mr Big'.
'Mr Big's' gang has been linked to at least seven murders,including the savage petrol slaying of two cousins in a case of mistaken identity.The gang is suspected of controlling the drugs trade in north dublin and being behind at least half-a dozen tiger kidnappings,including one in the northeast last year where several young children were held hostage.Over the past seven years 'Mr Big's' gang have become the main drug-dealing outfit in darndale,coolock,raheny on northside dublin.
His main rival in the drugs trade was 'Micka The Panda Kelly',who was shot dead two years ago by 'Alan Ryan RIRA Gang' clearing the way for them to take over.Gardai have linked the gang to several unsolved murders.They suspect the gang was responsible for kidnap and suspected of 'Patrick Lawlor',who disappeared in donaghmede in decemember in 2004,it is thought he was killed over a drugs debt but no body has ever been found.
Detectives have also linked the gang to the slaying of 22-year old 'James Purdue',who was shot dead in donaghmede in june 2006.Purdue was a low-level drug dealer and was also a close pal of 'Patrick Lawlor'.Two brothers from darndale nicknamed 'The Taliban',act as assassins for 'Mr Big's' gang.They were responible for the double murder of innocent cousins 'Mark Noonan' and 'Glen Murphy' were tragically murdered instead.The taliban brothers have been blamed for the double murder of 'Anthony Burnett' and 'Joseph Redmond' in march 2012,after the pair were found shot dead in a car in dundalk,co. louth.
3. Hatred.
'Mr Big' is known to have a serious hatred of gardai and regularly abuses members of the force.He has also been investigated for a number of incidents involving violence,including a man from coolock who was left with a number of serious stab wounds to the back.
However many people are afraid to make complaints against him because they are so fearful about the reputation of the gang.The mob is conscious of not displaying wealth and they travel around in a fleet of battered cars so as not to attract attention from gardai.For years,'Mr Big' and his fellow gang members existed in peace with 'Alan Ryans' RIRA gang,with boths sides turning a blind eye to each others activities.
However around christmas 2011 there was a incident in a well-known spot in swords co dublin,when one of ryans lieutenants recieved a serious beating at the hands of three members of 'Mr Big' gang,who were out of their heads on cocaine.This led to serious bad blood between the two gangs.The RIRA issued death threats 'Mr Big' and his associates and the gang boss left for spain last march.
The following month members of 'Mr Big' gang collected a cache of guns they had hidden in balgriffin cemetery and drove to 'Alan Ryans' home with the intention of murdering him.One of the masked men knocked on the door,but when a woman answered they lost their nerve and fled.This alerted ryan that his life was under threat and an all-out war broke out between the rival sides.
'Mr Big's' mob decided it was a case of kill or be killed and put in place an operation to get rid of ryan and that the key lieutenants who would replace him were very weak.Between leaving ireland in march and the time of ryans murder in september,gardai believe that 'Mr Big' returned to the country on three occasions,travelling through belfast airport.There is no suggestion that 'Mr Big' pulled the trigger when ryan was shot dead,but gardai have identified his associates as being responsible,as has the 'Real IRA'.
While in spain,'Mr Big' mixed with several notorious dublin drug-dealers including 'Paul Burger Walsh' from donaghmede,who was a long-time associate of 'Micka The Panda Kelly'.
4. Contacts.
His gang has extensive contacts among dealers in spain and sources its drug supply from there.'Mr Big' Permanently returned to ireland in november after it became clear that the 'Real IRA' was too busy with internal struggles to avenge their murdered comrade. On december 4th 'Mr Big' and one of his closest associates was arrested on St.James street in dublins south inner city and gardai believe they had foiled an attempted assassination on up-and-coming drug dealer 'Greg Lynch'.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/11/1301:46 AM
1. B-Ride Of His Life.
How X-rated pictures of groom and his lover led to a mass brawl at mobsters wedding.
These are the Xrated snaps that sparked murder on the dancefloor at a tallaght-based mobsters wedding last week. The notorious gangster can be seen in a steamy clinch with a woman he was seeing behind his financees back. However the criminal illicit activities came to light at the worst possible moment last weekend when his new bride to be was about told about the images and the affair at her wedding reception.
2. Vicious.
A vicious brawl erupted in a posh hotel in the midlands,with two groups of women exchanging punches on the dancefloor.
It is believed the mistress suffered horrific facial injuries after she was confronted at around 2.00AM on sunday when she dissapeared with her lover.The woman was rushed to the hospital after suffering a broken jaw and having lost a number of teeth after being kicked in the face.'A source described the scene as absolutely chaotic,the women did all the damage,it was total carnage,ive never seen anything like it'.
The savage assault is now being investigated by gardai.The mobster is a well known to gardai and is a close associate of armed robber 'Paul Rice'.He is currently before the courts in connection with drugs and weapons charges and has served a long sentence for a serious crime.Following the wedding the newlyweds are believed to have gone their seperate ways and have not been reunited.
Last week,a number of facebook pages where setup by the brides friends.The bride wrote on one 'She is welcome to my husband' another pal wrote 'A**** is a home wrecking whore,dirty damp yoke is probably riddled lol'.The criminal is believed to have gone underground after the wedding and is understood to be back home living with his mother in tallaght.
Criminal figures with links to 'Alan Ryans' former gang have been using the name of the 'RIRA' to extort money in sligo. Gardai have arrested three men in castlebaldwin last monday during a routine checkpoint and found balaclavas in the car.
The arrest's happened shortly after four masked men called to the home of a family and where demanding 40,000 euros. They said he had to pay up the money because he assaulted someone they knew.However,he was not present at his home at the time the men arrived his sister started screaming and the gang fled the scene.
Shot
Three men were later arrested during a routine checkpoint.They were released later the next day and investigations are ongoing.One of the men arrested is a criminal figure who is a pal of 'Fat Deccy Smith' and sligo man 'Aaron Nealis'.
Smith was shot shot in the legs by the 'Real IRA',Who now call themselves the 'I.R.A' after merging with 'Republician Action Against Drugs' 'R.A.A.D' and other former 'Provos' groups.
Nealis was with ryan when he was killed and suffered a gunshot to his leg but survived the Assault.Both smith and nealis associate with two brothers arrested on monday.The brothers are from baldoyle area,and sources say they have robbed drug dealers before using the name of the 'RIRA'.
Criminal figures with links to 'Alan Ryans' former gang have been using the name of the 'RIRA' to extort money in sligo.Gardai have arrested three men in castlebaldwin last monday during a routine checkpoint and found balaclavas in the car.The arrest's happened shortly after four masked men called to the home of a family and where demanding 40,000 euros.They said he had to pay up the money because he assaulted someone they knew.However,he was not present at his home at the time the men arrived his sister started screaming and the gang fled the scene.
Shot
Three men were later arrested during a routine checkpoint.They were released later the next day and investigations are ongoing.One of the men arrested is a criminal figure who is a pal of 'Fat Deccy Smith' and sligo man 'Aaron Nealis'.Smith was shot shot in the legs by the 'Real IRA',Who now call themselves the 'I.R.A' after merging with 'Republician Action Against Drugs' 'R.A.A.D' and other former 'Provos' groups.Nealis was with ryan when he was killed and suffered a gunshot to his leg but survived the Assault.Both smith and nealis associate with two brothers arrested on monday.The brothers are from baldoyle area,and sources say they have robbed drug dealers before using the name of the 'RIRA'.
Don could we see Criminal Action Force outside Dublin like west of Ireland some time.
Pipebomb found in park just 500m from garda station.
Ken Foy Crime correspondent – 12 February 2013 03:15 PM
A PIPEbomb discovered in a Dublin park last night was less than 500 metres from a garda station.
The viable device was found at a park near Rossmore Road in Ballyfermot at around 5.30pm which led to officers calling in the army bomb disposal unit.
Sources say that the pipe bomb had been left in the park by a criminal gang for collection later.
A Defence Forces spokesperson said: "The Defence Forces deployed the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team in response to a request from the gardai after the suspect device was found in a green area near the Rossmore Road.
Controlled
"The team arrived on the scene at 5.30pm and a cordon was put in place around the scene for public safety.
"The suspect device was rendered safe in situ without the need for a controlled explosion and was then moved to a secure military location for further technical examination and testing.
"The scene was declared safe at 6.15 pm. The device has now been confirmed as a viable IED following further testing and it's component parts will be handed over to the gardai to assist in their investigation into the incident."
Meanwhile, gardai from Ballyfermot were investigating a suspected arson attack on a car which is understood to have happened in the early hours.
The car was completely gutted in the blaze with a number of officers attending the scene at around 8am. A distressed woman in pyjamas was observed in conversation with gardai.
A source said: "There is absolutely nothing at this stage to suggest that there is any link between the two incidents."
Separately, tensions have been high in the Ballyfermot area since local teenager Luke Wilson was shot at point blank range in an Inchicore park last month.
Last night, gardai re-arrested a man who was previously questioned about the gun attack and he is being held today in Kilmainham Garda Station.
Gardai believe Luke was targeted after a pub row with a gang of his former friends who branded his uncle John Wilson, who was shot dead last year, a "rat".
A number of people have been arrested as part of the detailed investigation including a 35-year-old career criminal from Ballyfermot and a 23-year-old woman from Clondalkin, who were arrested on suspicion of withholding information.
Sources said that the Rossmore Road incidents are not linked to the shooting which led to Mr Wilson losing an eye.
In what is believed to be the first successful prosecution of its kind, a man has been convicted in connection with directing the supply of drugs while in prison.
The Special Criminal Court has found Dublin criminal Brian Rattigan guilty of the possession and supply of €1 million worth of heroin.
The court was told that the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, made an order that Rattigan should be tried at the non-jury court following an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions under the Offences Against the State Act.
The court yesterday agreed with the prosecution case that Rattigan (32) was the director of a drugs gang conducting a €1 million heroin deal.
Rattigan, Cooley Road, Drimnagh, had pleaded not guilty to the possession of heroin and two counts of possession of the drug for sale or supply on Hughes Road South, Walkinstown, Dublin, on May 21st, 2008.
The court cleared him of two counts relating to the possession of two mobile phones at cell 42, E1 landing, Portlaoise Prison, while a prisoner there, on May 22nd, 2008, which he had also denied.
Returning a written judgment, presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler said the court was satisfied that a “tick list” was sent by Rattigan to a Nokia mobile phone found with the heroin at the house on Hughes Road South and this, in conjunction with notes found in his cell, amounted to directions as to the distribution of the drugs.
Mr Justice Butler said that no other reasonable inference could be drawn from evidence before the court.
Text message
The court heard that gardaí who raided the house discovered 5kg of heroin valued at over €1 million and a Nokia phone in a shed at the back of the property, while a search of a bedroom yielded just over €36,000 in cash.
Drugs expert Det Garda Sgt Brian Robertson gave evidence that a text message printed out from an analysis of the Nokia phone, which spoke of “half bars”, “boxes” and “9” being allocated to names such as “Gangko” “McGyver” “Peck” and “Crazy”, referred to the division of drugs by weight.
The court heard that the sender of the text message was a phone number belonging to a Sim card that was thrown out of Rattigan’s cell when it was raided.
Members of the Garda Organised Crime Unit, who raided Rattigan’s cell, told the court that they found Rattigan lying on his bed with a mobile phone in his hand and that he threw this phone out of his cell when confronted by gardaí.
CCTV footage of an object being thrown onto the prison landing was viewed by the court, while gardaí gave evidence that two Sim cards were attached and that they had found a Samsung mobile phone, another Sim card and notebooks inside Rattigan’s cell.
Garda Sgt Tony Flanagan said he examined one of the two notebooks seized by detectives and that it also contained a long list of names and numbers, including names such as “McGyver”, followed by the word “half”, “Gangko”, succeeded by the number “9” and “Crazy”, also followed by “9”.
Mr Justice Butler said the court was “fully satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt” that Rattigan threw a mobile phone out of his cell upon the arrival of gardaí to search it, and that he was in possession of that device and others found in his cell.
He said the court found that the legislation on the possession of mobile phones in prison was drafted without any presumption that a person was without permission, and that there was an onus on the prosecution to prove the matter.
Deficit of proof
Brendan Grehan SC, defending, said there was a “deficit of proof” with regard to the two counts of mobile phone possession, as the prosecution failed to call two assistant governors who had the authority to grant permission for a phone to be used, thus the offence had not been made out to the requisite standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mr Justice Butler said the court was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt in respect of the evidence adduced in relation to the mobile phone counts and would find Rattigan not guilty. He said the court would list the matter for sentencing on March 20th.
THUGS OF WAR Elite garda squad targets SIX new gangs as King Ratt and Fat Freddie are overthrown by 200 young guns
OUSTED: Brian Rattigan and Freddie Thompson have lost control of their crime empires
THE 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan mobs are no more and have been replaced by SIX new gangs with an incredible 200 members, the Sunday World can reveal.
Gardai have set up a new elite anti-gang unit and have declared war on the vicious new breed of gangsters, some of whom are as young as 16.
The mobsters have emerged from the ashes of the bloody Crumlin/Drimnagh feud and are involved in murders, armed robberies and pipe bombings.
The new crews are operating within just a few square miles in Dublin's south-inner city and gardai say they are the most dangerous criminals they have ever encountered.
THE 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs have been replaced by six ruthless new mobs with 200 members, the Sunday World can reveal.
Gardai have declared war on the outfits and have set up an elite new anti-gang squad to crack down on their activities. The 200 serious criminals, some as young as 16, are operating in just a few square miles in Dublin's south inner city and sources say they are the most dangerous mobsters that gardai have ever encountered.
Bombings
The young thugs have been linked to dozens of incidents of serious crime over the last six months - including murder, pipe bombings and armed robberies.
The new mobs have sprung up from the original Crumlin-Drimnagh feud which has claimed 16 lives, but sources say that Thompson and Rattigan have no control over the latest generation of criminals and are regarded as "yesterday's men".
When Brian 'King Rat' Rattigan was convicted this week of operating a drugs network from his cell not a single criminal turned up in court to pay their respects. He has now been abandoned by his former cohorts and his gang has all but dissolved.
'Fat' Freddie is stuck in Spain following his extradition and although he still has supporters, the new gangs have taken over his drug-dealing strongholds, leaving him sidelined.
FEARED: Greg Lynch
Gardai at Kevin Street station have spent the last three months analysing all serious criminals in their area with links to Thompson and Rattigan and have identified the 200 suspects and six distinct gangs.
Senior officers were shocked at the sheer amount of dangerous thugs operating in such a small area and have set up a new unit with orders to get in the faces of criminals and stop and search them on sight.
The anti-gang cops have already started to disrupt the activities of the mobs and all officers in the district have been ordered to harass the mobsters and make their lives hell.
The biggest of the new gangs is based in the Coombe and has an incredible 60 members.The mob is led by convicted thug Greg Lynch and has been linked to drug dealing and armed robberies.
Twenty-eight-year-old Lynch is one of the main targets of the new anti-gang unit and is regarded as a cunning criminal who doesn't talk on mobile phones for fear he is being bugged by cops.
Notorious
The second largest of the gangs is based in the notorious St Teresa's Gardens flats project in Donore Avenue and has reportedly over 40 members.
One of the key figures in this outfit is 25 year-old Paul Gray. He learned the criminal ropes as a driver for key 'Fat' Freddie lieutenant Graham 'the Wig' Whelan.
Gray is the brother in law of Ritchie Thompson and he attacked rival criminal Gerard Eglington in a packed courtroom in July 2011. Eglington was shot dead last year by pals of 'Fat' Freddie.
Another mob of 35 gangsters is based in St Vincent Street South, just off Clanbrassil Street in the capital's south-inner city. The leader of this gang is a 23-year-old man who is suspected of setting up his friend Declan O'Reilly to be murdered last September.
The cunning criminal contacted a hitman who was lying in wait on the South Circular Road as O'Reilly was walking home after collecting fireworks with his young son.
O'Reilly was whacked in cold blood and the young boss is now under death threat and his home has been pipe bombed. Gardai say he had no qualms about setting up his mate. He is one of the prime targets of the new gang initiative.
There are a further 15 gangsters operating out of Bluebell. The leader of this faction is Sean Connolly.
Connolly is regarded as being a serious player in gang activity and is currently before the Special Criminal Court charged with the murder of gangland don Eamon Kelly last December.
The 34-year-old is said to be a dangerous figure with links to the Real IRA, the old Rattigan gang and 'King Ratt's' heir apparent himself Aaron Rattigan. Aaron Rattigan - who is a cousin of Brian - is the boss of a gang of around 20 young men based in Basin Street in Dublin 8.
The 22-year-old has become a major gangland player over the last three years and has kept the bloody feud with the Thompson mob going, orchestrating several violent attacks.
With Brian Rattigan serving a life sentence for murder, Aaron became the day-to-day boss and soon had a loyal group of followers around him, including Kenneth Roche, whose two brothers were murdered as part of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
Rattigan is regarded as being extremely ruthless and is one of the most dangerous of the new breed of 200 thugs.
Murdered
NEW BOSS: Aaron Rattigan
Another 25 criminals have been identified as operating out of Fatima Mansions, Maryland and Dolphin House. A key player in this mob is 'Fat' Freddie's cousin Eoin O'Connor The 29-year-old has risen in prominence since 2005 when his face was badly slashed at a music festival by murdered gangsters Gerard Eglington and Anthony Cannon.
O'Connor, who was jailed in 2010 for assaulting a garda, is looked up to by young criminal associates. He acquired the nickname 'Scarface' after the slashing and is one of the new gang unit's main targets.
Despite the lack of resources available to them, gardai are determined to take the fight to the young criminals with an in-your-face policing approach.
They are maintaining a visible presence on the streets where the gangs operate and are carrying out daily checkpoints and patrols as well as intelligence led searches on suspects' houses.
Senior gardai are worried because many of the 200 or so criminals identified are very young, some still being as young as 16.
However, they are all regarded as already being hardened criminals with designs to replace 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan as the next generation of 'Mr Bigs'.
Although the six gangs are based in the south-inner city, some of the members are from Crumlin and Drimnagh.
Gardai in Kevin Street are leading the operation, although they are working closely with other stations, including Crumlin, Sundrive Road, Pearse Street and Kilmainham.
The Emergency Response Unit and Organised Crime Unit are also involved and are mounting joint operations.
Successful
If the new unit is successful it could be extended to other garda districts across Dublin.
Some of the original members of the Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs supply drugs to the new criminals but moved away from the feud as they got older and the influence of their bosses waned.The main supplier is now Graham Whelan.
BOYS IN THE BLOOD Main players in new battle for gangland control show no mercy in vicious feuds
KEY PLAYER: Greg Lynch (left) is the top target for gardai
THE NEW garda anti-gang unit has been set up as a response to a serious increase in mob activity in Dublin's south inner city over the last six months.
Garda management knew there were dozens of serious criminals attached to gangs in the Kevin Street 'A' district, but were stunned that such a small area could support SIX dangerous mobs with 200 members.
The zero-tolerance approach to the new generation of thugs comes after dozens of shocking incidents of organised crime in the last six months.
Much of the violence is linked to vicious feuds between the six mobs, who are fighting for the control of the drugs trade in the south-inner city. The most serious of the 200 criminals is probably 27-year-old Greg Lynch, who has been on the garda radar for the last three years.
Lynch, who controls a network of 60 criminals from his stronghold in the Coombe, operates in secrecy and will only meet his fellow gangsters in public places for fear gardai are bugging his conversations.
He is a convicted heroin dealer who was mentored by Freddie Thompson and has links with drug barons Paul Rice and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh.
Arrested
His growth has not gone unnoticed by rivals in Dublin. Last December gardai arrested Jonathan Gill in St James's Street and believe they foiled an assassination bid on Lynch.
Gill is in custody in Northern Ireland and appeared in court last week with PSNI officers objecting to him being given bail, claiming the Malahide Road native was the boss of a criminal gang in north Dublin.
Not far behind him in the criminal pecking order is Basin Street gang boss Aaron Rattigan.
A cousin of faded mob boss Brian Rattigan, the 22-year-old is seen as being a key player in gangland and his gang of 20 members is especially violent.
The Rattigan mob is involved in a vicious feud with two rival gangs in and he has been regularly targeted. In October last year petrol bombs were thrown at his home in Hanover Street, while the home of one of his associates, Zachary Purcell, was also targeted.
Intelligence led gardai to search a premises in a nearby flats complex. They arrested and charged a man with possession of explosives and the next day the Rattigan faction hit back and a shot was fired through a car door.
Nobody was injured, but gardai flooded Basin Street and carried out two dozen searches. They recovered several pipe bombs and guns and arrested four known young criminals.
Just days later six Real IRA members were spotted at the flats and were stopped and searched by gardai. Then a relation of Aaron Rattigan was stopped at the flats and was found to be carrying a butcher's knife. He told gardai his life was under threat and that he was carrying the knife for his own protection.
A gang figure attached to the Basin Street gang, Owen Gaffney (23), has also been targeted by rival mobs. Last July he and Philip Finnegan were at Lower Basin Street when a passing car fired five shots at them. Neither of the pair were hurt and they refused to cooperate with gardai, as did several witnesses who saw what happened.
Bloody
WHACKED: Thompson loyalists shot Gerard Eglington
Philip Finnegan has been targeted by rival mobsters on more than one occasion. In December two rival outfits ran into each other in McDonald's on Grafton Street and a bloody brawl broke out between half-a-dozen people.
Later that day a hatchet was thrown through the front window of the 21- year-old's home at Mary Aikenhead House but no complaint was made.
Two other members of the gang are brothers Paul and Adam Graham. Paul (23), was recently jailed for five years after being caught with €35,000 worth of heroin.
Adam (22), is facing a sentence after a joyriding incident on the South Circular Road where he ran over a garda bicycle in a stolen BMW.
Another criminal who is being regularly stopped and searched by gardai is Leroy Dumbrell (26). Dumbrell is part of the notorious crime family from Inchicore and is well known to gardai.
Last October he appeared in court charged with rioting in Mountjoy jail in 2009. He was the leader of a group of inmates who attacked prison officers, leaving three in hospital.
Demand
Just before Christmas Dumbrell was arrested along with another man outside a house in Inchicore. Gardai believe Dumbrell was there to demand money for a drugs debt. He was arrested but released without charge.
Two of Dumbrell's brothers, Leonard and Tommy, are also regarded as being senior gang figures and are among the gardai's targets. Leonard is only 25 but has over 100 criminal convictions, while Tommy 'Scarface' Dumbrell has a fearsome reputation.
The gang of around 40 criminals based in St Teresa's Gardens include several former members of the Thompson gang.
One of the main men is 25-year-old Paul Gray,who is Ritchie Thompson's brotherin- law and a former driver for Freddie.
The membership of this outfit includes half-a-dozen young men who are just 16 and 17 years old.
Sean Connolly is the leader of the Bluebell gang of 20 people, which is very active in serious crime.
Connolly was arrested last July after several shots were fired into the front window of a house in Bluebell. There was not enough evidence to charge him and the 34-year-old is extremely feared in the area.
He is regarded as being a serious player with links to the Real IRA and the old Brian Rattigan gang.
Fireworks
HIT: Declan O’Reilly was shot in front of his son
He is currently before the Special Criminal Court charged with the murder of gangland don Eamon Kelly last December. It is business as usual for his gang despite his absence, with his younger brother Ronan taking charge.
Last September convicted drug dealer and killer Declan O'Reilly was shot dead on the South Circular Road as he returned from picking up fireworks with his young son.
Gangsters associated with Freddie Thompson were responsible for the assassination, in retaliation for O'Reilly stabbing Derek Glennon to death in Mountjoy prison.
A member of the gang based in Vincent Street is suspected of luring O'Reilly to his death.
Pals of O'Reilly have since sought revenge against the 23-year-old and last month two hoax pipe bombs were placed outside his home in Dublin 8.
Gardai believe that the life of this man is under imminent danger and he has been given security advice. He is regarded as being a ruthless criminal who was pals with O'Reilly but had no problem about setting him up to be killed.
He is one of the prime targets of the new gang initiative as his gang is involved in a separate feud with a drugs gang in nearby Rathmines.
Another Vincent Street native being investigated is 21-year-old Adam Howe. Adam, who has no serious convictions, is the brother of former Thompson gang members Dean and Morgan Howe.
Although the six new mobs are separate and distinct to the Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs, they still have associations with their criminal mentors and are happy to target relations of criminals involved in the original Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
Wayne McNally was a senior enforcer for the Brian Rattigan gang before being jailed for 13 years for the attempted murder of a bouncer.Young criminals loyal to Thompson have consistently targeted relations of McNally.
Horrors
His mother was attacked with a wheel brace in a Dublin 8 pub, while last September his innocent brother Stephen was stabbed in the arm.
Another young man who has witnessed the horrors of the Crumlin- Drimnagh feud at first hand is Kenneth Roche. The 21-year-old saw two of his older brothers murdered in the feud, but is involved in the Aaron Rattigan gang and was the best friend of Gerard Eglington, who was whacked by Thompson loyalists last year.
In the last three weeks gardai have seized several firearms, pipe bombs and petrol bombs from the six new mobs and hope that the new gang unit will severely limit their activities.
THIS PRISON snap shows three former drugs godfathers defiantly toasting their homemade hooch in the country's maximum security prison in Portlaoise. Despite posing under the Ferrari flag, it still hasn't dawned on 'Warehouse' John Gilligan, 'King Scum' Tony Felloni and Michael 'Roly' Cronin that life in the fast lane has come to a juddering halt - for good.
They're all smiles for the camera in another of our behind bars shots, as Gilligan gives the fingers and Felloni - who's missing one on his left hand - manages a flimsy wave. The lags, who once thought they were untouchable, were celebrating Gilligan's first year in prison with a cake washed down with home-made alcohol, his fondness for which landed him a 56-day stretch in solitary last year. But as time would tell, the three amigos' luck was about to go from bad to worse. First be freed - Michael 'Roly' Cronin - was shot dead in Dublin's Summerhill three years ago as he chatted with a pal.
Trusted
The 35-year-old heroin trafficker from Ballymun learned the hard way that drug friendships come cheap. He didn't even see the semi-automatic being lifted to the back of his head by someone he trusted enough to allow into the passenger seat of a Northern registered Volvo. Cronin was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1998 for heroin dealing.
By the time he was released, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) had seized all his assets, so despite controlling drugs in Ballymun, Finglas and the north inner city, he died broke. He was shot dead at Langrishe Place in January 2011 along with his driver James Maloney (26), on the orders of murdered don and underworld assassin Eamon Dunne.
It was an end as ignominious as the prime of his life - spent partying in tacky prison cells. The second man to be freed in the prison party line-up has not seen any improvement in his own living standards since his release. Tony Felloni was freed in 2011, after being jailed for 20 years in 1996 - the longest drugs sentence of its kind at the time.
The 69-year-old from Dublin's Dominick Street has also been hit by CAB, and when he left prison he carried his possessions in a bin bag as he headed home to his squalid house on James's Walk in Rialto. He fled Sunday World photographer, Liam O'Connor like a man possessed, using a scarf to conceal his face and bolting over the Ha'penny Bridge. The pensioner, who is credited with flooding Dublin with heroin in the 1980s and 1990s has also been spurned by his family - his former wife Anne refers to him as 'pig'.
Marriage
DOWNHILL FROM HERE: Michael Cronin (left) John Gilligan (centre) and Tony Felloni raise a glass inside Portlaoise
Anne has revealed how Tony had beaten her continuously through their marriage. Her last baby, Benito, died a few days after birth when his liver collapsed as a result of her heroin addiction. "I was near comatose in the hospital and he (Tony) was spoonfeeding me heroin," she told murdered reporter, Veronica Guerin.
HIV positive Tony also introduced his children to the horror of heroin addiction. A daughter Ann became hooked on hard drugs at the age of 13 after her dad gave her a job in his business. Their oldest child, Mario Angelo,was jailed in Parkhurst Prison in the UK and diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. Other siblings Luigi and Regina were jailed for drugs offences.
His ex-wife Anne would also claim the deaths of some of Dublin's heroin addicts were down to Tony mixing up heroin with strychnine (rat poison). Father-of-eight Tony fought a 14- year battle for his assets, but lost everything following a life of crime. Sources say he drinks in pubs in the Rialto area and "is a pathetic old man".
The last man smiling in our prison snaps - John Gilligan - has fared no better locked behind bars than his old buddies. In 2002, he was tried and acquitted by the Special Criminal Court for the murder of Veronica Guerin.
His original sentence of 28 years for drug crimes was reduced to 20 on appeal, but he got a further two years in 2002 for threatening to kill two prison officers, another eight months in 2011 for possession of a mobile phone in 2008, and six months in 2012 for possession of a mobile phone in his cell in March 2010.
Crime
Gilligan is due to be released next year, but CAB put his €2m Jessbrook equestrian centre up for sale late last year. And the pint-sized 60-year-old was sent solitary confinement last Christmas after a 56-day stint for drinking his favourite tipple. As our pictures show, a leopard never changes its spots.
THEY ARE the dumb criminals who prove that criminal masterminds are a dying breed.
This week, Ireland's criminals showed there is nothing as thick as thieves,On Monday, two men were jailed for six years for robbing more than £123,000 in life savings from a pensioner in Cork, Instead of laying low, Malcolm Kelly (26) and Ger Ryan (31); were caught "drinking their way through the money" tile very next day.
Elsewhere, a Limerick criminal who posted photos of himself posing with an imitation firearm on Facebook pleaded not guilty to possession of a toy gun.
Thug Ian Flanagan (23),was jailed for seven months in Limerick District Court for possession of a fake handgun. The court heard how he had pointed the imitation firearm at gardai after they responded to a street brawl in Ballinacurra Weston in September 2011. In his evidence, he claimed the gun belonged to his younger brother who could have dropped it in the front garden of his home.
He said: "He plays with toy guns and Action Man and has a big box of toy guns.He wants to be a garda when he grows up." However,the thicko thug had uploaded an image of himself posing with a weapon on the interent.Sticking This exclusive photo- graph shows Flanagan holding the gun and sticking out his tongue while surrounded by his pals.
On Monday, Malcolm Kelly and Ger Ryan were jailed at Cork Circuit Criminal Court after pleading guilty to the raid.
The court heard how they were arrested after they tried to drink their way through €123,000 they had stolen from an 80-year-old man's home. Det Garda Padraig Reddington said the pair had found €123,OOO in cash at the house in Kanturk, Co.Cork, last October 14.After the theft they went to a hotel in Cork city where gardai were called as their party was so loud.Staff opened a safe in the room and, with officers present, a large amount of money was found. Judge Sean 0'Donnabhain jailed both men for six years. Ryan's sentence was suspended for the last year and Kelly's sentence was suspended for the last two years.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1312:02 AM
HORRIFIC violence exploding inside Irish prisons will be shown for'the first time on Tv.
A new two-part documentary lifts the lid on life behind bars for the country's 4,000 prisoners.
Inmates are shown launching vicious attacks on prison CCTV and prisoners talk openly about the widespread violence that can erupt at any time, just from someone looking at another inmate the wrong way. One 'man talks of how an inmate was dragged into a shower area with a bootlace round his neck and then slashed across the face requiring 180 stitches. Hard-pressed prison officers reveal an arsenal of weapons,including a toothbrush with two razor blades attached to its head "because double blade wounds are harder to stitch up".
Murder
The public will see for the first time what doing time really means in Life on the Inside, starting tomorrow night on RTE One.Midas Productions _ gained unprecedented access inside Wheatfield Prison in Dublin and Shelton Abbey in Co. Wicklow, where they filmed over the course of a year. Men convicted of murder, robbery and drug offences allowed cameras into their. cells to reveal how they ended up in jail and how it affects them and their families. 'In Wheatfield, which holds 700, inmates, 32-year-old Eddie has served eight years of a mandatory life sentence for killing his father.He says: "We are not all monsters. Some of us committed horrible crimes, but most are not horrible people. '
"Some things you have a chance to say sorry for, but sometimes you never get that chance and you have to live with that." He said 'a life sentence meant there was no release date to aim for. "We don't know how old our kids will be or who will be alive when we get out," he adds.
Father-of-three Colin (34), from Cork, says he has been in and out of jail for 18 years. "I did not want to be a criminal but it turned out that way," he says. A former heroin user who turned to crime to feed his habit, Colin has been drug free for six months. "I am keeping my head down and sticking to myself this time because I want to give my children a life. When I leave here I intend to make amends." Another inmate doing two-and-a-half years for fraud says he never asks prisoners what they are in for because he doesn't want to know. "That could create tension. Even eye contact can start a row here," he explains. The documentary follows Colin as he is transferred to open prison Shelton Abbey for good behaviour. At first he is hugely excited, but his mood soon changes. "I am full of fear and anxiety going to a new prison and meeting new people," 'he confesses. "You come to a new prison and you don't want to put someone's nose out." . After his first night he says: "I would like to be in the other prison. I don't like it. I was out on the green last night and I had the urge to go home." "
A month later, though, he has settled and is determined to keep on the straight and narrow.
"I want to make it up to my children. I have taken knocks in my life but mostly generated by my own activities. I have spent my life blaming o,~hers but I can't hide any more, he says, • One officer reveals some of the 115 inmates can't handle the free-dom of an open prison, "There is nothing to stop you walking away except self discipline and willpower, It might be harder to do time," he explains, '
But another officer says he can see inmates' confidence growing the more trust they were given, Another inmate, Michael, who was locked up after being caught with £340,000 of drugs for supply, says he had never done heroin until he came to prison. "People say I will use it until I get out of here or until I get used to my sentence, but it doesn't end up like that," he reveals,His sister Cathy says she could not believe Shelton Abbey when she first saw it.
"Is this a- prison? He thinks it's hard, but he does not know how hard it is for everyone else as he does not have to worry about bills. "I had to fight to go to college, but he gets all these courses handed to him. I have done nothing wrong, but I have to fight to do a course. All they are missing is their liberty." Michael says someone could go to prison and learn nothing or do a course and try to make a living for themselves when they get out.
Another prisoner adds: "Anyone who thinks it's easy, it is not. Anyone with a family. You get one phone call a day and that's it." • Life on the Inside, tomorrow 9.3Opm_
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1312:25 AM
MEET THE pensioner killer who is back on the streets and is commuting from Mount joy Prison to his job as a mechanic.
This exclusive photograph shows Francis Palmer leaving the Dublin jail- as he does just after 7.30am every day.
The convicted killer then walks for 15 minutes to a housing estate where he collects his car, before driving to a garage in the Clondalkin area.
Palmer (42), originally from Foxborough Road, Lucan, was at the centre of one of the most brutal crimes of the 1990s, after he shot dead a pensioner during a raid on a home in Co. Tipperary. Palrner was part of an armed gang that gunned down innocent cattle dealer,Danny Fanning (71), in front of his terrified wife at their home in 1995.
The savage crime lead to calls for a clampdown on Dublin gangs marauding around the countryside. Bizarrely, Palmer's name hit the headlines again in 2005 when it emerged his twin brother was dating pop queen Samantha Mumba,Former male stripper Gary Palmer dated the singer and was regularly photographed with her around Dublin. A prison source said Francis Palmer commutes between Mount joy and Clondalkin every weekday.
The source told the Sunday World that Palmer is due for permanent release within weeks. "He is due to get out permanently in the very near future but, until then, he is getting day release most days," he said.
In May 1997, Palmer was jailed for life following a tense trial. The court heard that a gang had targeted Mr Fanning after being told that on market days the elderly farmer often returned home with more than IR£60,000, which he kept in a safe. However, Danny had got rid of the safe when carrying out renovations and tended to avoid cash.
That day he had sold only IR£14,OOO worth of livestock and he had been paid by cheque. The four masked robbers spent an hour ransacking the house before fleeing with a wallet containing just IR£155 and "punishing" Danny by shooting him in the knee. He bled to death before he could be taken to hospital. The court was told how two men wearing balaclavas and brandishing sawed-off shotguns had burst into the Danny s home and ordered him and his 65-year-old wife Biddy to lie on the floor.
The couple's youngest daughter Rose (26), was forced into the farmhouse by a third masked man wielding a baseball bat.
During the trial, the court heard how Palmer had admitted involvement during interviews with gardai.
Shotguns
He had said: "i was only the driver, I was not in the house." Palmer had told gardai he had never touched any guns, but knew there was a baseball bat and a sawed-off shotgun.
"He wasn't meant to die;it was only meant to be a warning," he told gardai. After Palmer and a second man, Ivor Sweetman, were convicted, there were angry scenes outside the court from their relatives and friends. Both Sweetman and Palmer had claimed that they were "fitted up" by gardai. Both made statements that they were involved in the robbery, but refused to sign them.Ivor Sweetman, from Jobstown in Tallaght, had his conviction for murder overturned on appeal in 2000.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1301:15 AM
THE 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs have been replaced by six ruthless new mobs with 200 members, the Sunday World can reveal.
Gardai have declared war on the outfits and have set up an elite new anti-gang squad to crack down on their activities. The 200 serious criminals, some as young as 16, are operating in just a few square miles in Dublin's south inner city and sources say they are the most dangerous mobsters that gardai have ever encountered.
Bombings
The young thugs have been linked to dozens of incidents of serious crime over the last six months - including murder, pipe bombings and armed robberies. The new mobs have sprung up from the original Crumlin-Drimnagh feud which has claimed 16 lives, but sources say that Thompson and Rattigan have no control over the latest generation of criminals and are regarded as "yesterday's men".
VVhen Brian 'King Rat' Rattigan was convicted this week of operating a drugs network from his cell not a single criminal turned up in court to pay their respects.He has now been abandoned by his former cohorts and his gang has all but dissolved.'Fat' Freddie is stuck in Spain following his extradition and although he still has supporters, the new gangs have taken over his drug- dealing strongholds,leaving him sidelined.Gardai at Kevin Street station have spent the last three months analysing all serious criminals in their area with links to Thompson and Rattigan and have identified the 200 suspects and six distinct gangs.Senior officers were shocked at the sheer amount of dangerous thugs operating in such a small area and have set up a new unit with orders to get in the faces of criminals and stop and search them on sight.
The anti-gang cops have already started to disrupt the activities of the mobs and all officers in the district have been ordered to harass the mobsters and make their lives hell. The biggest of the new gangs is based in the Coombe and has an incredible 60 members. The mob is led by convicted thug Greg Lynch and has been linked to drug dealing and armed robberies. Twenty-eight-year-old Lynch is one of the main targets of the new anti-gang unit and is regarded as a cunning criminal who doesn't talk on mobile phones for fear he is being bugged by cops.
Notorious
The second largest of the gangs is based in the notorious St Teresa's Gardens flats project in Donore Avenue and has reportedly over 40 members. One of the key figures in this outfit is 25 year-old Paul Gray. He learned the criminal ropes as a driver for key 'Fat' Freddie lieutenant Graham 'the Wig' Whelan.
Gray is the brother in law of Ritchie Thompson and he attacked rival criminal Gerard Eglington in a packed courtroom in July 2011. Eglington was shot dead last year by pals of 'Fat' Freddie. Another mob of 35 gangsters is based in St Vincent Street South, just off Clanbrassil Street in the capital's south-inner city. The leader of this gang is a 23-year-old man who is suspected of setting up his friend Declan O'Reilly to be murdered last September.
The cunning criminal contacted a hitman who was lying in wait on the South Circular Road as O'Reilly was walking home after collecting fireworks with his young son.
O'Reilly was whacked in cold blood and the young boss is now under death threat and his home has been pipe bombed.Gardai say he had no qualms about setting up his mate. He is one of the prime targets of the new gang initiative.
There are a further 15 gangsters operating out of Bluebell. The leader of this faction is Sean Connolly. Connolly is regarded as being a serious player in gang activity and is currently before the Special Criminal Court charged with the murder of gangland don Eamon Kelly last December. The 34-year-old is said to be a dangerous figure with links to the Real IRA, the old Rattigan gang and 'King Ratt's' heir apparent himself Aaron Rattigan.
Aaron Rattigan - who is a cousin of Brian - is the boss of a gang of around 20 young men based in Basin Street in Dublin 8. The 22-year-old has become a major gangland player over the last three years and has kept the bloody feud with the Thompson mob going, orchestrating several violent attacks. With Brian Rattigan serving a life sentence for murder, Aaron became the day-ta-day boss and soon had a loyal group of followers around him,including Kenneth Roche, whose two brothers were murdered as part of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud. Rattigan is regarded as being extremely ruthless and is one of the most dangerous of the new breed of 200 thugs.
Murdered
Another 25 criminals have been identified as operating out of Fatima Mansions, Maryland and Dolphin House. A key player in this mob is 'Fat' Freddie's cousin Eoin O'Connor,The 29-year-old has risen in prominence since 2005 when his face was badly slashed at a music festival by murdered gangsters Gerard Eglington and Anthony Cannon. O'Connor, who was jailed in 2010 for assaulting a garda, is looked up to by young criminal associates. He acquired the nickname 'Scarface' after the slashing and is one of the new gang unit's main targets. Despite the lack of resources available to them, gardai are determined to take the fight to the young criminals with an in-your-face policing approach. They are maintaining a visible presence on the streets where the gangs operate and are carrying out daily checkpoints and patrols as well as intelligence led searches on suspects'houses. Senior gardai are worried because many of the 200 or so criminals identified are very young, some still being as young as 16. However, they are all regarded as already being hardened criminals with designs to replace 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan as the next generation of 'Mr Bigs'. Although the six gangs are based in the south-inner city, some of the members are from Crumlin and Drimnagh. Gardai in Kevin Street are leading the operation, although they are working closely with other stations, including Crumlin, Sundrive Road, Pearse Street and Kilmainham. The Emergency Response Unit and Organised Crime Unit are also involved and are mounting joint operations.
SuccessFul
If the new unit is successful it could be extended to other garda districts across Dublin. Some of the original members of the Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs supply drugs to the new criminals but moved away from the feud as they got older and the influence of their bosses waned. The main supplier is now Graham Whelan.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1301:30 AM
FRONT PAGE COVER - • THE 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan mobs are no more and have been replaced by SIX new gangs with an incredible 200 members, the Sunday World can reveal . • Gardai have set up a new elite anti-gang unit and have declared war on the vicious new breed of gangsters, some of whom are as young as 16. • The mobsters have emerged from the ashes of the bloody Crumlin/Drimnagh feud and are involved in murders, armed robberies and pipe bombings. • The new crews are operating within just a few square miles in Dublin's south-inner city and gardai say they are the most dangerous criminals they have ever encountered.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1301:52 AM
THE NEW garda anti-gang unit has been set up as a response to a serious increase in mob activity in Dublin's south inner city over the last six months.
Garda management knew there were dozens of serious criminals attached to gangs in the Kevin Street 'N district, but were stunned that such a small area could support SIX dangerous mobs with 200 members. The zero-tolerance approach to the new generation of thugs comes after dozens of shocking incidents of organised crime in the last six months.
Much of the violence is linked to vicious feuds between the six mobs,who are fighting for the control of the drugs trade in the south-inner city. The most serious of the 200 criminals is probably 27-year-old Greg Lynch, who has been on the garda radar for the last three years.
Lynch, who controls a network of 60 criminals from his stronghold in the Coombe, operates in secrecy and will only meet his fellow gangsters in public places for fear gardai are bugging his conversations. He is a convicted heroin dealer who was mentored by Freddie Thompson and has links with drug barons Paul Rice and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh,
Arrested
His growth has not gone unnoticed by rivals in Dublin. Last December gardai arrested Jonathan Gill in St James's Street and believe they foiled an assassination bid on Lynch.
Gill is in custody in Northern Ireland and appeared in court last week with PSNI officers objecting to him being given bail, claiming the Malahide Road native was the boss of a criminal gang in north Dublin. Not far behind him in the criminal pecking order is Basin Street gang boss Aaron Rattigan,
A cousin of faded mob boss Brian Rattigan, the 22-year-old is seen as being a key player in gangland and his gang of 20 members is especially violent. The Rattigan mob is involved in a vicious feud with two rival gangs in and he has been regularly targeted.
In October last year petrol bombs were thrown at his home in Hanover Street,while the home of one of his associates,Zacharv Purcell, was also targeted.
Intelligence led gardai to search a premises in a nearby flats complex. They arrested and charged a man with possession of explosives and the next day the Rattigan faction hit back and a shot was fired through a car door.
Nobody was injured, but gardai flooded Basin Street and carried out two dozen searches. They recovered several pipe bombs and guns and arrested four known young criminals. Just days later six Real IRA members were spotted at the flats and were stopped and searched by gardai.
Then a relation of Aaron Rattigan was stopped at the flats and was found to be carrying a butcher's knife. He told gardai his life was under threat and that he was carrying the knife for his own protection.
A gang figure attached to the Basin Street gang, Owen Gaffney (23), has also been targeted by rival mobs. Last July he and Philip Finnegan were at Lower Basin Street when a passing car fired five shots at them. Neither of the pair were hurt and they refused to cooperate with gardai, as did several witnesses who saw what happened.
Bloody
Philip Finnegan has been targeted by rival mobsters on more than one occasion. In December two rival outfits ran into each other in McDonald's on Grafton Street and a bloody brawl broke out between half-a-dozen people.
Later that day a hatchet was thrown through the front window of the 21-year-old's home at Mary Aikenhead O'Zack Purcell Owen Gaffney House but no complaint was made. Two other members of the gang are brothers Paul and Adam Graham. Paul (23), was recently jailed for five years after being caught with CS,OOO worth of heroin.
Adam (22), is facing a sentence after a joyriding incident on the South Circular Road where he ran over a garda bicycle in a stolen BMw.
Another criminal who is being regularly stopped and searched by gardai is Leroy Dumbrell (26). Dumbrell is part of the notorious crime family from Inchicore and is well known to gardai.
Last October he appeared in court charged with rioting in Mount joy jail in 2009. He was the leader of a group of inmates who attacked prison officers, leaving three in hospital.
Demand
Just before Christmas Dumbrell was arrested along with another man outside a house in Inchicore. Gardai believe Dumbrell was there to demand money for a drugs debt. He was arrested but released without charge.
Two of Dumbrell's brothers, Leonard and Tommy, are also regarded as being senior gang figures and are among the gardai's targets. Leonard is only 25 but has over 100 criminal convictions,while Tommy 'Scarface' Dumbrell has a fearsome reputation. The gang of around 40 criminals based in St Teresa s Gardens include several former members of the Thompson gang. One of the main men is 25-year-old Paul Gray, who is Ritchie Thompson s brother-in-law and a former driver for Freddie.
The membership of this outfit includes half-a-dozen young men who are just 16 and 17 years old.
Sean Connolly is the leader of the Bluebell gang of 20 people, which is very active in serious crime.
Connolly was arrested last July after several shots were fired into the front window of a house in Bluebell. There was not enough evidence to charge him and the 34·year-old is extremely feared in the area. He is regarded as being a serious player with links to the Real IRA and the old Brian Rattigan gang.
Fireworks -
He is currently before the Special Criminal Court charged with the murder of gangland don Eamon Kelly last December. It is business as usual for his gang despite his absence, with his younger brother Ronan taking charge. Last September convicted drug dealer and killer Declan O'Reilly was shot dead on the South Circular Road as he returned from picking up fireworks with his young son. Gangsters associated with Freddie Thompson were responsible for the assassination, in retaliation for O'Reilly stabbing Derek Glennon to death in Mount joy prison.
A member of the gang based in Vincent Street is suspected of luring O'Reilly to his death.
Pals of O'Reilly have since sought revenge against the 23-year-old and last month two hoax pipe bombs were placed outside his home in Dublin 8.Gardai believe that the life of this man is under imminent danger and he has been given security advice. He is regarded as being a ruthless criminal who was pals with O'Reilly) but had no problem about setting him up to be killed. He is one of the prime targets of the new gang initiative as his gang is involved in a separate feud with a drugs gang in nearby Rathmines.
Another Vincent Street native being investigated is 21-year-old Adam Howe. Adarn, who has no serious convictions, is the brother of former Thompson gang members Dean and Morgan Howe.
Although the six new mobs are separate and distinct to the Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs,they still have associations with their criminal mentors and are happy to target relations of criminals involved in the original Crumlin-Drimnagh feud. Wayne Menally was a senior enforcer for the Brian Rattigan gang before being jailed for 13 years for the attempted murder of a bouncer. Young criminals loyal to Thompson have consistently targeted relations of MeN ally.
Horrors -
His mother was attacked with a wheel brace in a Dublin 8 pub, while last September his innocent brother Stephen was stabbed in the arm.
Another young man who has witnessed the horrors of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud at first hand is Kenneth Roche. The 21-year-old saw two of his older brothers murdered in the feud, but is involved in the Aaron Rattigan gang and was the best friend of Gerard Eglington, who was whacked by Thompson loyalists last year.
In the last three weeks gardai have seized several firearms, pipe bombs and petrol bombs from the six new mobs and hope that the new gang unit will severely limit their activities.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1302:48 AM
GARDAI are working on the theory that a hitman travelled from England to murder Real IRA gang leader Alan Ryan.
Investigators have CCTV footage of a man who travelled to Belfast and got on a flight to Manchester following the cold-blooded killing in September last year.
Gardai received intelligence that the man captured on CCTV was hired by a north Dublin drugs gang to carry out Ryan's murder. Detectives arrested a 26-year-old man from Coolock during the week in relation to the killing.
He had just been released from prison where he was serving a short sentence for road traffic offences when gardai arrested him. He was previously pepper sprayed by gardai in a driving incident in Coolock in October 2011.
At the time he was with Jonathan Gill (31), from Malahide Road in Dublin, who this week was named as a leader of an organised crime gang in Dublin. The 26-year-old arrested this week, who has convictions for drug dealing, is the fifth person to be arrested in relation to the killing. The arrest comes after Gill and his associate Paschal Kelly (47)- originally from Coolock - were arrested in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, earlier this month and charged with possession of criminal property.
Cash
They were told by a judge in the North that they would not get bail after PSNI officers outlined in court how the two men were a flight risk and had access to large quantities of cash.
The joint PSNI/Garda operation recovered sums of €65,826 and £2,669 (stg) in cash along with 24 mobile phones.
They also found a passport which had a photograph of Kelly but had the name Brendan Duffy which was the name Kelly gave police when he was stopped. The court heard the apartment the men were staying in had been rented by Anthony Heaney who in a witness statement told officers he had sublet it to Kelly. Explaining how he believed the men were a flight risk, a PSNI officer said: "We believe these people are leaders of a criminal gang."
The court also heard of an active threat to Kelly's life.Judge Gerard Trainor described Kelly as a "seasoned, practised criminal" with convictions for robbery and escaping lawful custody. The men were refused bail and remanded in cus- tody to appear again at Fermanagh Court by video link from Maghaberry Prison on March 11.
It is understood both Kelly and Gill are under threat from dissident republicans.
Many of Ryan's former associates have been booted out of the dissident group since his killing. Belfast man Fat Deccy Smith, who was a close pal of Ryan, was shot in the leg by the terror group in Dublin in January. The dissident organisation, who are calling themselves the IRA since a merger with other republican groups, booted Smith out after accusing him of keeping extortion money that should have been sent up the North.
Punishment:
Another associate, Nathan Kinsella, was shot in the knee by the group in November last year.Both punishment attacks were carried out as part of what was described as "in-house cleaning" of the Dublin branch of the IRA. Several other key Ryan associates have been kicked out as part of the restructuring process. Reports this week suggested three men have now been appointed to direct operations in the capital.
The middle-aged men live in Finglas, Coolock and Tallaght.Meanwhile, locals in Sligo say former associates of Ryan have been making extortion demands in the county.
Gardai stopped four men, including two brothers from Dublin, were arrested in Castlebaldwin last month and found balaclavas in their car. The arrest happenedshortly after four masked men called to the family home of man demanding £40,000.
The men arrested had links to Sligo man Aaron Nealis, a pal of Alan Ryan, who was shot in the leg during the attack on Ryan. The brothers who were arrested are from Baldoyle. One of them has been involved in drug dealing. Gardai previously found one kilo of cocaine belonging to the drug dealer at his then-girlfriend's house in Dun Laoghaire in south Dublin. Sources said he has also robbed Nigerian drug dealers using the name of the Real IRA. His mother was jailed in England in 2004 after she was caught up in a multi-million euro international drug network run by British gang boss Owen Clarke.
Sources in Sligo say the group has been making a number of extortion demands in the county using the name of the IRA even,though most of Ryari's former cronies have been kicked out of the organisation. Locals also claim a businesswoman living in Sligo was having an affair with Ryan at the time of his murder. Other key associates of Ryan in Dublin have been living in fear since his killing.
Two well-known members, originally from the north-side of the city, have been living together in the south city in recent weeks. Gardai recently warned one of the men his life is in danger. Homes of both men have been attacked since Ryan's murder.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/19/1303:16 AM
THIS PRISON snap shows three former drugs godfathers defiantly toasting their home-made hooch in the country's maximum security prison in Portlaoise.
Despite posing under the Ferrari flag, it still hasn't dawned on 'Warehouse' John Gilligan, 'King Scum' Tony Felloni and Michael 'Roly' Cronin that life in the fast lane has come to a juddering halt - for good.
They're all smiles for the camera in another of our behind bars shots, as Gilligan gives the fingers and Felloni -who's missing one on his left hand manages a flimsy wave. The lags, who once thought they were untouchable, were celebrating Gilligan's first year in prison with a cake washed down with home-made alcohol, his fond- ness for which landed him a 56-day stretch in solitary last year.
But as time would tell, the three amigos' luck was about to go from bad to worse. First be freed - Michael 'Roly' Cronin -was shot dead in Dublin's Summerhill three years ago as he chatted with a pal.
Trusted
The 35-year-old heroin trafficker from Ballymun learned the hard way that drug friendships come cheap. He didn't even see the semi-automatic being lifted to the back of his head by someone he trusted enough to allow into the passenger seat of a Northern registered Volvo.Cronin was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1998 for heroin dealing. By the time he was released,the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) had seized all his assets, so despite controlling drugs in Ballymun, Finglas and the north inner city, he died broke. He was shot dead at Langrishe Place in January 2011 along with his driver .Iames Maloney (26), on the orders of murdered don and underworld assassin Eamon Dunne. It was an end as ignominious as the prime of his life - spent parrying in tacky prison cells. The second man to be freed in the prison party line-up has not seen any improvement in his own living standards since his release. Tony Felloni was freed in 2011,after being jailed for 20 years in 1996 - the longest drugs sentence of its kind at the time. The 69-year-old from Dublin's Dominick Street has also been hit by CAB, and when he left prison he carried his possessions in a bin bag as he headed home to his squalid house on James's Walk in Rialto.
He fled Sunday World photographer,Liam O'Connor like a man possessed, using a scarf to conceal his face and bolting over the Ha'penny BridgeThe pensioner, who is credited with flooding Dublin with heroin in the 1980s and 1990s has also been spurned by his family - his former wife Anne refers to him as 'pig'. Marriage Anne has revealed how Tony had beaten her continuously through their marriage. Her last baby, Benito, died a few days after birth when his liver collapsed as a result of her heroin addiction. "I was near comatose in the hospital and he (Tony) was spoonfeeding me heroin," she told murdered reporter, Veronica Guerin. HIV positive Tony also introduced his children to the horror of heroin addiction. A daughter Ann became hooked on hard drugs at the age of 13 after her dad gave her a job in his business.
Their oldest child, Mario Angelo, was jailed in Parkhurst Prison in the UK and diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. Other siblings Luigi and Regina were jailed for drugs offences.
His ex-wife Anne would also claim the deaths of some of Dublin's heroin addicts were down to Tony mixing up heroin with struchnine (rat poison).
Father-of-eight Tony fought a 14- year battle for his assets, but lost everything following a life of crime.
Sources say he drinks in pubs in the Rialto area and "is a pathetic old man".
The last man smiling in our prison snaps
John Gilligan - has fared no better locked behind bars than his old buddies.In 2002, he was tried and acquitted by the Special Criminal Court for the murder of Veronica Guerin. His original sentence of 28 years for drugS crimes was reduced to 20 on appeal, but he got a further two years in 2002 for threatening to kill two prison officers, another eight months in 2011 for possession of a mobile phone in 2008, and six months in 2012 for possession of a mobile phone in his cell in March 2010.
Crime
Gilligan is due to be released next year, but CAB put his €2m Jessbrook equestrian centre up for sale late last year. And the pint-sized 60-year-old was sent solitary confinement last Christmas after a 56-day stint for drinking his favourite tipple.
As our pictures show, a leopard never changes its spots.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/20/1312:21 AM
This is the guy who ratted out whitey bulger & pat nee for gun smuggling
Informant claims IRA plans 'big show' in Britain to mark Easter Rising
DISSIDENT republicans determined to make a "big show" in the near future are plotting gun or bomb attacks on mainland Britain, according to a former IRA commander who has turned informant.
"As we are speaking, there are people somewhere in Ireland thinking about how they can bomb England," Sean O'Callaghan told London's 'Independent on Sunday'. "There is no doubt in my mind that there will be serious attempts at an attack."
With the centenary of the Easter Rising, which marked the birth of modern Irish republicanism, in three years' time, we are in a "very dangerous period", according to Mr O'Callaghan, who now lives in England for his own safety.
"There's an inevitable momentum as you move towards 2016, as dissidents become more determined to be relevant – they'll be very keen to prove they are the big show in town on the republican side."
Speaking after a presentation on the dissident threat to experts at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), King's College London, last week, he added: "If they can undertake operations here, they will."
The dissidents are "trying to kill people all the time", claimed the 59-year-old former member of Sinn Fein's national executive and a veteran of more than 60 terrorist attacks in the 1970s.
Once the head of the IRA's southern command, Mr O'Callaghan turned himself over to the British authorities in 1988. He served eight years in prison for two murders before being granted early release by the Queen.
His warning comes amid raised tensions in Northern Ireland, after weeks of rioting provoked by a decision to stop routinely flying the Union flag on Belfast City Hall.
Commenting on Mr O'Callaghan's claims, Dr John Bew, ICSR director, said: "There's a very small prospect of any return to the Troubles. However, do these people pose a serious threat to life? Absolutely – there's no question about that. Are they trying to kill police officers every day? Yes." He added: "The fantasy of any dissident is damage in London, because it is ultimately about British occupation of Ireland. It is not an empty threat, but they do not have the same network or sympathetic diaspora that the Provos had."
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/20/1312:30 AM
Two shot near attack that led to IRA arrest.
ALAN MURRAY – 17 FEBRUARY 2013
Two men have been shot and wounded just two streets from the scene of a 'punishment shooting' for which a notorious IRA bomber was arrested.
The incident, on Friday evening in the Oldpark area of north Belfast, came just three days after an 18-year-old youth was shot at the Flax Centre in Ardoyne Avenue.
Sean Kelly was arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland the following day and held for questioning for 36 hours before being released without charge.
Sinn Fein has denied that the IRA man, who was given nine life sentences for his role in the 1993 Shankill bombing, had any involvement in the attack on Padraig McAleenan.
The victim of that shooting – who has several criminal convictions for theft, assault and riotous behaviour – underwent emergency surgery after it was discovered that one of the bullets had penetrated his bladder.
Kelly was released from the Maze in 2000 under the prisoner-release terms negotiated alongside the Good Friday Agreement and has been prominent alongside leading republicans in north Belfast during nationalist protests against Orange Order parades.
He is viewed as a 'hate figure' among loyalists for his role in the bombing of Frizzell's fish shop in October 1993, in which fellow bomber Thomas Begley and eight Protestant civilians were killed.
It is not known if Friday evening's shooting has any connection with Tuesday's attack on McAleenan or the arrest of Kelly, but on Thursday morning masked men entered the Flax Centre in Ardoyne, locked staff in an office and then removed footage from a CCTV system which may have recorded the McAleenan shooting.
Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly claimed that the PSNI's serious crime branch had "questions to answer in arresting a high-profile republican who has always supported the peace process".
Kelly's licence was revoked briefly in 2005 after it was alleged that he had been involved in violence in north Belfast.
The jury in the trial of two men accused of assaulting another man with a meat cleaver is set to begin its deliberations today.
Alan Wilson (33), of New Street Gardens, and David Crowley (36), of New Bride Street, have pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to trespass while committing assault causing harm at Dromheath Drive in Blanchardstown on June 3, 2009.
Crowley has also pleaded not guilty to a second charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm on the same occasion.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1301:56 AM
DRUGS BARON Greg lynch has walked free from court after having a six-month sentence reduced to 200 hours community service.
Lynch (27), from the Oliver Bond Flats in Dublin's inner city, is believed to head up a tightly-knit gang supplying heroin and cannabis across the city. The convicted heroin dealer is the number one target for gardai investigating the drugs trade in the south inner city and has been dubbed the new 'Fat' Freddie Thompson. However, Lynch managed to avoid a six-month prison sentence for driving offences on Monday - ironically after claiming to be battling with a drug problem.
Reformed -
The sentence was reduced to 200 hours community service on appeal in Dublin District Court. Despite his claims in court to be reformed, the Sunday-World can reveal that the burly gangster has developed close links to a number of notorious criminals based in the Finglas area of North Dublin in recent months. He was recently spotted in a car registered to convicted armed robber David 'Sos' Mulvey.
Mulvey, from Berryfield Drive, Finglas, is a close associate of the notorious Bradley brothers and has served a sentence for gun possession.
In 2006, Mulvey was jailed for the attempted robbery of a post office in Cabra on the city's northside and possession of a double-barrelled shotgun in two separate incidents. During his time in jail, Mulvey was at the centre of a massive controversy after a prison officer was charged with smuggling contraband into him in Mount joy.
Shamed -
Shamed prison officer Dillon O'Brien pleaded guilty in December 2009 to smuggling a bottle of vodka and a mobile phone to prisoner Mulvey and a mobile phone to convicted murderer Thomas Hinchon.
He also admitted conspiring with others to bring cocaine to Mulvey, heroin to Hinchon and two mobile phones to Donnagh O'Brien between January 2005 and March 2007, and to having cocaine in his home on March 15,2007.
A source said Lynch has long-term links with associates of brothers, Wayne and Alan 'Fatpuss' Bradley. "Lynch was friendly with some of the Bradley gang when he was in Wheatfield.
He was a close friend of Karl Browne, one of 'Fatpuss' Bradley's best pals, who was killed in a motor- bike crash," the souce added. In 2004, Lynch was jailed for eight years after he was caught with heroin worth more than €400,000.
The then teenager was spotted handing over the drugs to another man in the car park oj the Red Cow Inn, Naas Road, Dublin on October 1, 2003. Lynch pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of heroin with a market value in excess of €13,000 for sale or supply.
Lynch has close links to some of Ireland's most notorious underworld figures. His dad, Gerard 'Bra' Brady, is a close pal of godfather Christy Kinahan who also lived in the Oliver Bond Flats for years.
Lynch's uncle is exiled heroin dealer Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh, who is currently based in Spain. It is believed that Lynch is a regular visitor to Kavanagh's villa in Malaga on the Costa Del Crime. The gang boss is also a close associate of convicted armed robber Paul Rice.
Gardai believe Lynch has taken over from 'Fat' Freddie Thompson as the biggest drugs supplier in large parts of the city.
Despite being rivals, Lynch is said to be friends with Thompson and lives just metres from Freddie's mum in the Marylands estate, South Dublin.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1302:33 AM
GANGLAND murder victim Philip O'Toole was believed to have been set up by former associates after falling foul of a mob boss known as 'the Gutter Man'.
Gardai arrested a man in Wicklow yesterday and are questioning him in relation to the killing. The body of the criminal, from Bray, Co. Wicklow, was found dumped in a ravine in Trooperstown, Co. Wicklow, on Friday following a tip-off to gardai. He went missing on January 7.
Gunpoint -
It is believed he willingly met his killers and was taken to the area at gunpoint before being shot in the head.
Speaking after the body was discovered, his father Brendan said they have not stopped looking for him since the day he went missing. "I had been looking in every field, ditch and pipe. Last Sunday, I was up searching in Trooperstown for him. I would have been just 200 metres away from him. I probably passed by him," he said.
Brendan appealed for people to come forward with information on his son's death, adding: "Please, I'm asking as his father, have it in your heart and come for- ward. I want to get justice for my son."
O'Toole survived a gun attack in 2011 when he was shot in the stomach in the Kilgarron Park area of Enniskerry, shortly after his release from prison. He was serving a four-year sentence for possession of a sawn-off shotgun.
In the weeks after that shooting sinister graffiti appeared around Bray making threats against O'Toole and his associates. Thugs then opened fire on O'Toole's father's house using a Mac10 machine pistol "They opened fire on my house with a machine gun last September," said Brendan O'Toole, pointing to the bullet holes in the front of his home in Bray.
Miracle -
"They put 27 bullets into my house.
There were children in the house at the time and five people here altogether. It was a miracle nobody was killed."
It is believed O'Toole was targeted by associates of criminal Brendan Kinlan,aka 'the Gutter Man', who was arrested in the UK in November after being caught with €2m worth of amphetamines.
Kinlan is originally from Bray and is believed to be involved in supplying drugs to the Wicklow area. O'Toole, who had almost 40 convictions including drugs convictions, was also questioned over a shooting in Finglas in 2010.
Glen McGrath (40), was shot and seriously injured near the Cappagh Nua pub on the Barry Road in Finglas on December 30 but survived.
Philip's dad said he.did not want to talk about his son's "business", but hoped it would not put people off coming forward with information.
"I can't talk about that side of things, except to say he never talked to me about his business," Brendan said. "He was a good lad. He was well liked. He phoned his mother every day.
Sources told the Sunday World Philip had fallen out with a local drugs gang.
Emenies -
"He had made a bid to go out on his own in the drugs business and he made dangerous enemies," a source said. Kinlan ( 41), from Bray, appeared in court in the UK after crashing a van on the Ml motorway with €2m worth of drugs.
It is understood his incarceration in Armley Prison in Leeds had left a vacuum in the Bray drugs scene, causing tensions to ratchet up a notch,
Philip O'Toole, who had a seven-month-old baby, knew his life was under threat and relocated after he was shot.
"He was hiding in Arklow," Brendan said, "Nobody knew he'd gone, he kept it very quiet, However, he had moved to Arklow as he was becoming worried about his safety," "When last seen, he was driving a blue BMW car with the reg 99-D-88221. This car was located by Gardai on the Lower Dargle Road, Bray, on January 9.
His family are relieved to have found the body and he is no longer one of the 'gangland disappeared' - people murdered and disposed of by professional criminals.
One of the most notorious cases from the annals of gangland history is the murder of Jock Corbally in 1996.
He was beaten and tortured before being buried,possibly still alive, in a field in Co. Kildare.
PJ 'the Psycho' Judge, who was shot dead in 1997, is thought to have carried out the murder after Corbally beat him up on the street.
In 2008, gang boss David 'Baby Face' Lyndsay and Alan Napper disappeared.
A feud started because Micka Kelly owed them money. It's believed that in July that year Kelly lured them north of the border, where they were both killed and dumped in the Irish Sea.
Evidence -
Christopher 'Git' Gilroy is believed to have disappeared in Spain in 2009. He was believed to have carried out the 2009 murders of Michael 'Roly' Cronin and James Maloney in Summerhill, Dublin, on behalf of Eamon 'the Don' Dunne.
Drug addict Gilroy was manipulated into carrying out the killings, but left vital forensic evidence behind.
However, 'the Don' was anxious not to leave any loose ends and Gilroy's fate was sealed. There have also been a number of people who had no involvement in crime but crossed paths crossed with dangerous gangsters, with lethal consequences.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1303:14 AM
A GROUP of senior terror bosses have relocated to Dublin from the North to interrogate members of Alan Ryan's RIRA mob, a senior dissident source has revealed.
The terror bosses came down to the capital last week and are currently staying at an address in Tallaght, south Dublin. The group includes a notorious killer who was released from prison as part of the Belfast Agreement, as well as the man suspected of killing two soldiers outside the Massereene Barracks in Antrim town.
The interrogation squad is under the direction of veteran republican Paddy Fox, one of the most feared terrorists in the North.
Fox (41), is a convicted bombmaker and was regarded as the leader of the terror group Oglaigh na hEireann, which merged recently with the RIRA.
His parents were shot dead by the UVF in 1992 while he was serving a jail sentencce in the Maze prison and he has doS(- p,-r'-;oll,,1 links 10 the overall leader of the new IRA. Fox, a prominent Tyrone republican, is a self-confessed dissident who was abducted by the Provos in 1999 because of his opposition to the Good Friday Aggreement.
It is believed that each member of so called Dublin brigade of the RIRA will he individually interviewed about their activities over the last two years.
Extorted -
RIRA bosses suspect a number of Alan Ryan's close associates were pocketing cash extorted from gangs who operate cannabis grow houses in north Dublin.
A large part of the investigation is being carried out by a close associate of terrorist Dominic 'Mad Dog' McGlinchey, who is a senior figure in the organisation. The violent criminal is a suspect in the murder of PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll at the Massereene Barracks in Antrim.
An ex-Provo, who was released from prison in the 1990s under the Belfast Agreement, has also moved to Tallaght. He was convicted of shooting an RUC officer at a checkpoint in the 1980s, but has remained off the radar since his release.
A senior dissident has told the Sunday World that a "root-and-branch" review of the organisation in Dublin is being carried out. "All organisational activities will be moved to the Tallaght area and people who had been working for Ryan will be questioned.
"It is suspected that members of the gangwere using the organisation's name to get money out of drug dealers and not handing it over.
"People will be asked exactly what was collected over the last two years and it will be compared to what was handed over.
"The situation that has been allowed to develop in Dublin is a disgrace and it is all about to change.
"It will be cleaned up, the people in the North are embarrassed with what has been going on." He added: "I imagine 80 per cent of Ryan's people will end up being kicked out."
In July, the Real IRA merged with two other dissident groups to form a new group, calling themselves the IRA.
The Real IRA were joined by Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) in Derry and a coalition of independent armed republican groups - often known as Oglaigh na hEireann.
Oglaigh na hEireann - previously headed by Paddy Fox - consisted of a group of hardened ex-Provos based in rural Northern Ireland who opposed the peace process.
The dissident source claimed that Declan 'Fat Deccy' Smith has been isolated by the northern leadership.
Smith, who is originally from Belfast, was put forward by as leader of the Dublin brigade by the southern leadership following Ryans murder. The chubby dissident is wanted for questioning in the North over the murders of two former Continuity IRA members in 2007. Edward Burns (36), and Joe jones (38),were killed within an hour of each other in horrific murders.
Both Burns and jones were savagely beaten before Burns was shot dead and his body dumped in the Bog Meadows area of west Belfast.
Decapiiitated -
A short time later; Joe Jones was decapitated with a shovel and his body abandoned in an alleyway in Ardoyne. However, the dissident source claimed Smith has been effectively removed from his position by his bosses in the North.
"Deccy Smith is not involved in the reorganisation - he will be questioned like everyone else."
The internal reorganisaion was ordered after RIRA suspect Nathan Kinsella was caught with drugs in his apartment.
His flat was 'raided' by an internal dissident discipline squad after a Dublin drug dealer told them Kinsella had been buying drugs off him. The stash - which included cocaine and 'downers' - was found in Kinsella's north inner-city apartment. The find has led to a major split within the dissident group in Dublin, with a number of people effectively being kicked out of the organisation.
Kinsella was subsequently shot twice in the legs before being dumped in Ballyfermot on November 25. He was quizzed by gardai, but has claimed he did not know the shooter. In September Kinsella was charged with IRA membership in the Special Criminal Court as part of the massive investigation into paramilitary criminal activity at the funeral of Alan Ryan, in which shots were fired over Ryan's coffin.
The IRA is believed to have called a number of major Dublin gangsters to a series of 'business meetings' in recent weeks.
Abused -
Gangland figure Troy Jordan was just one of a dozen gangsters summoned to meetings with the new RIRA leaders, who have come to Dublin in the aftermath of the murder of terror chief Alan Ryan.
Jordan was ordered to hand over a significant amount of cash to the RIRA leadership. The protection money would, they said, enable him to continue on with his drug-dealing racket.
But Jordan not only refused to hand over any cash, he verbally abused the dissident godfathers.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1303:48 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1304:01 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1304:48 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1305:19 AM
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. ----
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1306:27 AM
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?
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1308:11 AM
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."
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1308:52 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1309:17 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1310:06 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1310:47 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1311:13 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/21/1311:55 AM
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."
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.
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.
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/23/1301:02 AM
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.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/23/1301:28 AM
"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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
LEGENDARY GAA club Crossmaglen Rangers last night said it would willingly assist gardai investigating the capital murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe.
The south Armagh club issued a statement to the Sunday World through a lawyer, after it emerged that the focus of the murder hunt is now firmly fixed on a gang of five baby-faced criminals who have strong links with the most successful club in GAA history.
Sources close to the investigation believe the wider GAA family may now hold the key to catching the killers of the father-of-two, who was also a devoted Gaelic games man.The Sunday World can today reveal that the reward for information on the murder is expected to be doubled to €100,000 in the belief that those close to the killers hold the key to solving the brutal murder, and that gang members are turning on each other.
Execution
Crimestoppers will this week put up a further €50,000 to add to the €50,000 already offered by the Irish League of Credit Unions in the hunt for the gang. It is hoped that the money, coupled with the heat being put on the area known as 'Bandit Country', will break the traditional Omerta that usually surrounds the lawless land where the suspects live.
Father Michael Cusack, who celebrated Garda Donohoe's funeral and who will lead a month's mind mass today,said: "Wherever people are, in whatever part of this country, north or south of that space called the Border, I would say they need to come forward and name names. This was an atrocity."
One month after the callous murder, a Sunday World investigation into the suspected killers led us right into the heart of South Armagh l; Border country.
Over 48 hours, our team entered a world where no outsiders are welcome and where decades of republican criminality has spawned a feral gang of young thugs that have threatened the very foundations of social order.
We cannot print the names of the gang of five believed to be responsible for the execution of Garda Donohoe, but we understand that two are key players on Crossmaglen Rangers teams and the other three are closely associated with the club and some of its members.
Within hours of the shooting at Lordship Credit Union in Dundalk last month, the PSNI had furnished the Gardai with the names of the five, all in their early 20s. Three, including a girl, are siblings from one well-known republican family that has been involved in diesel laundering and smuggling for decades. The other two are childhood friends;the gang leader and his lieutenant who is in a relationship with the girl suspected as being the getaway driver for the gang - a couple who see them- " selves as a young Bonnie and Clyde.
An unprecedented sharing of intelligence between the PSNI and the
Garda at the highest level has identified the gang through the use of covert human intelligence sources established during the Troubles. Ordinary members of the GAA club,which is the holder of a record six All-Ireland football titles, are horrified by the news that the focus of the investigation is fixed on the gang, who are all well known.in the Crossmaglen area.
Stunned
One high-profile member who did not wish to be named said he was "stunned" at the development in the investigation and would totally refute any claims that the club would give any protection to the killers.
In response to a series of questions we put to club officials about its connections to the suspected gang,Crossmaglen Rangers issued the following statement through a lawyer:"Garda Donohoe did not have any association with Crossmaglen Rangers football club. It was therefore not appropriate for the club to issue a statement of sympathy to his family.
"Crossmaglen Rangers has no knowledge of the prime focus of the Garda or PSNI investigation into the murder of Garda Donohoe, but if invited by either body to assist their enquiries will willingly do so."
A mammoth garda investigation centred in Dundalk is making slow but steady progress in its inquiries. While no forensics could be salvaged from the getaway car found in an isolated forest near Keady, Co. Armagh, following the shooting, phone records are currently being mapped and the results are expected in the coming weeks.
Despite the technological advances in mapping technology which have regularly linked suspects to their crimes,it is believed that the gang may have broken protocol and made frantic mobile calls to associates as they fled Dundalk at breakneck speed following the shooting.
Officers believe that they made arrangements to have the stolen Volkswagen Passat torched as they made their way back to bandit country. Analysis of cross-Border cell sites,along with painstaking CCTV examination, may yet yield some crucial evidence for the lOO-strong team.
Alibis
We understand that all five suspects have been provided with alibis, claiming they were at home on the night of the murder on January 25 last, but officers are hoping their inquiries will prove otherwise.
Our Sunday World investigation in Bandit Country has uncovered a community under siege from the authorities and a young gang at the brink of breaking point. Sources within the area have told us that the gang leader, the man suspected of pulling the trigger, is holed up in Glasgow and has told relatives that it was his lieutenant who took the fatal shot and not him, signalling tensions within the gang.
At one point during the week our sources said he was on the verge of handing himself over to gardai to admit his part in the robbery and finger his best friend as the shooter.
None of the gang or their associates will deal with the PSNI, due to the historical tensions in the area, but it is understood that as the intelligence network tightens its screws, the tight-knit gang is on the verge of imploding.
Gardai have been facilitated in their inquiries in the area by the PSNI and have met with sources that are helping them with their investigation.
By their nature, those living in Bandit Country are uncooperative with authorities. For years, Crossmaglen and its surrounding townlands was policed by armed RUC officers who were helicoptered in and out of an iron fortress that remains in the centre of the town.
In recent years the PSNI have had absolutely no visible presence in the area, which in essence polices itself. However, we understand that following the peace process the restructured PSNI took over the 'Covert Human Intelligence Sources' developed there in late 1980s and '90s and continued to keep them on the books to monitor dissident and criminal activity.
Covert
The Special Forces Reconnaissance Unit (SRR) tasked with assisting the SAS and specialists in covert surveillance is still working for the PSNI. They were deployed in Northern Ireland from 2009 to gather intelligence on dissident republicans.
MI5 claims that the dissident threat is on a par with that from Muslim extremists on the UK and it has never relinquished its hold on sources and undercover secret agents in the heart of the IRA border strongholds.
Today Bandit Country remains a valley of squinting windows, where outsiders are left under no illusion that they are not welcome and where the flourishing diesel smuggling industry has given a prosperity out of sync with the rest of the country. The heat on both sides of the Border has threatened this illicit cottage industry and could represent the greatest threat to the Omerta that normally operates in this part of the world.
Today, Garda Donohoe's family, his widow Caroline and two young children, Amy and Niall,will attend his month's mind mass at St Joseph's Redemptorist Church in Dundalk, where Father Michael Cusack will again appeal to people to examine their conscience and come forward with information.
A GANG boss exposed in last week's Sunday World wanted to be sent to jail because so many people want to whack him.
We revealed that 23-year-old Declan Tynan is the head of a ruthless mob of 35 criminals based in St Vincent Street in Dublin 8.
However because the thug was due in court for selling drugs to an undercover cop, we had to blur his face.
He has now pleaded guilty to the possession of heroin with the intent of sale and supply and asked the judge to send him to jail because his life is under threat. He is not due to be sentenced until May, but will spend the next few months behind bars.
Tynan and his crew have been involved in two bitter disputes with rival criminals.
There have been dozens of violent incidents linked to a row with Paul Geraghty, the new partner of Brian Rattigan's former partner Natasha McEnroe.
The gangs have been fighting with each other for several years due to a petty dispute that has escalated out of control. Geraghty narrowly avoided an assasination bid two years ago after shots were fired at his car on Charlemount Street. Detectives believe that associates of Tynan were involved.
Ambushed
Tynan's men have also been blamed for setting up criminal Declan O'Reilly to be murdered last September and pals of O'Reilly have sworn revenge.
Tynan's family home was recently targeted in a fake pipe bomb incident that gardai believe is directly linked to the murder of O'Reilly. Tynan is said to be under extreme pressure and feels that he will be safer in jail. However, it is likely that he will have to go into protective custody.
His gang is one of six new outfits operating in Dublin 8. Around 200 young men are involved in the mobs, which have now taken over from the 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Brian Rattigan gangs. Tynan had been one of the main targets of an elite new anti-gangland unit operating out of Kevin Street Garda Station.
Evidence was heard this week of how Tynan was nabbed by gardai in an under-cover sting atthe Vincent Street flats in March 2011.
Gardai had intelligence that Tynan was selling drugs out of the flat and had a phone number used by the mob to do deals.
An undercover garda rang the number and said he had €500 and wanted to buy drugs.Tynan's pal Karl Fish answered the phone and said he would "sort out" the officer.
Gormless
The officers went to the flats complex and heard a whistle from an upstairs corridor. Tynan gave them a bag of heroin, but bizarrely forgot to take any money from them.
As the undercover cops left, he said: "Ring me any time, that's the best gear around". Both he and Fish were later arrested and charged, and pleaded guilty this week.
Tynan's solicitor tried to paint him as a gormless idiot, saying he was "an amateur and something of a fool". However gardai say he is far from a fool and is not to be underestimated.
He has 21 previous convictions including one for robbing a headshop just yards from his own home. The court heard he was "near to death's door" six months ago after overdosing on cocaine. He agreed to undergo regular drugs tests in prison between now and May.
TO MOST serving Gardai, the names Eddie Fitzmaurice and Ronan MacLochlainn either mean absolutely nothing,or are at best are vaguely familiar.
However, they are names that should be foremost in their minds as they face into the prospect of, once again,going on strike and leaving the country almost totally defenceless.
Darkest
Make no mistake about it, what is being bandied about and contemplated is an actual strike,although those who take an active part in it will still receive their wages for that same day.
When asked, after 39 years in An Garda Siochana, what my darkest day on the job was, I respond by saying that participation, however involuntary, in the Blue Flu of May 1, 1998, was that day. Peer pressure, and nothing else, drove myself and over 90 per cent of the force to ring in 'sick' that morning.
Eddie Fitzmaurice, a widower in his eighties, was last seen alive as he locked up his drapery shop at Bellaghy, Charlestown, at 8pm on Blue Flu Friday, May 1, 1998.
Over the next few days, customers, friends and associates noticed that the shop had not been reopened. Alerted by a family member, Gardai forced entry to Eddie's living quarters above the shop on May 6, some five days later.
They found his semi-nude body in the front bedroom of the house. He was bound and gagged. His body bore the signs of a beating. It would later be estimated that it could have taken the frail pensioner three days to crawl from the back bedroom where he had been assaulted to the front room where he tried to alert passers-by.
Years later, I was the sergeant in charge of the Garda Cold Case Unit who undertook a review of that unsolved homicide. Person after person we spoke too recalled, some 12 years later, how on that same night they had locked themselves into their homes as van-loads of thugs roamed freely up and down the streets of our cities and towns.
Subversive
Ronan MacLochlainn, a native of Ballymun, Dublin, and a member of a subversive organisation, would be shot dead in a shoot-out between members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit and a six-strong,heavily-armed gang they intercepted attempting to rob a cash-in-transit security van on the main Dublin to Wexford Road just outside
Ashford in County Wicklow on that same Blue Flu Friday. The loss of any life is regrettable,but I for one could never have forgiven myself if it had been a Garda who was shot because he had no back-up as his colleagues were off 'sick'.
Permission had to be actually sought in advance from the Association to allow those Gardai involved in the shoot-out to work on that particular day.
Throughout that long day of May 1, 1998, the country was put in fear as the vast majority of Gardai withdrew services. We were left unprotected except for those members of Sergeant and Inspector rank whose representatives had not recognised the strike.
Over the last few weeks, we have wit-nessed the cold- blooded murder of one of our colleagues, Adrian Donohoe, who was gunned down by a gang of armed thugs.
Throughout my service, I had attended the funerals of six colleagues gunned down in the service of our society. An Garda Siochana is a very small family and four of those who gave their lives were known to me. However, I have never witnessed such outpourings of support among the public for Gardai as that which followed the most recent murder. We have also witnessed the closure of almost 100 rural Garda Stations in recent weeks.
Pride
It has been a source of pride to me to watch community groups calling for these stations to be reopened. The praise for both the sense of security and high standard of service that people felt from a local Garda presnee was over-whelming.
The Blue Flu of May 1998 did a lot of damage to the public's perception of the Gardai. In a single day,years of loyal service, of dedication and of sacrifice, were swept aside as Gardai left vulnerable people alone and without protection.
The damage that this action did is only now fading. The support and encouragement received over the last few weeks is evidence of this. However, here we go, once again allowing a faction in An Garda Siochana to push all its members to the brink of industrial action.
I can appreciate that it is difficult to stand aside and watch the erosion of hard-earned allowances. It is equally as hard to accept what is being done to our pension, a pension fund that I contributed too over 39 years.
I have, however, news for my former colleagues and their representatives, some of whom occupied the same positions in that body at the last Blue Flu, that, to many in our society, the Gardai and, indeed the Civil Service as a whole, are not too badly paid at all.
Since retiring, I have been working in a drop-in facility in Dublin's city centre where we feed an average of 500 homeless and marginalised people six days a week. To those people the pay and conditions enjoyed by the Civil Service looks very, very attractive indeed. I would appeal to all my former colleagues to step back and not to make the same mistake we did.
Don't let yourselves be led or pushed down a road that, I honestly believe, 99 per cent of you never want to tread.
Ken Foy Crime correspondent – 25 February 2013 10:40 AM
GARDAI expect to make more arrests in the coming days as part of their massive investigation into the murder of Detective Adrian Donohoe.
Sources say that "significant progress" has been made in the month-long probe but gardai are "a good bit away" from being able to press charges in the case.
Two men arrested last Thursday and questioned about the robbery of the stolen getaway car that was used in the shocking slaying at the Lordship Credit Union in Co Louth were released over the weekend.
A file on them will now be prepared for the DPP.
They are not suspected of direct involvement in the murder but are thought to have some knowledge of the criminals who stole the navy-coloured VW Passat that was used by the gang.
Justice
Yesterday, a crowd of mourners packed into St Joseph's Redemptorist Church in Dundalk to support his heartbroken widow Caroline Donohoe, her two children, Niall and Amy, Adrian's parents, Hugh and Peggy, and the extended family.
Celebrating the month's mind Mass, Fr Cusack told the family that he knew of the "wonderful, generous outpouring towards them".
"If people could change things they would," he added.
However, he said that as a society, we would not tolerate violence and that "we won't hide people that need to be brought to justice".
"Nobody should dare pervert the course of justice, if finding justice could bring peace and resolution to ease the pain the family were being forced to endure," he added.
The journey being endured by the family and the investigating team working so hard since the brutal murder felt very lonely at times and very crowded at others, he said.
The "amazing turnout" at the Mass showed the honour in which the murdered detective garda was held but it also demonstrated the respect felt by the community for peace and justice, said Fr Cusack.
A five-man cross-border gang is suspected of being involved in the €4,000 robbery which led to Detective Donohoe being murdered in cold blood.
Among this gang are two reckless criminal brothers from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, as well as the chief suspect for shooting the detective.
The chief suspect is on bail in relation to serious charges in the North.
Two Cork men have appeared before a special sitting of the Special Criminal Court charged with membership of the IRA and firearms offences. Brian Walsh, 43, and Anthony Carroll, 30, were arrested on Saturday afternoon in the Dean Rock area of Togher by detectives from Togher Garda Station as part of an investigation in to the activities of dissident republicans. Mr Walsh, with an address at Connolly Road, Ballyphehane, and Mr Carroll of Curaheen Close, Bishopstown, were both charged before the non-jury court with membership of an unlawful organisation within the State styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on 23 February 2013. The pair were charged with the unlawful possession of a Walther PI 9mm calibre semi-automatic pistol and a Smith & Wesson .22mm Magnum calibre revolver with the serial number AEM 2000 at Deanrock Avenue, Togher, on the same date. The men were also charged with the unlawful possession of a magazine together with six rounds of 9mm calibre ammunition suitable for use with the Walther pistol, and six rounds of .22 long rifle rounds of ammunition suitable for use in a Smith & Wesson .22 magnum calibre revolver at the same address on the same date. Detective Garda Barry Duggan told State Solicitor Mr Liam Mulholland that he formally arrested Brian Walsh shortly before 4pm today on Tramore Road, Cork. He told Mr Mulholland that at the time of the arrest he believed the accused man had committed the offences of which he is charged. Det Garda Duggan said that he explained to Mr Walsh the reason for his arrest in ordinary language and cautioned him. He said the accused man, who appeared before the non-jury court dressed in a fawn jacket and dark trousers, replied "I was expecting this" to the caution. Detective Brendan Murray told Mr Mulholland that he formally arrested Anthony Carroll shortly before 4pm this afternoon in Cork city. He said that Mr Carroll, who appeared before the court dressed in red Munster rugby jacket and grey tracksuit bottoms, made no reply after caution. There was no application for bail and Mr Mulholland said the State wished to reserve its position with regard to legal aid. Presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler, sitting with Judge Margaret Heneghan and Judge Flannan Brennan, remanded both men in custody with liberty to apply for bail to appear in front of the court on 5 March.
Woman injured in bomb blast in north Belfast Updated: 13:30, Monday, 25 February 2013
Woman injured in bomb blast in north Belfast.
A woman was injured in a bomb attack on a house in north Belfast last night. The woman, who is 44, sustained cuts to her leg when the device was thrown at the front door of her home in the Greencastle area. Two dogs were also injured in the attack. Police have appealed for information about a dark coloured car seen driving away from the incident.
GARDAI believe two men arrested over the weekend were intercepted moments before they were about to carry out a gun attack.
Detectives from Togher garda station in Cork city were on patrol when they spotted a suspicious van. According to sources, they knew the occupants of the vehicle to be members of a subversive splinter group of the IRA.
The gardai stopped the van and discovered two handguns and a 10-gallon drum of petrol during a search.
It is thought that the men were on their way to attack a house in the area. They were arrested and detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
Two Cork men have appeared before a special sitting of the Special Criminal Court tonight charged with membership of the IRA and firearms offences.
Brian Walsh (43) and Anthony Carroll (30) were arrested on Saturday afternoon in the Dean Rock area of Togher by detectives from Togher Garda Station as part of an investigation in to the activities of dissident republicans.
Mr Walsh, with an address at Connolly Road, Ballyphehane, and Mr Carroll, of Curraheen Close, Bishopstown, were both charged before the non-jury court with membership of an unlawful organisation within the State styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on February 23rd, 2013.
The pair were charged with the unlawful possession of a Walther PI 9mm calibre semi-automatic pistol and a Smith & Wesson .22mm Magnum calibre revolver with the serial number AEM 2000 at Deanrock Avenue, Togher, on the same date.
The men were also charged with the unlawful possession of a magazine together with six rounds of 9mm calibre ammunition suitable for use with the Walther pistol, and six rounds of .22 long rifle rounds of ammunition suitable for use in a Smith & Wesson .22 magnum calibre revolver at the same address on the same date.
Detective Garda Barry Duggan told State Solicitor Mr Liam Mulholland that he formally arrested Brian Walsh shortly before four o?clock this afternoon on Tramore Road, Cork.
He told Mr Mulholland that at the time of the arrest he believed the accused man had committed the offences of which he is charged.
Det Gda Duggan said that he explained to Walsh the reason for his arrest in ordinary language and cautioned him. He said the accused man, who appeared before the non-jury court dressed in a fawn jacket and dark trousers, replied ?I was expecting this? to the caution.
Detective Brendan Murray told Mr Mulholland that he formally arrested Anthony Carroll shortly before 4pm today in Cork city.
He said that Mr Carroll, who appeared before the court dressed in red Munster rugby jacket and grey tracksuit bottoms, made no reply after caution.
There was no application for bail and Mr Mulholland said the State wished to reserve its position with regard to legal aid.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler, sitting with Judge Margaret Heneghan and Judge Flannan Brennan, remanded both men in custody with liberty to apply for bail to appear in front of the court on March 5th.
Police in Northern Ireland have recovered a rocket launcher and a warhead during a search of a house in west Belfast. The search, at Hawthorn Street, was carried out as part of an investigation into dissident republican activity. The rocket launcher and warhead have been taken away for forensic examination. A police spokesperson said: "These weapons systems are clearly intended to kill and we should be in no doubt that the recovery of these items has saved lives."
Hammer is found at scene where Garda Donohoe murdered.
Ken Foy Crime correspondent – 26 February 2013 10:40 AM
GARDAI found a hammer at the scene where a five-man gang murdered Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe, it has emerged.
Sources say that officers are "very confident" that the hammer was used by the gang when they carried out the €4,000 robbery at the Lordship Credit Union in Co Louth last month.
Detectives are now examining the hammer for vital fingerprint or DNA evidence as the investigation into the savage January 25 murder continues.
Details of this aspect of the investigation, along with other leads, will be outlined at a press conference this afternoon.
Two senior officers – Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny and Superintendent Gerard Curley – will reveal the new lines of inquiry before renewing their public appeal.
Two men arrested and questioned last Thursday about the stolen getaway car were released over the weekend.
A file on them will now be prepared for the DPP.
They are not suspected of direct involvement in the murder but are thought to have knowledge of the criminals who stole the navy-coloured VW Passat that was used by the gang.
It is understood that the PSNI have quizzed a number of the gang believed to have been involved in the detective's murder, including a young woman who provided an alibi for her boyfriend.
Assault
This man is suspected of being at the scene on the night of the murder. He also faces serious charges in the north and is on bail. He is also on bail in the south in relation to charges of assault.
He is the chief suspect for organising and participating in a raid on the Lordship Credit Union in 2011 which gangsters escaped with €62,000 in cash.
It is understood that Detective Donohoe personally questioned the suspect on a number of occasions. Two brothers from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, are also in the frame.
DRAMATIC footage of the last minutes in the lives of two Dublin men gunned down in the city is to be featured in tonight's Crimecall.
Christopher Warren (35) was dropped off at St James Hospital with fatal gunshot wounds on December 28 and Christopher McDonagh (27) was shot dead in his Clondalkin home On September 9, 2008.
CCTV footage of Warren being dumped at the hospital and of McDonagh's killers arriving at his home will be shown on the RTE programme.
Warren, from Theresa's Gardens in Dublin, was shot in a lane near Constitution Hill in Broadstone in Dublin city centre before being taken by car and dropped off at the hospital.
Warren's younger brother Paul (24) became one of the first victims of the Crumlin/ Drimnagh feud when he was shot dead in a south inner city pub in February 2004.
Christopher Warren was not a gangland criminal but was a prolific burglar, who was well known to gardai and had dozens of convictions dating from the mid-1990s.
Gardai believe he had been drinking and gambling in the Meath Street area the afternoon of his death.
Some time after 6pm an associate said he found Warren on the ground, brought him to the hospital and left him there.
The programme has CCTV footage of the car arriving at the hospital and gardai are appealing to the public to help them with their investigation.
Christopher McDonagh was shot dead at home in Woodavens estate in Ronanstown, West Dublin, and the CCTV footage, which will be shown for the first time, shows the gunmen arriving at the house.
Gardai believe the second-hand car dealer was shot after falling foul of a drug trafficker.
McDonagh was shot in his bedroom and, despite being badly wounded, made his escape through a window on to the roof of the front porch and then jumped on to the bonnet of his car
His attackers pumped at least four more shots into McDonagh before he reached his front gate.
The two men made their getaway in a dark coloured saloon- car, with a taxi sign on the roof.
McDonagh was linked in the past to a number of major criminal players in west and south Dublin and had reached a settlement for an estimated €110,000 with the Criminal Assets Bureau, in 2006.
A man in his 40s has been arrested after two suspicious objects were found in a house in Newcastle West, Co Limerick, last night. He is being questioned at Newcastle West Garda Station. The devices, which were later declared non-viable, were discovered in rented accommodation on Maiden Street in the town just after 10pm. A number of local residents were forced to leave their homes and had to stay in a nearby hotel. The street was sealed off by gardaí as a precaution, but has since been reopened. Army bomb disposal personnel also attended the scene.
A former politician is being questioned by gardaí in Co Cork, after he was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Detectives are understood to have been acting on information when they arrested the man near Cork city this morning. He was taken to a garda station in Cork, where he is currently being detained. He can be held for up to a week. The man is being detained under the provisions of Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act. RTÉ News understands that the man is being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to murder three people.
Ken Foy Crime correspondent – 28 February 2013 10:40 AM
THESE chilling CCTV images show two gangland assassins outside the Dublin home of the man they are about to murder.
Christopher 'Git' McDonagh was watching TV in his bedroom at 11.50pm on Tuesday, September 9, 2008, when the two gunmen struck and shot him in front of his girlfriend.
The 27-year-old jumped from the upstairs window in an attempt to escape the attackers but was shot dead in the garden.
Mr McDonagh's killers arrived at the property in Ronanstown in a dark-coloured saloon car that had a taxi plate on the roof.
The chilling gangland assassination was witnessed by Mr McDonagh's partner.
The CCTV images were featured on RTE's Crimecall programme this week on what would have been McDonagh's 32nd birthday.
The images, which have never been released before, come from cameras installed at the victim's home.
Car dealer Mr McDonagh knew that his life was in danger and that is why he had CCTV installed at his home at Woodavens Estate – just yards from Ronanstown Garda Station.
It's not clear why the images were not previously released in the hunt for McDonagh's killers.
McDonagh had received an official warning that there was an active threat against his life just weeks before being murdered.
He had been linked to a number of major criminal players all over Dublin and had reached a settlement for an estimated €110,000 with the Criminal Assets Bureau, in 2006.
Sources say that gardai have worked on the theory that McDonagh was shot after being blamed for giving information about the massive drugs bust that led to the downfall of Martin 'Marlo' Hyland's empire and indeed Marlo's death in December, 2006.
Three men are currently serving lengthy jail sentences when they were snared after a massive operation by the Garda National Drugs Unit at Browns Barn, south county Dublin, on July 31, 2006.
More than €2m worth of cannabis resin was seized by gardai in 14 boxes split between a Ford Transit van and an Opel Astra car in Browns Barn public house car park.
A senior source said: "This bust led to huge paranoia in Hyland's gang. It was just one of many operations against his crew as part of Operation Oak but it was the final straw for some of his key lieutenants who were convinced that Hyland was ratting on them to gardai."
GANGSTERS stored three shotguns and ammunition on the roof of a Dublin primary school.
Detectives believe that the haul belongs to a gang of young hoods that includes Aaron Rattigan, a cousin of jailed gangster ‘King Ratt’.
Gardai made the shocking discovery at the Mhathair De school on Basin Lane in Dublin's south inner city after reports of suspicious activity.
A source said: “This is a very worrying trend – a pipe bomb was found at a school in Crumlin only a few weeks ago.
“These guns were controlled by a new breed of gangsters involved in feuding in the south inner city.
“They are highly dangerous and very erratic and worse than anything that came before them.”
The weapons were being forensically examined today.
One concerned local man told the Herald: “It’s sickening. Any child who might have climbed onto the roof to get a football could have found the guns.”
Local people have condemned the incredibly dangerous practice of hiding guns and ammunition so close to children.
Parent Jason Leahy (36) said today: "I'm sickened by what has happened and I'm even tempted to bring my child home."
Ann Maghan (42) added: "The people who did this should be locked up in jail, it's really frightening."
Another furious woman said: "It's disgraceful. Kids could have climbed up and found the guns. When my own daughter was 11, she found a handgun at the local football pitch.
"She took the gun away from a three-year-old child who picked it up. My daughter gave the gun to the gardai and they gave her an award. It's just terrible. This place is getting like the Bronx."
School principal Noreen Flynn said: "At no point were the children in any danger. We monitor our children very carefully. It is unfortunate that this has happened.
"We have received assurances from the gardai that they were be monitoring the school carefully and we are reassured by this."
She said incident has reflected the reality of what is happening in society but that there was no way the children would ever get on to a roof in the school.
"The children are very happy here. It's an oasis in the community," Ms Flynn said.
Officers from Kilmainham Garda Station discovered the shotgun cartridges and guns during the planned search.
They suspect that the criminal behind the cache are a new breed of gangsters. The are looking closely at pals of Aaron Rattigan (22), who is the first cousin of jailed heroin kingpin and convicted murderer Brian 'King Ratt' Rattigan.
He is under active death threat from rival mobs as well as the IRA, who have been demanding extortion money from him.
Last month, a criminal gang targeted his family home when a pipe bomb exploded on the windowsill of the house.
The bomb's main component flew across the street and smashed through a neighbour's front window.
No one was injured but a number of families were evacuated from their homes in Hanover Street.
This was not the first time that Aaron's home was targeted – petrol bombs were thrown at it on October 24 last year.
On Tuesday, at Cloverhill District Court, a teenager was jailed for nine months in relation to this incident.
Tony Dempsey (18) claimed he had control of the explosive device due to an ongoing feud in the area.
Judge Grainne Malone said the charge was very serious and she sentenced Dempsey to nine months detention.
Dempsey, of no fixed abode but from the New Cabra Road area, Dublin 7, admitted before Cloverhill District Court to having control of an explosive petrol bomb and components.
feud
Garda Sergeant Brendan Stynes said there is an ongoing feud between gangs in the south inner city and it was believed that Dempsey was involved in it.
It has previously been reported that there are six major gangs with 186 members affiliated to them operating in the south inner city. Sources say that Aaron Rattigan is strongly connected to one of these mobs.
Derry bombs had potential 'to cause mass fatalities'.
The PSNI has confirmed that four live mortar bombs with the potential to cause mass fatalities were discovered in a van in Derry last night.
Up to 100 families were evacuated from their homes in the Brandywell area overnight as a result.
Police are continuing to question three men in their 30s about the incident.
PSNI Chief Superintendent Stephen Cargin said officers stopped a white van on the Letterkenny road, close to the Co Donegal border, at approximately 8.15pm last night.
A man in the van was arrested and a man on a motorcycle travelling directly behind the van was also held.
Chief Supt Gargin said: "Police then found a white van with the roof open with four live mortar bombs primed and ready to go in that van.
"We believe that those weapons were destined for a police station somewhere in the Derry area and that they were designed to cause mass casualties or mass fatalities," he added.
Two of the men in custody are aged 37 and the other is 35.
A petrol bomb and missiles were thrown at police as evacuations of over 100 homes were carried out.
PSNI detectives dealing with the incident are linking it to dissident Republican activities.
Gardai were last night hunting two gunmen after a convicted criminal was blasted to death as he enjoyed a pint.
Paul Cullen (25) — who had only recently been released from jail after serving time for drugs offences and for brutally assaulting an unarmed garda — was gunned down as he drank in the Cabra House pub in north Dublin just after 7pm.
Detectives believe he was killed by former associates of slain crime boss Eamonn Dunne.
And an underworld source last night claimed that Cullen may have been killed “because he tried to muscle in on his old patch after his release before Christmas.”
It is known that he’d previously been warned by officers that his life was in grave danger.
“He was a dangerous criminal and would have had a lot of enemies,” one source revealed.
Dad-of-one Cullen was shot several times when he was attacked by two masked gunmen at 7.10pm at the pub on Fassaugh Avenue in Cabra — close to his own home.
Punters dived for cover as the two gunmen carried out the assassination before escaping on a motorbike.
Sources say that Cullen had entered the pub just minutes before he was shot in a hail of bullets — at least six times.
Cullen is believed to have been released from prison last November after serving a six year term for drugs offences and an extra 18 months for assaulting a garda.
Cullen, then 21, and his cousin Carl Cullen, then 20, of Dingle Rd, Cabra, pleaded guilty to assaulting Garda Amanda Lynch on November 30, 2007.
Paul Cullen also pleaded guilty to taking possession of an official Garda weapon, and Carl also pleaded guilty to assaulting student Garda Zhihao Weng on the same date.
The Central Criminal Court heard that the gardai were attempting to arrest a youth on Fassaugh Avenue when the Cullens approached.
Paul took Gda Lynch’s official weapon, an extendable baton, hitting her until she fell down, and kicked her in the stomach.
His cousin Carl then assaulted student Garda Weng.
Paul Cullen was then jailed in February 2008 for six years after he admitted possessing €56,000 worth of cannabis resin.
He said he agreed to mind the drugs after he received a bullet in the post — and said the attack on the gardai happened when he was under stress from the drugs charge.
Gardai from Cabra station investigating last night’s murder have appealed for witnesses to contact them on 01 666 7400.
A man who took part in a “savage attack” on the brother of gangster ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson has been jailed for nine months.
Portlaoise resident Kenneth Roche (22), formerly of Abbotstown Avenue, Finglas, admitted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to violent disorder at the Karma Stone pub in Dublin’s Wexford St on March 13, 2011.
Roche was part of a gang that punched and kicked Richard Thompson as he lay on the ground, as two feuding gangs met by chance in the pub.
The victim has no connection to the feud and has not come to the attention of gardai.
Co-accused Kristle Nolan (28), of Lorcan O’Toole Park, Kimmage, admitted violent disorder and received a nine-month term suspended for three years.
Kristle’s sister Danielle Nolan (22), of The Oaks, Kilnacourt, Portarlington, admitted affray, and received a nine-month term suspended for three years.
The court heard one attacker smashed a glass into the victim’s face and the victim fell to the floor.
A doorman said two men joined in and all three began “laying into” him.
Kristle Nolan was seen breaking a bottle and swinging it at another woman.
She and her sister Danielle were seen dragging and pulling others.
Gardai said the three accused are associates of people in the feud, but not directly involved.
Convicted criminal Paul Cullen was shot three times in the head in front of his own father for daring to cross one of Ireland’s most deadly gangs, gardai believe.
Sources told The Star that gardai suspect Paul Cullen — who was officially warned that his life was at risk just a few months ago — was shot dead by members of the gang formerly controlled by Eamonn “The Don” Dunne.
Although Dunne (34) was himself killed in April 2010, his gang still has a stranglehold over Cabra, north Dublin — where Cullen (25) was shot dead on Sunday night.
And sources have told The Star that gardai believe former associates of Dunne killed Cullen because he was trying to set up his own drugs scam in the area.
One source said: “Dunne’s gang are the major players in Cabra and they could not let Cullen muscle in on their operation.
“They are the main focus of the inquiry.”
Cullen was an associate of Dunne until he was locked up in February 2008 after he was caught minding €56,000 worth of cannabis resin for the mobster’s gang.
Once he got out of prison in June last year — after also serving a jail term for attacking two unarmed gardai — he made efforts to set up his own drugs operation in Cabra.
But former associates of Dunne refused to yield to him and tried to murder Cullen in July last year.
A gunman attacked the father-of-one as he approached a house in Cabra — but the gun jammed and he was able to escape.
He was then given a so-called GIM — or Garda Information Message — warning him that detectives had information that his life was still at risk.
And the gang finally caught up with Cullen on Sunday evening as he enjoyed a pint with his father, Paul McCann, and other family members in the Cabra House Pub — close to his Fassaugh Avenue home.
A lone gunman calmly walked into the pub at 7pm, singled out Cullen and shot him six times — including three times in the head.
Punters threw missiles at the gunman as he walked out of the pub — but he still managed to escape.
Gardai and paramedics rushed to the pub, but Cullen died at the scene.
Garda press officer, Superintendent David Taylor, described the capital’s latest gangland-style attack as a callous and brutal murder of a young man in a public place.
“There were a number of people in the pub at the time and, as you can imagine, when we got there it was a pretty chaotic scene and people were obviously fleeing for their own safety,” Supt Taylor continued.
“So we are asking anyone who may have been in the pub at the time, or in the hours beforehand, to come forward.”
The senior garda revealed that members of the Cullen family were among about 20 customers in the bar on Fassaugh Avenue, off the Navan Road, and were traumatised by the shooting.
“It was pretty traumatic to witness such a callous and brutal murder,” Supt Taylor said.
Deputy State Pathologist Khalid Jabbar carried out a post-mortem on the remains last night, while forensic officers continued to examine the scene, where flowers have been left with a card reading “You’ll never walk alone”.
Detectives were also trawling through CCTV from in and around the bar to piece together the movements of the motorbike used as the getaway vehicle.
They appealed to motorists and pedestrians who saw a medium-sized bike being driven erratically from the bar, which is also known as the Oasis, to try and establish what route it took through evening traffic.
Anyone who has since seen a motorbike being dumped is also urged to contact gardai in Cabra.
The victim was known to gardai and was previously connected with a gang run by Dunne, who was shot dead in the nearby Fassaugh House Pub in April 2010.
In February 2008 Cullen was sentenced to six years for storing almost €56,000 of cannabis resin in his home to clear drug debts — as he was in fear of his life after receiving a bullet in the post.
While awaiting sentence, Cullen and a relative were arrested for assaulting a female garda, whom he kicked in the stomach.
He was later jailed for three years, with the last 18 months suspended, to run consecutive to the six-year sentence.
TOM BRADY, CORMAC MCQUINN AND FERGUS BLACK – 08 MARCH 2013
A YOUNG man has been shot and seriously injured in the third gun attack this week.
The 20-year-old was shot several times in a housing estate in Clondalkin, west Dublin, at around 7pm yesterday.
The victim, who is believed to be from the Ronanstown area, was taken to Tallaght Hospital where his condition was last night described as serious.
A local woman who called the emergency services after the shooting said the young man was leaning into a car window at Moorefield Avenue when a number of shots rang out and he fell backwards.
"I think he must have known them because he was leaning in and talking to the people inside," she told the Irish Independent.
"I said to my son to run over, they're after shooting him. I called an ambulance and I went over to see if he was alive. They (the emergency services) asked me to check his pulse to see if he was alive. I checked and said I thought he was but to send somebody quick.
"This is the second young fellow to get shot around here. We're sick of it. It's getting worse."
A car which may have been used as a getaway vehicle was found in the Woodview area nearby. Gardai at Ronanstown have appealed for anyone with information to contact them.
Dissident
Last night's shooting was the third gun attack – two of them fatal – in a week.
Only 24 hours earlier, leading dissident republican Peter Butterly (35) was shot dead outside the Huntsman Inn in Gormanston, Co Meath.
And on Sunday, criminal Paul Cullen (26) was shot dead as he sat drinking in the Cabra House pub in Fassaugh Avenue in Cabra, northwest Dublin.
A masked man burst into the public house in front of terrified patrons at the venue also knows as the Oasis and fired numerous shots at the target. It was speculated that Cullen was killed over a drug debt dating back as far as 2007.
THREE men appeared in court last night charged in connection with the murder of Real IRA boss Peter Butterly.
Dean Evans (22), of Grange Park Rise, Raheny, David Cullen (28), of Brackenwood Avenue,Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and Edward McGrath (31), of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield, Tallaght,were charged before the Special Criminal Court with possession of an illegal firearm at the scene of the murder in Gormanstown, Co Meath last Wednesday. All three were charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm calibre Beretta model 9000s semi automatic pistol,
Amuunition
Evans and McGrath were also each charged with membership of an illegal organisation styling itself on the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann on March 6, 2013, as well as possession of seven rounds of ammunition with intent to endanger life at the car park of The Huntsman Inn, Gormanstown, Co Meath on March 6. The court remanded all three in custody until March 14.
The men were all detained in the car park of the Huntsman Inn pub just seconds after Butterly was gunned down. Butterly (35) was a former commander of the Real IRA in Co Louth and was one of the main targets of the Garda Special Branch. He travelled by car to meet with four men, while a fifth man was also present at the scene. It is believed that gardai had the suspected dissidents under surveillance and had been monitoring the meeting between the six people.
Sources say that the gardai had intelligence that a firearm was to be exchanged and immediately swooped when they heard gunshots. Five people were arrested, including 22-year-old Dean Evans. Our exclusive photograph shows the pumped-up dissident, who was a close pal of slain RIRA godfather Alan Ryan.
Evans was snapped last year outside a memorial for Ryan in the Submarine Bar in Crumlin on Dublin's southside.Evans's brother, Daragh, is currently in Portlaoise Prison awaiting trial in connection with charges of being a member of illegal organisation, namely the IRA.
One of the five nabbed at the murder scene was Ray Kennedy. It is believed Kennedy, with .an address in Whitestown Drive, Blanchardstown, west Dublin, had travelled separately to Gormanstown on the morning of the murder. Ironically, Kennedy (33) had himself been the victim of dissident violence after being shot in the leg last April.
He was rushed to hospital after he arrived at the Topaz service station on the Malahide Road on the city's north-side with gunshot wounds to the leg,which Gardai believe were inflicted personally by Alan Ryan. Kennedy had links to jailed dissident David Dodrill, who was kicked out of the RIRA for misappropriating funds. Dodrill's pals were interrogated and tortured by Ryan over the missing cash. Kennedy was released from custody on Friday afternoon and a file will be sent to the DPP. Another man was also released from Garda custody yesterday.
Explosives
Peter Butterly had a long history of involvement in dissident republicanism,had previously been charged with Real IRA membership, and was linked to a huge explosives and arms find in 2010. He was expelled from the organisation in recent months after being accused of pocketing funds. Butterly was sitting in his Renault Megane when two men drove into the car park and fired two shots into the car. As Butterly struggled to get out and flee, two further shots were fired. He fell to the ground as the two men sped off, throwing a 9mm gun from the car and over a hedge.
Slain Real IRA terror boss
Peter Butterly was a chief suspect in the barbaric 2010 murder of Derryman Kieran Doherty. Today the Sunday World can reveal that Butterly was also a business partner of Doherty's.
Kieran Doherty (31) was lured from his home in the Brandywell area of Derry on February 24, 2010. He was taken to the Braehead Road, close to the border with Co Donegal, stripped and bound and then shot in the head and chest.
?We can reveal that on the day of Doherty's murder, Butterly called to his home and ordered him to bring all documentation relating to their business venture to a meeting that night. A Sunday World investigation has discovered that Doherty's company, Northern Lites (NI) Ltd,a cigarette manufacturing firm, was set up in April 2009 and had a start-up capital of stg £100,000.
Doherty used a Director nominee service - a controversial-but-legal scheme whereby a company owner is not named on public company documents. Sources have told the Sunday World that after his initial £100,000 investment Doherty pumped another £95,000 into Northern lites, for the purchase of a tobacco rolling machine from China. _ In November 2009 Doherty told a newspaper that Mi5 had tried to recruit him as an informer. Our investigation has found that, at the time of the interview, Peter and Eithne Butterly were the only named Directors of Northern Lites. • Doherty was murdered by the Real IRA after the discovery of a cannabis factory in Carrigans Co Donegal. The drugs were found in a house owned by Real IRA man Seamus McGreevy - a friend of Butterly's. • Following the discovery of the drugs, both McGreevy and Doherty denied any connection to the house but two weeks later McGreevy took his own life.
A CRIMINAL who was arrested with a gun this week and was later found dead was afraid that a gangland 'Mr Big' was going to "sort him out".Jonathan 'Birdbrain' Martin was nabbed by alert traffic cops close to RTE in Dublin last Monday morning after he was driving erratically.
Gardai pulled the car in and became suspicious about his demeanour and searched the vehicle. They found a loaded, sawn-off shotgun hidden under the front passenger seat and arrested Birdbrain and an associate.
The 24-year-old became distressed in custody,saying that a well-known criminal from Co. Wicklow was going to be furious about the arrest. Martin and his pal had carried out a shooting in Wicklow an hour before they were arrested over what is believed to have been an unpaid debt.
Drugs
Mr Big ordered the shooting and is said to have been furious that his two goons allowed themselves to be arrested with the gun that had been used in the drive-by attack.
Martin was released from custody after a day of questioning and was so worried about what was going to happen to him at the hands of Mr Big that he overdosed on prescription drugs and died on Thursday.
Gardai initially thought that he might have been forcibly fed the drugs to stop him from talking to gardai but now believe that he was so nervous that he took a cocktail of pills by himself.
Gangland enforcer Martin was charged with threatening to burn down Arklow garda station in November 2011 after being arrested following a pub brawl.
SLAIN CRIMINAL Paul Cullen was executed on the orders of one of Eamon 'the Don' Dunne's lieutenants, because he wrongly blamed him for trying set up his pal.
Convicted drug dealer Cullen (26), was shot dead as he drank in the Cabra House pub on Dublin's northside with his family last Sunday evening just after 7pm.
He previously received death threats from his former associates over an unpaid drug debt and had been formally warned his life was in danger by gardai. However, a source close to the Cullen family - who asked not to be named - claimed the dad of one was murdered over a misinterpreted text message.
He insisted that a senior member of a drugs gang - which was previously headed up by Eamon 'the Don' Dunne - had vowed to kill Cullen last summer. The mobster threatened to execute Cullen because he wrongly blamed him for trying to set up his pal, a violent gunman from Cabra.
The threat came after gardai were called to investigate reports that a gunman had attempted to gain access to Cullen's family home on August 3 last year.
Hitmen -
"Paul was killed because he sent a text to a mate in Finglas saying he was having a party and would they like to come over, " the source said. "The guy in Finglas replied: 'Who is there?' Paul answered: 'Me, me bra and [a well-known criminal].' "So then the Finglas lads Paul texted rang around and got a gun and tried to kill him [the well-known criminal] in Paul's house.
"Paul never wanted to set him up, he never would have brought a gang of hitmen to his dad's house and him in a wheelchair. A family source said: "We want people to know we are not revenging his murder, we want peace."
Gardai are currently investigating reports that 'the Don's' pal was spotted in the vicinity of the Cabra House in the hours before Cullen was killed. The notorious gangster is well known to gardai, but has so far managed to escape without any serious criminal convictions.
The criminal was a high-profile mourner at Dunne's funeral and was a close associate of Alan and Wayne Bradley. He was one of six mobsters who informed the inner core of Dunne's gang and has remained heavily involved in the drugs trade since his death. Cullen was shot six times in front of 4 shocked drinkers before the gunman fled the scene with an accomplice on a motorbike.
The convicted criminal knew his life was under "serious danger" ever since gardai seized over €50,000 of cannabis from him in January,2007.
The source close to the Cullen family admitted he had been threatened over drugs debts, but claimed they had tried to pay them off. "We don't want trouble, we have had to pay a lot of money since Paul's release. We paid, €25,000, 05,000 and €8,000 at different times. We just want peace now"
Notorious -
Cullen was part of a gang of young criminals from Cabra - who are all in their mid 20s - who were heavily involved in the drugs trade and had links to some of the country's most notorious mobsters.
His associates included Karl Hyland -the nephew of slain mobster Martin 'Marlo' Hyland - and convicted murderer Craig White. He was also a childhood pal oj a notorious gunman and armed robber from Cabra who worked for Eamon Dunne and is suspected of involvement in the murder of Baiba Saulite.
It is this violent criminal who Cullen had been accused of setting up for murder. Cullen was well known to gardai and ,GARDAI investigating the murder of Paul Oullen are working on another theory that he was killed after refusing to pay for a drugs shipment organised by convicted killer Craig White.
Detectives believe White, a former member of the 'Fat' Freddie Thompson mob, organised for Cullen to be given €50,OOO worth of drugs on credit. White and Cullen knew each other from cabra, spent time together in Mounijoy and were firm friends.
Cullen was released from prison a year ago after serving a sentence for the possession of €56,OOO worth of cannabis. • The drugs originated from Christy Kinihan's gang and because White kept his mouth shut when he was convicted for a murder he did on behalf of Thompson, he is well respected by the Kinihans. Therefore the favour on behalf of Cullen it was granted.
•However, Oullen refused to pay for the drugs when the time came for his tab to be settled and was warned that he would be shot. His family and friends tried to settle the debt to spare his life, paying over money to the Kinihan mob.
However, an example was made of him because he showed "disrespect" to the gang by refusing to cough up and Kinihan had to take action. Craig White is understood to have known that his friend was facing execution but there was nothing he could do to save him. _ White is still seen as a very influential criminal despite the fact he is serving a life sentence. In July 2009 the baby-faced killer was jailed for life for the murder of Noel Roche on the Clontarf Road in November 2005.
Roche was a senior member of the Brian Rattigan crime gang.
He had a number of serious convictions. In November 2008 he appeared in court along with his cousin, Carl Cullen (20), where they were given custodial sentences for attacking a female garda while she was arresting another youth.
Imposed
At the time of the court appearance,Cullen was serving a six-year sentence which had been imposed in February of that year for storing almost €56,000 worth of cannabis resin. He was storing the drugs to clear drug debts, as he was in fear of his life after receiving a bullet in the post. The two pleaded guilty to assaulting Garda Amanda Lynch on November 30,2007. Paul Cullen also pleaded guilty to taking possession of an official Garda weapon. Judge Katherine Delahunt imposed a three-year sentence, with the final 18 months of Cullen's sentence suspended.
THIS IS the tiny key fob mobile phone that is being snapped up by criminals in a bid to beat the Irish Prison Service's multi-million euro X-ray scanners.
The Chinese-made 'BMW X6' phone is designed in the shape of a fob and is being marketed as the world's smallest mobile.
They are fully functioning phones, but look exactly like the gadgets used to open top-of-the-range cars such as BMW's.
A prison source has revealed the devices have been nicknamed 'Beat the BOSS' phones by inmates and are exchanging hands for as much as €800. In 2008, prison chiefs installed eight Body Orifice Security Scanners- nicknamed the BOSS - in a number of Irish jails.
Detect
The high-tech X-ray scanners allow officers to detect internally con-cealed drugs and phones.
However, the key fob phones are made entirely of plastic and are not believed to be detectable by the air-port-style scanners.
The size of the mobile phones also makes them appealing for potential smugglers,as the devices have to brought into the jail internally.
A source said: "Intelligence was received that there were two of the phones smuggled into Limerick Prison last month, they are being bought on the internet."
The BOSS chair is designed to detect items like weapons, mobile phones and drugs concealed by inmates in body cavities. The chair includes a metal detector,which is fixed to the seat and scans the subject's body cavities in a non-intrusive manner.
But despite the introduction of the BOSS chairs, Irish jails are still awash with contraband.
In 2011, there were 1,325 drug seizures and 1,387 mobiles taken from inmates in Irish jails. A staggering 664 were seized in Mount joy between January and September - more than two phones a day. Mount joy was also the worst drugs den with 569 cases of illegal sub-stances being smuggled in to the overcrowded jail.
Last month, mobster Brian Rattigan became the first criminal to be found guilty of directing the supply of drugs while behind bars. The Special
Criminal Court ruled that Rattigan (32) was the director of a gang behind a £1 million operation on May 21, 2008,from his cell in Portlaoise Prison.
THESE ARE the faces of Ireland's dissident war machine.
For the first time ever the Sunday World reveals the men hell-bent on terror, and their place in the dissident republican power structure.
Known as the collective leadership (CL), the top table of terrorism controls the New Real IRA -north and south - overseeing a mind-boggling all-Ireland crimi- nal empire.
Now an exclusive Sunday World investigation gets under the skin of the New Real IRA. We unmask the dissident godfathers and rip open the racketeering, counterfeiting and smuggling operations that provide the, funds needed to oil their killing machine.
In an explosive report we reveal this is an organisation determined to continue their war. Organised,well funded and with an arsenal of guns, grenades and rocket 'launchers, their blueprint is murder.
Worried
Well-known dissident Colin Duffy sits alongside Belfast man Alex McCrory and Co. Tyrone brothers-in-law Brian Arthurs and Frankie Quinn - together they are the collective leadership of this recently renamed group.
While Duffy is a major player, he is far from considered as the overall boss, as previously believed. In fact,well placed dissident sources say those close to him have become increasingly worried for his health,as he is prone to suffering from episodes of depression.
A constant target for the PSNI,Lurgan man Duffy has been arrested on numerous occasions and faced murder charges - most recently the double murder of soldiers Mark
Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar at Massereene Barracks in Antrim in 2009. Charges against him were withdrawn.
He remains an important part of the controlling structure, despite unease among active dissidents over his close relationship with republican Brendy 'Mr Bean' Conway. Conway, from the Ardoyne in north Belfast, has a conviction in relation to a tiger kidnapping, and keeps Duffy, McCrory and the New
Real IRA supplied with cash and cars, prompting some dissidents to accuse Duffy of putting his own financial interests first.CL sidekick McCrory, a former IRA prisoner, is close to Duffy and a one-time member of Oglaigh na hEireann (OnH).
He remains, despite switching allegiance, a firm friend of west Belfast OnH chief Carl Reilly and is regularly seen in his company.McCrory, who claimed last year that MI5 tried to recruit him as a tout, was the main organiser at the funeral of murdered Real IRA chief Alan Ryan in Dublin last year. Like Duffy, he too relies on Conway for finances and enjoys the use of an Alfa Romeo car, free of charge.
The collective leadership is completed by brothers-in-law Brian Arthurs and Frankie Quinn. The pair are founder members of the 1916 Societies, a 'political' grouping connected to the New
Real IRA, which describes itself as a "separatist movement committed to the implementation of the Proclamation of Independence". Yet they still find time to indulge in serious criminal activity.
Arthurs was expelled from the mainstream republican movement because of his connections to criminality and recently pleaded guilty to being in possession of criminal property and £345,000 in cash, the proceeds of criminal activity.
Along with brother-in-law Quinn,the pair have strong connections to a number of southern-based smugglers, and recently had to go into hiding because of 'toxic' shampoo! They were the laughing stock of their criminal pals last year after smuggling a container of contraband shampoo, only for their customers to sustain severe burns to their scalps!
The hunted pair were forced to change their phone numbers and keep a low profile until the embarrassing fiasco blew over. Sensitive security documents seen by the Sunday World identify Quinn and Arthurs as paramilitary leaders.
With Duffy and McCrory they have their finger on the button of dissident terrorism and without their knowledge or say-so nothing can happen in the name of the New Real IRA.
Blackmail
Just like the OnH, they rely on criminality in the form of extorting drug dealers, blackmail and tiger kidnappings to boost their funds.
However, the New Real IRA could not operate without a network of smugglers. Through the import of guns, counterfeit money and cigarettes they supply the terror group with everything they need.
And the Sunday World dissident dossiers can reveal the identity of the crew that is helping to fund the New Real IRA's war machine.
Chief among this gang is Aiden Grew, a close associate of Arthurs and Quinn and who was also friendly with Gareth O'Connor, murdered in 2003.
A native of Blackwaters Town in County Armagh, he was given a three-year suspended sentence for his role in a massive cigarette smug- gling operation in which 15 million illegal cigarettes were recovered by the PSNI.
Grew was fined £500,000, which he initially refused to pay. A few days after being jailed his sister arrived at Maghaberry with the half a million in cash.
Philip Forsythe is the newly appointed leader of the Dublin Real IRA, one of.a number of operatives tasked with smuggling and extortion for the New Real IRA.
He replaced 'Fat Deccy' Smith after the Belfast man was accused and found guilty of withholding New Real IRA funds for his own gain and not sending them north.
Forsythe served an eight-year prison sentence after being arrested in 1998 as part of a RIRA gang in which Dublin RIRA member Ronan MacLoughlin lost his life, during an armed robbery in Co. Wicklow.
Forsythe works closely with well known Dublin criminal Pascal Burke, who is suspected of links to the men who murdered Alan Ryan. Burke works directly for the CL in the north and reports directly to Arthurs and Quinn.
Sean Connolly, currently on remand for the murder of notorious criminal Eamon Kelly, is alleged to have recently threatened to kill Burke. Burke has been given permission by the leadership to deal with Connolly "as he sees fit".
Dealer
Between Burke and Forsythe they have the Dublin criminal world under control, taking off where Ryan left off in extorting large sums of cash from drug dealers,businesses and organising robberies.
The new Derry boss is Fergal Malough, a former member of Republican Action Against
Drugs (RAAD) who is addicted to gambling and has convictions for explosives. Along with his second in command Thomas 'Ash' Mellon, convicted for the possession of explosives,they extort money and property belonging to suspected drug dealers.
The Sunday World can reveal the new Derry boss is suspected of skimming money to pay for his habit. He also confiscated a top of the range car from a top Derry drug dealer only to give it to another dissident to drive, causing much ridicule and embarrassment to RAAD.
Gary 'Donzo' Donnelly, whose star has fallen, is still very much part of the dissident scene. Though he now holds no 'titled' position within the New Real IRA, he is still a senior member of the illegal organisation.Donnelly continues raising cash by extorting anyone who he sees as a drug dealer.
THIS IS the sham face of dissident republicanism.Seamus 'Shay' McGrane likes to paint himself as a dedicated freedom fighter,but in reality he is more interested in cash than a united Ireland.
To him the Border is a lifeline,lining his pockets as he preaches Irish unity.
Today the Sunday World unmasks McGrane as a money-grabbing mobster, far removed from the republican movement he claims to serve.
We can reveal how the 58-year-old lifelong activist has sold his republican soul to the highest bidder, shunning his former comrades in arms in return for a cushy cash-laden life.McGrane is jokingly described as second in command to jailed Real IRA boss Mickey McKevitt, yet instead of fighting for Ireland he is now the kingpin of one of the biggest criminal gangs in the north.
Extortion, tiger kidnappings,robberies and death threats to drug dealers, are the order of the day for fake republican McGrane.
Today the Sunday World unmasks McGrane as a fraud freedom fighter. Convicted for running a terrorist training camp, sources believe he resides in County Louth, but his power mainly lies in the north, and with his partnership with racketeer Carl Reilly.
Sensitive
Sensitive security documents seen by the Sunday World name west Belfastman Reilly as the boss of Oglaigh na hEireann (OnH) in Belfast. But far from being a terror boss,Reilly is known as a money-grabbing mobster working for the PSNI.
We can reveal Reilly had previously tried to join the IRA, but was rejected after being deemed an "unsuitable candidate", raising questions over his role as an alleged police tout.
Reilly, who was arrested in connection to a bomb found under a police officer's car in east Belfast earlier this year, is also the chairperson of the Republican Network for Unity (RNU).
A man with a chequered and confusing past - a former Continuity IRA member he was convicted for his role in a CIRA gun attack on Woodburn barracks in 1999. He was jailed alongside Tommy Crossan,exposed in 2009 as a police tout.
As soon as he was released Reilly joined the Real IRA, but he was followed by the finger of suspicion as charges against him for possession of terrorist documents were dropped despite his fingerprints being found on sheets of paper relating to a RIRA inquiry into the failed bomb attempt of the Tax Office in Belfast.
It is believed he had a two-hour behind bars meeting with his Special Branch/MI5 handlers before charges were dropped. On his release he was welcomed into the OnR fold by Seamus McGrane, who saw him as his man in Belfast.This was despite advice for him to steer clear of Reilly.
It was a decision that proved extremely lucrative as OnR gained a reputation for robberies, extortion and taxing local drug dealers.
McGrane and Reilly have made personal fortunes taxing drug pushers who are told to pay up or be shot.
Crucial to the OnR money machine is Ciaran 'Pip' Cunningham, close cohort of Reilly and a spokesperson for RNU in Belfast.
Cunningham has convictions for collating information on behalf of the Real IRA and after serving a six-year term for this offence he signed up as a full-time member of Reilly's dissident gang.
Re was also arrested and questioned in August 2011 in connection to the tiger kidnapping of the family a west Belfast security van driver who was forced to hand over £200,000 for the release of his wife and young son. He was released without charge.
Both Cunningham and Reilly earn a wage working for the Conflict Resolution Service Ireland, which is based on the Falls Road in Belfast.
Lucrative
Unbelievably, Cunningham claims he provides welfare rights and advice, yet the Sunday World can reveal he has also been involved in 'helping' people who have been threatened or ordered out of the country by the OnH. While Reilly relies heavily on Cunningham, he is not his second in command. That position is held by an Anderstown Road man, nick-named 'The Chinaman' who, for legal reasons, we are prevented naming today.
Next in line is a Turf Lodge native who now resides in the Andersonstown area. He holds the title of intelligence officer.
A drug user with mental health problems, he once attempted to take his own life by hanging, however, the rope he used was too long and all he succeeded in doing was breaking both his legs. The title of 'Head of Recruitment'falls to another drug user and career criminal, the man who was behind a £20 Isle of Man counterfeit note seam.
And the rogue's roll call continues. 'Head of Punishment' is ironically the father of a well-known Belfast drug dealer who has links with a local heroin dealer. He was also the driving force behind a number of young career criminals joining the ranks of OnH.
It is widely believed this man, who (Continuted Below)
owns a number of businesses in west Belfast, only joined OnR to protect his own interests after he became the target of anti-social gangs.
Just before he offered his services graffiti labelling him a tout also appeared on gable walls. Re has been arrested in connection to several dissident crimes, but has never been charged. Most recently he was arrested in connection with the bomb under the east Belfast officer's car, just like Reilly.
In short, the OnH is far from the 'republican army' they would have you believe; they are gangsters whose main aim is to earn as much money as they can under the guise of 'community leaders' and supporters of a united Ireland.
The money that makes its way into its coffers is helped by the current Colin Area leader Mark Heaney, who recently received a three-year suspended sentence after police raided his home and discovered a rifle. On behalf of OnR he extorts between £10,000 to £15,000 at a time from drug dealers and has taken part in punishment attacks on those who have refused to meet their demands.
Re also uses dealers in the area to pinpoint rival pushers, who Heaney will in turn also target. He was arrested in connection with the shooting of an alleged drug dealer who could not pay, but was released without charge.
At one time Heaney would have been quite happy to sit quietly as top dealers plied their trade, but the Sunday World can reveal he was pals with the likes of murdered drug thug Ed Mc Coy, Maxi McAlorum, Liam 'Fat Boy' Mooney, Frankie Turley and Studs Lanigan.
Cornrnandel's
Other areas of Belfast, including Beechmount, Turf Lodge, Whiterock,Andersonstown and Ardoyne, all operate under a similar blueprint and all have area commanders who are directly answerable to Seamus McGrane and Carl Reilly.Gary 'Beat' O'Neill is in charge of the running of the Andersonstown area.
He received a three-year suspended sentence in July 2011 after a handgun was found buried in his back garden by PSNI. It was revealed at the time that the judge decided not to send him to jail as he was the father of five children The Beechmount area is controlled by Brendan 'Shando' Shannon, a former Provo prisoner who was previously the second in command of OnR.
Yet dissident sources have revealed Shannon was demoted due to his depressive state of mind and his involvement in the Boston College interview tapes in which he was senn as passing on too much information. And a man responsible for mugging a nun is in charge of the Whiterock area where he lives. We cannot identify him at this stage as he is currently facing charges in connection to dissident activity.
Not only does this thug get his kicks from robbing elderly nuns, but he was also responsible for a homophobic attack in west Belfast and the theft of two pensioners' life savings.The OnR leader in Turf Lodge is of no better character. Kevin Cradock, a well known joyrider, is close friends with Christopher Notarantonio, who was involved in the brutal murder of Gerard Devlin in Ballymurphy in 2006.
Like his OnH counterparts, the Turf Lodge dissident generates substantial sums of cash by threatening drug dealers and their families. One drug dealer took exception to his demands and attacked him near the shops in Turflodge. He was shot by the OnR but later joined their ranks.
The blueprint remains the same across the board. The name of the game is cash and it doesn't matter how it is raised. In the Ardoyne area of north Belfast almost 20 men have been expelled from their homes since the beginning of last year.
Former IRA man Thomas 'Ta' Cosgrove, who has convictions for explosives and used to be the boss of the OnH in the north of the city, has recently resigned due to family pressure and his alleged desire to travel the world on the fortune he amassed during his reign of terror.
Killers
His replacement is a man who was involved in the clean-up operation after the double drug fuelled killing of Continuity IRA men Ed Burns and Joe Jones. He was responsible for 'forensically cleaning' the car used by the killers.
The car belonged to 'Fat Deccy' Smith, now a current member of the Dublin Real IRA. The question that remains on everybody's lips is how the main players of OnH continue to get away with their openly criminal lifestyles.
They operate, right under the noses of the PSNI, yet they remain free to carry out their illegal operations. And is it just a coincidence that no members of the security forces or the police have been killed or seriously injured since Reilly came into leadership?
THIS IS the smuggler who has become the black heart that pumps the lifeblood of the New Real IRA war machine.
Today the Sunday World exposes the shadowy world of 'Mr Black',the elusive fixer without whom the dissident terror group would grind to a halt. Mr Black is pivotal, the man who greases palms, oils wheels and fuels the engine of the terrorist campaign.
His smuggling activities are key to the renegade republican leadership as he provides everything they need to run their terrorist outfit. From finance to guns, Mr Black has it covered, working directly for the collective leadership of the New RIRA. _ 1
All roads lead North - paved with the cash and guns raised by the mobster. Until now, Mr Black has been the faceless money man, protected and hidden by those reliant on his dirty cash. Not only do we blow his cover, we reveal his alleged role in the contract killing of Dublin RIRA boss Alan Ryan.
Killing
For Mr Black has publicly claimed he provided the lion's share of the bounty for Ryan's killing.But crucially, a special Sunday World investigation, aided by well-placed and informed security and dissident sources, reveals Mr Black to be the lifeblood of a killing machine.
Working directly for N-RIRA lead-ers Brian Arthurs and Frankie Quinn in Co. Tyrone and in turn Colin Duffy - all members of the collective leadership - he breathes life into the dissident campaign. The man in his fifties has man-aged to stay one step ahead of the law, despite being named by
Spanish police as the ringleader of a criminal gang which led to the seizure of half-a-million pounds worth of smuggled contraband,The Dubliner has also been the subject of a Criminal Assets Bureau claim for the proceeds of crime as a result of smuggling and was hit with a bill for over a million euro!
Despite this, sources say Mr Black has been allowed to continue to build his empire unhindered and has been cashing in even further by opening his web of international networks to the New Real IRA_ Funding a terrorist organisation can be lucrative - Mr Black has often been seen behind the wheel of a top-of-the-range BMW and also spotted driving a plush Range Rover, allegedly "gifted" to him by a West Dublin operator in return for the use of the smuggler's "road net- works".
Mr Black has a long association with Real IRA members, enjoying a close "business" relationship with the terrorists for many years. However, the 'marriage' hit the rocks when Dublin RIRA boss Alan Ryan, tried and failed to extort money from him.
His refusal resulted in Ryan targeting Mr Black's business interests and associates, and the gangster's close pal and well-known Dublin criminal Collie Owens was gunned down during the bitter feud.
Reputation
It was the beginning of the end for Ryan because, despite his reputation as a hard man of the criminal underworld, he underestimated Mr Black - and his influence.
Ryan paid a heavy price for his greed and betrayal when he was gunned down on Grand Lodge Avenue on Dublin's northside last September. Immediately after the death of Owens, Mr Black and criminal cohort Mark 'the Guinea Pig' Desmond, and two other men, we cannot name at this time due to court proceedings, created the Criminal Action Force (CAF).
Shortly after CAF was formed, Alan Ryan's paid hitman of choice,Daniel Gaynor, was gunned down in Finglas in July 2012.
It is known that Mr Black hired Keith Wilson for the killing. Wilson is currently serving life for the murder after his DNA was found at Gaynor's murder scene. Gaynor had previously shot innocent Tallaght postman Robert Delanp in 2008 and he remains in a permanent vegatative state.
The CAF was also behind a gun attack, on the Players Lounge Pub in Fairview, a short distance from the RIRA chief's murder scene.
Three innocent bystanders were injured in the attack on the pub,which is owned by John Stokes,father of Celtic and Ireland striker Autony Stokes. The Players Lounge was attacked as it was used frequently by members of the Alan Ryan mob.
This attack was carried out by Keith Wilson's brother John,who was shot dead in his home six months ago. He is believed to have been assassinated in connection with drug debts. Keith O'Neill is awaiting trial charged with Wilson's murder.
Collected
As well as 'taking out' one of Ryan's most trusted accomplices,CAF also accused him of extorting almost half-a-million euro from drug gangs in just one year and of not sending the correct share to his bosses in the North.
Ryan had again to be reminded that the reason for the existence for the Dublin Real IRA was to send money to the Northern leadership and that money collected was not for his own personal gain. However, this reminder was already too late, CAF's accusation was the final nail in Ruan's coffin and Mr Black had already been given approval for the "removal of Ryan".
Mr Black the smuggler had become the hunter - instrumental in the death of a Dublin crime-lord. And in true gangster style,those directly involved in the murder played major parts in the Ryan funeral.
Terror boss Colin Duffy read the graveside oration, describing him as a true soldier of Ireland.
Each word was uttered while knowing he was one of the men who gave the nod that sealed Ryan's blood-soaked ending.
It was the final and ulti-mate betrayal Alan Ryan would receive. Belfast-based New RIRA Chief Alex McCrory was the 'organiser', and pictures show him leading the funeral cortege.
Ryan ~ supporters have 'named and shamed' Mr Black as well as another close smuggling associate and former republican prisoner.
In the immediate aftermath of Ryan's killing last September, Mr Black went to Spain where he met with Gerard 'Dickie' O'Neill, the Belfast born, alleged former boss of the Provisional IRA in Dublin.
On their return home, both Mr Black and O'Neill were informed by gardai that their lives were under threat from Real IRA members in Ballyfermot. On news of this, a senior member of the Real IRA was summonsed up North and asked to explain the threats.
The man finally admitted, after questioning, that it was in connection to the murder of Ryan and the belief that Mr Black was using information on other Real IRA members,gleaned in the past, for the benefit of the Criminal Action Force.
Reprisals
It was made clear that any attempt made on Mr Black would be met with serious disapproval and immediate reprisals.
Mr Black also reported to the NRI-RA leadership of a second threat to his life by another Real IRA man from south inner city Dublin.
Once informed of this threat Mr Black was told by the collective leadership to deal with the man in question "as he sees fit". Mr Black is indispensable, the lifeblood of the New Real IRA, the man they want to protect at all costs.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/11/1312:08 AM
NOTORIOUS gun criminal Kurt Ryan is a key member of the so-called 'new teen gang' which have seized control of the drugs trade on Limerick's northside, a source has revealed.
On Wednesday, a home in Moyross was riddled with bullets for the second time in a week, as a violent mob continues to target associates of Robert Sheehan's suspected killers. Last week a meeting of Limerick's Joint Policing Committee heard that a violent new teenage gang had seized control of the drug trade on the city's northside.
The meeting was told by Sinn Fein councillor Maurice Quinlivan that the mob were made up of, "17,18 and 19-year-olds who have access to weapons". A senior source has told the Sunday World that teen criminal Kurt Ryan is a key member of the new gang.
Tear-away
Despite his tender years, Ryan is one of the most feared operators in Limerick's criminal under-world and was previously quizzed in connection with the brutal murder of addict Lee Slattery (24), over a minor drugs debt.
On Wednesday night, a number of shots were fired at a house in Delmege Park, Moyross,for the second time by Ryan's associates. Gardai believe a group of young tearaway criminals targeted the home because one of the occupants has links to the chief suspect for the murder of Robert Sheehan.
Just last September, Sheehan (21) - who was previously jailed for a horror firebomb attack on two children - was gunned down outside his brother's wedding in Bunratty, Co. Clare.
Sheehan's murder caused a split among a group of dangerous criminals - and child-hood pals - who had been selling drugs for mobster 'Fat' John McCarthy. More than five of the gang members were eventually forced to flee Limerick after being told their lives were under threat from Sheehan's pals.
They included convicted drug dealer Erol Ibrahim and gun criminal Paul Reddan. Kurt Ryan has been acting as muscle for the so-called "new gang" who have "filled the void" since his release from the Midlands Prison in December. However, a senior source said he would not agree that this grouping should be described as a "new gang".
Release
"It is more a case that they have moved up in the same gang. All of these so-called new gang members would be well known to gardai and would have connections to 'Fat' John McCarthy."
Kurt Ryan has been staying in a house in Moyross since his release from prison. He has been regularly seen in the company of his former cellmate, gun criminal David McCarthy, who was also released from prison in recent weeks.
In 2010, thug David (19) - who is the son of heroin trafficker 'Fat'John McCarthy - was jailed for three years after he was caught with a shotgun. Gardai believe the teenage criminals are operating under the direction of a veteran criminal who is supplying them with drugs and weapons.
Provos on the rise while gardai struggle to hold Thin Blue Line Senior officers fear that cutbacks will reduce the force's ability to counter a fresh wave of terror, says Jim Cusack
10 MARCH 2013
Speaking at a Fianna Fail-organised meeting on crime in Dundrum in south Dublin last Wednesday night, the State's former most senior operational Special Branch officer, Peter Maguire, warned that the closure of garda stations across the country and the withdrawal of community gardai are opening the way to the re-emergence of republican terrorism.
Former chief superintendent Maguire spent almost his entire career fighting the IRA, arresting most of its senior members and putting them in jail. After the Provisional IRA ceasefire he and his officers clamped down on the "dissidents" who were resuming the violence and carried out the Omagh bombing killing 31 people including near-term twins in August 1998. Before that bomb slipped through the net, Maguire's officers thwarted a series of major bomb attacks including an attempt to bomb the Grand National at Aintree some months earlier. The Special Branch mopped up the dissidents and imprisoned more than 60 of them during his service. As detective superintendent in charge of these operations, Maguire was held in esteem by his colleagues for his leadership. After promotion to chief superintendent and transfer to Santry garda station he completed his law studies and was called to the bar. He now works as a barrister since his retirement seven years ago.
Speaking at the public meeting at the Goat pub last Wednesday evening, Mr Maguire said the growth of the Provisional IRA had begun in rural Ireland where there was generational support for violent republicanism.
He said today as gardai were in retreat from rural areas with the closures of stations and with most gardai living outside the areas they serve in, the close relations with communities and intelligence-gathering that was used to counter the IRA was disappearing. He pointed to recent events in Northern Ireland in which bombs and missile launchers had been seized and said the "withdrawal of police services from around the country at the moment is very, very misguided".
Other serving and retired gardai, including those who were in the thick of the fight against the IRA, privately say the same. They too are warning that the withdrawal of policing is allowing the rebirth of serious republican terrorism, and just not the amateurish so-called "dissident" activity seen in recent years.
From the time the IRA campaign officially ended with the 1997 ceasefire, a great deal was written about the "decommissioning" of its arsenal. The Canadian army general John de Chastelain was put in charge of a committee that reportedly oversaw decommissioning. As it was claimed to have completed its work there were enthusiastic statements from both the Irish and British governments that a historic decommissioning of IRA weapons had taken place. There were said to have been major acts of weapons decommissioning monitored by Gen de Chastelain's observers.
That was taken as fact: the IRA had given up and carried out the destruction of its massive arsenal.
Gardai who had been closely involved in the war against the IRA, and their counterparts in the old Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch, took a different view. In their work against the IRA, these officers had infiltrated the terrorist group up to senior levels. Various and sometimes dubious methods were used to "turn" IRA members into informants. Some of these gardai and ex-RUC officers privately held the view that the IRA had sold Gen de Chastelain's committee a pup. They believed, based on intelligence sources they had nurtured over the years, that the material that the monitors had seen being destroyed consisted of weapons and equipment that were no longer of use to the IRA, in other words, rubbish. In the rush to welcome Sinn Fein into constitutional politics these warnings west unheaded. The RUC Special Branch was disbanded and gardai withdrawn from the Border.
The government press releases about the "decommissioning" process never contained any inventory of the weapons supposedly destroyed. It was said to be "substantial" and journalists were briefed off the record that it was decided to keep the details secret as part of the deal with the IRA.
Last Wednesday week, a Russian-manufactured rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher and missile was recovered during a police raid in west Belfast. This was one of the IRA weapons that was supposedly destroyed in the decommissioning process. The rocket was seized in a house close to Beechmount Avenue which was dubbed by locals "RPG Avenue" because it was the site of the first fatal attack using one of the missiles, in May 1991. RUC Sergeant Stephen Gillespie, aged 31, and married with two children, was killed instantly and two other policemen seriously injured when the missile hit their armoured vehicle.
Not far from Beechmount is the family home of the man who is believed to be the head of the re-formed Provisional IRA. He has a considerable republican pedigree.
In recent years this man and former Provisional IRA associates has been planning the relaunch of a new campaign. His re-entry into terrorism has stimulated other former Provisionals to rejoin and become active again. The group announced their formation last summer in statements to newspapers in Belfast. Little attention was paid to the statements at the time as there had been several such announcements before as the dissident elements formed and re-formed themselves into factions. There were two groups claiming the title "Continuity" IRA, at least another two claiming the "Real" IRA title and another calling itself Oglaigh na hEireann. The newly emerging group simply calls itself the IRA. It is taking over the disparate "dissident" elements.
Over the months since the IRA announcement gardai have observed, with considerable surprise, former Provisionals who had disappeared off their radar become active again. The reactivation of these figures stepped up significantly last September with the assassination of the Dublin "Real" IRA figure Alan Ryan.
Shortly before his murder, Ryan had been summoned to a meeting of the new IRA in Co Down. It was made clear to him that his "fund-raising" activities left much to be desired. The new IRA figures knew Ryan and his associates were pocketing far more money than they were sending north to fund the "war".
Ryan is believed to have responded positively. However, it was clear that members of his group were still intent on enriching themselves and not passing on the money they were extorting from drug dealers, believed to run into many hundreds of thousands of euros a year.
The return of the former Provisionals is said to have come as a surprise to gardai who first learned of their resurgence late last year. They identified three former Provisionals on the north side of Dublin who were taking over Ryan's operations, all of them previously thought to have been supporters of Sinn Fein and the peace process.
Another two men in the Tallaght and Ballyfermot areas of Dublin who are now active in re-organising and extending Ryan's extortion racket were also thought to have retired fully from terrorism.
One of the men had benefitted from the early release deal for IRA prisoners at the time of the ceasefire though he had served a large part of his sentence.
The re-emergence of these figures has brought back into play the serious intent and professionalism of the Provisional IRA. One of Ryan's associates who was suspected of pocketing money from the extortion rackets was abducted in January and put through a quasi-judicial hearing at which a witness was produced and gave evidence of giving money to the man which was not passed on to the organisation. Ryan's associate, who is from Belfast, was "convicted", taken to the western outskirts of Dublin and had his kneecap shot off. The sentence was carried out in accordance with the rules of the IRA, known as the Green Book, in which the sentence for stealing money from the organisation is severe punishment but not execution. He may lose his leg below the knee.
Ryan and his associates usually shot people without warning.
The new organisation is spreading outside Dublin. Concerns were raised in the past two months in Co Wicklow when the republican elements there also stepped up their activities, "buying" debt from drug dealers and engaging in violent threats. It is now
suspected this group was responsible for the murder of Philip O'Toole, 33, who disappeared after leaving his home in Arklow on January 7. His body was discovered on January 22 at Trooperstown Wood near Laragh.
It is believed the republican/criminal group, now under orders from the northern command, murdered O'Toole when he refused to pay over money from an armed robbery and threatened one of their members.
The Wicklow dissident element had close ties with Alan Ryan and is believed to be responsible for the robbery of an arms dealer in Ashford last September when 29 guns including high-powered hunting rifles with telescopic sights were stolen. Two of these guns were recovered in Dublin by gardai who believed they were being delivered to Ryan who was to transport them across the Border. The rest of the weapons are unaccounted for.
Gardai in Wicklow have stepped up surveillance of the
group whose leaders are based in the Rathnew area and who now include a Dubliner who had close links to Alan Ryan and played a prominent role in his paramilitary-style funeral. This man is suspected of extorting a large sum of money from a businessman in the south county area after seriously assaulting him and threatening his life.
Speaking at the public forum, chaired by Fianna Fail's justice spokesman Niall Collins, Mr Maguire told the 100 or so people present of the dangers of a breakdown in effective policing at a time when military republicanism was again on the rise.
He said policing was "fundamentally and essentially a community effort, a joint effort between the community and the guards. It is predicated on the presence of the guards in the community and working with the community to achieve community ends".
He went on: "The withdrawal of the police from many many rural areas, and urban areas as well, means that ultimately the police will become a visitor to the community if something happens. They will no longer represent a presence in the community. They will no longer be in a position in the community to consolidate the kind of community support that is necessary for effective policing.
"Many in our time worked in all sorts of specialist units but we have learned over the years that the fundamental and most basic element of policing is police presence in the delivery of a frontline policing service.
"We have problems with economics but I have never known a situation where there are so many police stations closed. I have never known a situation where there are so many communities living in fear and apprehension. The very first duty of An Garda Siochana is to prevent crime. The detection of crime only comes into play when that first responsibility fails, and you prevent crime by a presence. The guards, by a presence in society, deter criminals from coming in and if the criminals come into it the guards collects sufficient intelligence and have the professional acumen to confront the criminal while he is in the area and be able to finger him very quickly. That is what community policing has been based on in every country.
"I read in a book there quite recently by James Bowyer Bell in relation to the IRA campaign from 1956 to 1962. The chief-of-staff of the IRA called off the campaign on the grounds that there was no community support for it.
"In 1969 the nation was on fire and we had 25 years of the worst terrorist campaign the country ever witnessed at any stage of British occupation. It took a long, long time to bring people to the stage where they were prepared to accept that violence could no longer achieve political aims and would alienate the community. Last night there was a car stopped in Derry and there were four bombs found. Those four bombs were, it said on the news, made in rural Ireland. I hope they weren't made in a community where the guards have been withdrawn in the last six months.
"We all know that the constitutional position on the island is not fully agreed. We all know that campaigns of violence have developed in the country in the past 30, 40 years and have their basic roots in rural Ireland. In 1969 when the Troubles started in Northern Ireland and spread throughout the island we had 6,000 guards in the force. In the next three years they had to increase that by 3,000 with the result that they had to ask people to join An Garda Siochana in order to deliver a police service. Last week there was an RPG rocket launcher, a highly volatile military weapon, found in the community in Belfast. There were three bombs found at the same time. There were four bombs found yesterday. This all took place in one week. There has not been one word in Dail Eireann about that.
"Things have not settled and the withdrawal of a policing service from operating in the community is very, very misguided. I understand the difficulties with finance and understand my former colleagues – the difficult financial situation they have to deal with. But I can tell them that the community are full-square behind you and will give you every support in every way.
"If it was left to the guards unhindered and unfettered to get on with the business, the guards have always delivered to this society and the guards will continue to deliver to this society as effectively as they have. None of us should forget that it was the Garda Siochana that substantially set up this State. It was the Garda Siochana that carried the rule of law and the authority of the Government into every rural station and every rural community in this country and particularly in Ballinamore in 1922.
"The Garda Siochana at all hours of the day have been in every rural community in this country. The Garda Siochana have been the only representative of State authority. Sadly today that is lost."
Suspect in murder of ex-garda linked to pal's disappearance.
KEN FOY, CRIME CORRESPONDENT – 12 MARCH 2013 10:40 AM
A DRUG dealer arrested in relation to the murder of a man who vanished without trace 21 months ago is also the chief suspect for organising the gun murder of a criminal ex-garda.
The 53-year-old Traveller criminal was today being grilled by detectives at Carrickmacross Garda Station about the murder of his former close pal Gerard Daly (43), who went missing from his Co Cavan home in June, 2011.
The suspect – who is involved in drug dealing and armed robberies – is also believed to have played a central role in last November's murder of former garda John Kerins (49).
All three men were previously very friendly and worked together on a number of serious criminal enterprises but a cash dispute between Daly and the Traveller split up their gang and has now led to two murders, senior sources believe.
Interpol
Associates of the Traveller criminal believe the body of Tallaght man Gerard Daly has been dumped in waste ground in west Dublin.
Gardai have not excavated this "massive dumping ground" in Dublin for Daly, but searched an underground cannabis growhouse in Co Cavan controlled by the suspect in a major search for Daly's body last April. It is not yet known whether officers will search the Dublin site.
No sign of Daly's remains were found and a massive investigation involving gardai, PSNI, Interpol, Europol and police forces in England had continued before yesterday's arrest.
The Herald can reveal that the 53-year-old suspect has been under surveillance since John Kerins was murdered last November.
He is also suspected of organising a post office robbery.
A source explained: "This really is a very bad business. You are talking about three middle-aged individuals who all re-located from their homes and moved to a very rural area near Bailieboro, Co Cavan, and set up a massive criminal enterprise.
"Everything went well for them for a while but a financial disagreement would have major implications.
"After Gerard Daly was murdered because of this, pressure started to come on the former garda when other gang members thought he would inform on the situation to gardai.
"They then decided to take John Kerins out in the most savage way."
Kerins was found with gunshot wounds to his head in the rural property he had lived in.
Kerins, who was facing charges in relation to the theft of plant machinery in Co Cork, became involved with the dangerous local gang who were involved in drug dealing and armed robbery, a number of years earlier.
And sources say that he "most definitely" had knowledge of what happened to Gerard Daly.
Gardai have always suspected that Daly was the victim of foul play and sources say that detectives have always been confident that he was murdered by someone he knew.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1312:34 AM
A NOTORIOUS criminal linked to gangland murders was arrested over a cash-in-transit robbery this week.
The Sunday World can reveal that vicious hood
Robbie Lawlor was one of two men arrested following the robbery of a cash-in-transit van at Clare Hall shopping centre on Dublin's northside.
The convicted drug dealer from Coolock is well known to gardai and has been a suspect in a number of gangland murders.
Dangerous
"He is a complete loose cannon. He's a very dangerous individual," said one source.
Lawlor was arrested by gardai investigating the murder of David 'Fred'Lynch, who was shot dead as part of a feud in Coolock in 2009.
He was also the prime suspect in the shooting of Anthony Ayodeji, who was shot five times in a car in Buttercup Park in 2008 while holding a baby in his arms. Ayodeji somehow survived the shooting. Lawlor was also nominated as a potential suspect in other shootings including that of Noel Deans who was shot dead in 2010 and an attack on John Paul Joyce.
Sources say Lawlor was also feuding with gangboss Eamon Dunne at the time of Dunne's death in 2010.
"There was a couple of hundred grand belonging to Dunne in a car at Bewley's on the N32 and Lawlor is thought to have took it," a Sunday World source said.
"They had a major falling out over this and Dunne threatened to kill him.
"Lawlor armed himself to the teeth after this and he was going around telling people he was ready to kill Dunne.
If Dunne hadn't have been shot dead Lawlor probably would have tried to take him out or Dunne would have taken out Lawlor."Lawlor also had links to 'Micka' Kelly who was shot dead by the Real IRA in 2011.
Our source added: "He [Lawlor] had links to Micka and his crew,like Paul 'Burger' Walsh but he would have worked with a fair few different gangs. He was a bit of a gun for hire."
He also has convictions for drugs after being caught with more than €40,000 worth of cocaine back in 2004. He received a seven-year sentence for that offence.
Arrested
He has several other convictions including previous drugs convictions and convictions relating to stolen cars. He has also been linked to previous cash-in-transit robberies.
When gardai confronted Lawlor and his pal about the cash-in-transit robbery, they resisted arrested and had to be pepper sprayed.Gardai recovered the cash taken in the robbery as well as a firearm close to the scene where the men were arrested.
The two men were held at Coolock garda station where they were questioned. They were released yesterday while a file is being prepared for the DPP.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1302:53 AM
Whack
The brazen drunk tried to excuse the fact he was swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels while sitting in his car by saying he was going to use it as a weapon against an assassin who was trying to shoot him. The Sunday World' can reveal that Mahon has been telling pals that Eric 'Lucky' Wilson is plotting to whack him after Mahon implicated him in the disappearance and suspected murder of Amy, who went missing in Spain five years ago aged 15.
Wilson, a senior member of a notorious Dublin-based crime family, operated as a prolific hit-man for hire on behalf of several criminal gangs. However, he was jailed for 23 years in Spain in July 2011 after being found guilty of shooting a man dead in Malaga.
Dave Mahon has claimed that an "underworld source" approached him and his partner Audrey Fitzpatrick and that "we were told Eric 'Lucky' Wilson murdered Amy, that he was overheard boasting he had murdered her". However, it is understood that Eric Wilson was lying low in Northern Ireland at the time Amy vanished,and there is no evidence he was involved in the disappearance or issued any threat against Mahon.
In court this week, evidence was heard that an off-duty garda spotted Mahon driving erratically near his home in Santry, north Dublin last January. Garda Paul Mullen saw Mahon's car "veer from left to right very erratically in front of oncoming vehicles". Its driver broke several red lights and caused a number of oncoming cars to swerve to avoid crashing into Mahon.Mahon claimed he thought garda Mullen was following him with a view to shooting him and that he had informed senior gardai that his life was under threat.
Appeal
He said when he was outside his house in his car he picked up the Jack Daniels to use as a weapon if he was attacked. However, he started to drink from it. Judge Ann Watkin described his evidence as "blatant lies". She sentenced him to four months in prison after finding him guilty of drink driving and three counts of careless driving. He was also banned from driving for five years, but was released on bail pending an appeal.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1303:03 AM
MEET 'the Miner', the ruthless thug who has vowed to become the country's gangster
Despite being born with a silver spoon in his mouth,this Co. Wicklow-based criminal has become one of Ireland's most feared mobsters in less than six months.
Gardai have been alarmed at the growth of the former sports star and believe he has a net-work of 50 drug dealers working for him and that he has started to expand into Dublin.
Detectives have linked 'the Miner' to the murder of a rival drug dealer and believe he drove one of his key enforcers to commit suicide last week.
To his neighbours, the criminal,who is in his 40s, leads a respectable existence with his idyllic family and fancy car. However, his name is enough to provoke terror in the most hardened of criminals in Co. Wicklow, where he has grown his drug dealing-empire.
Punishment
This is because he has organised punishment beatings against several dozen drug addicts who have fallen behind with payments.He specialises in dishing out beatings which have shocked gardai in their brutality.
The thug, who had links to slain IRA boss Alan Ryan, has become a big player since Ryan was whacked last September and is bragging to friends that he will be the most notorious gangland figure the country has ever seen.
'The Miner' has made sure that he has the firepower to support his growth and masterminded the robbery of a gun store on the eve of Ryan's funeral. His minions,including Philip 'Philly' O'Toole,broke into the shop in Ashford,Co. Wicklow and made off with 29 lethal rifles and shotguns. There have been a series of shooting incidents in Wicklow since September with addicts who owe drug debts.
The latest drive-by occurred on the evening of March 3 when a round from a shotgun was fired into a house in Wicklow town.
'The Miner's' key enforcer Jonathan 'Birdbrain' Martin fired the shots, while Terence Keogh, who had only recently been released from prison after serving a sentence for manslaughter, was in the jeep. After carrying out the shooting 24-year-old Martin drove on the Nll but encountered a garda speed checkpoint opposite RTE.
The officers searched the vehicle and found a sawn-off shotgun underneath the front passenger's seat and the pair were arrested. When they were taken to Donnybrook garda station in Dublin Martin started shouting that 'the Miner' would be furious that the pair were arrested.
When he was released from custody Martin went off the rails and the following day he took an over-dose of prescription medication. Gardai initially feared the dead man might have been forcibly fed the drugs to stop him from talking,but now believe that he overdosed as he was so scared of what 'the Miner' would do to him.
The Miner is the prime suspect in the murder of his former pal 'Philly' O'Toole. The pair operated as partners in the drugs trade, but 'the Miner' and O'Toole, a 33 year-old father-of-two, fell out late last year after several of the 29 stolen guns went missing.
In January 'the Miner' lured O'Toole to an isolated forested area in the Wicklow Mountains on the pretext that they were going to put their past difficulties behind them. His body was recovered two weeks later following extensive searches by gardai.
Invested
The Miner has links to several dissident groups including the Real IRA and the INLA. He was very close to Alan Ryan, but since the Real IRA's Northern leader-ship have started to clean up the organisation he has distanced himself from the group.
He has had several criminal convictions overturned on appeal and has several convictions for minor offences. The Miner has invested in several large cash businesses over the last two months, but he has attracted the attention of the Criminal Assets Bureau, which is set to launch an investigation into his activities.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1303:09 AM
PAISLEY JNR WILL TARGET SlAB PLAN
DUP sharpshooter lan Paisley Jnr is gunning for ex-Provo war-lord Thomas 'Slab' Murphy.Veteran republican Murphy is in the Westminster MP's sights after the 60-year-old's Bandit Country house was raided during this week's joint Garda, PSNI and Customs mega-raid on suspected fake fuel scam smugglers.
Murphy was stopped and questioned near his Ballybinaby mansion, which sits just six feet on the Republic's side of the Border in County Louth. He was not arrested.
Murphy has already appeared in court in Dublin to face nine allegations of failing to file income tax returns from 1994 to 1996.
In 2011, he was named as Chief-of-Staff of the Provos' Army Council. He has publicly denied that role.
The home of a petrol retailer and the offices of an international transport company were also raided. In one raid, Gardai claimed to have shut down "the biggest fuel laundering operation on these islands'.
Estimates put its annual production capacity at 10 million litres - which equates to a loss to the Dublin EXchequer of €5.5m a year.
However, Paisley Jnr called for an inquiry into why not one person was lifted and held for questioning. He stated: "For there to have been not one single arrest is a complete embarrassment."
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1303:38 AM
MEET THE gun-toting criminal who was barred from two housing estates for some of the worst antisocial behaviour in the history of the state.
Dan McCarthy (24), from Newcastle West in Co. Limerick, leers as he points what appears to be a handgun at the camera in this exclusive picture.
The vicious criminal was recently described in court as being involved in "extreme acts of violence" in the Castleview Estate in Co. Limerick.Gardai claim McCarthy was heavily involved in a long-running feud with a traveller gang from Rathkeale.
In acourt hearing where Limerick County Council applied for an exclusion order, it was claimed that residents were terrified of McCarthy and were too afraid to testify against the thug.
However, McCarthy's crimes do not just involve fighting with rival criminals. He also has a conviction for harassing a terrified young woman with a series of disturbing text messages.McCarthy - who has more than 40 criminal convictions - is one of a small group of thugs who have been successfully barred from a number of estates for terrorising the local community.
Complaint
Last month, Housing Minister Jan O'Sullivan announced new laws which make it easier to evict tenants involved in antisocial behaviour. Residents' groups will be able to make a complaint on behalf of an individual- so the identity of the victim can be protected.
In 2011, local authorities battling antisocial behaviour sought 56 eviction warrants and 32 exclusion orders. Out of those, 15 families were actually ejected from their homes and 22 exclusion orders were granted.
A source said the new laws,which will come into force later this year, would have made it easier to get an exclusion order against McCarthy.
"The main problem in Castleview was that people were absolutely terrified of making a complaint against Dan and his brother Thomas. If they complained, they would have been named in court and they would have been left very exposed.
"Dan McCarthy was a one-man crimewave", he was no criminal mastermind, but he had the whole area living in terror." In October 2011, he was one of five people who walked free from courtiter witnesses refused to give evidence about feud violence. McCarthy and his brother Thomas had been facing numerous charges of causing criminal damage.
The case centred on alleged violent incidents at addresses in the Castleview and Shanoood estates in Newcastle West and Fairgreen.
There were dramatic scenes in court as the five people who had made the original complaints to gardai all withdrew their evidence.
Two months later, Dan and Thomas McCarthy were back in court - along with Dermot and John Ryan, from Sharwood - where Limerick County Council sought exclusion orders. The four men became the first people in Limerick to be barred from housing estates in the county.
In October, Dan unsuccessfully appealed the decision in the District Court.
Seamus Hayes, housing officer with Limerick County Council told the court that the local authority had sought the barring order due to the "concerns and fears" of residents over a long period of time.He said the residents were "too afraid" to make complaints and that the proceedings, which were initiated with the support of gardai, were "in the interests of good estate management".Mr Hayes told Judge Carroll Moran that there has been no trouble in the Castleview Estate since McCarthy was barred.
Damnaged
"Life has been "very peaceful," he said, adding that "the quality of life for residents "has improved immeasurably". Sgt Frank Downes, Newcastle West, told the court the background to the antisocial behaviour and violence was linked to an ongoing feud between the McCarthy and Ryan families.
Sgt Downes added that personal property, including windows and cars had all been damaged by those involved in the feud. The sergeant said McCarthy had accrued a number of criminal convictions since the initial application for a barring order was made last December.
A quantity of drugs was seized at his home in February and he was convicted at Cork District Court in April of sending a large number of harassing text message to a woman.
McCarthy received a suspended sentence in relation to the harassment offence and was fined €300 in relation to the drugs charge. Sgt Downes said McCarthy was also convicted of a number of public order offences following incidents in Newcastle West during recent months.
In his evidence, McCarthy denied causing any trouble and said he had "never broken a window in my life".McCarthy's father, Ned, pleaded with the court to remove the barring order on his son.
"I guarantee if he is left back with me today, there will be no more trouble," he said.Dismissing the appeal, Judge Carroll Moran said it was "clear that a feud has been going on"between the McCarthy and Ryan families. He noted that McCarthy had "been in trouble" within five weeks of the initial application last December and had accrued several convictions during 2012.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1303:46 AM
CONTRACT killers have been offered thousands of euro by members of a traveller clan locked in a lethal feud in the west of Ireland.
Notorious gangsters linked to Fat John McCarthy's gang based in Moyross, Limerick, have been drafted in by members of the Mayo-based Collins clan, according to sources.
Cash was put on the table in a bid to force members of the 'Diesel' Maughan family to back down from their bitter feud with the Collins side.
The row escalated this week after a member of the Maughan family was shot and wounded in Castlebar,Co Mayo on Thursday night. In January, another relation, Jack Maughan, was shot and wounded in a drive-by shooting at a filling station in the town.
Attack
Sources say, however,that the Limerick thugs had nothing to do with the latest gun attack on the man in his 30s, who suffered a stomach wound. "It looks like some-one got fed up waiting and decided to take it on themselves," said a Sunday World source.
Gardai made an appeal for witnesses to the gun attack at 8.30pm last Thursday at a house in Castlebar's Castlegrove Estate.
The victim was hit after a number of shots were fired at the house before the attackers made their getaway in a bronze-coloured Audi. Last January, 21-year-old Jack Maughan was shot twice in a drive-by attack at a service station in the town as he got back into his Ford Transit van.
A gunman opened fire with what is thought to have been a pellet gun from a black car that pulled up alongside him. The young man suffered wounds to his back and was later treated at Mayo General Hospital. There is no suggestion that either of the wounded men are involved in the dangerous feud which flared up last summer.
Last year, a senior member of the Collins clan was hit with a tax demand for £1 million after an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
It came after a series of raids carried out by CAB officers in November 2010, when £100,000 in cash and luxury goods were seized at properties in Ballina.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1303:55 AM
AN ALLEGED dissident gunman who was arrested following the murder of AlRA chief Peter Butterly is the current manager of Shamrock Rovers U-18s team.
Eddie McGrath (31), was one of five men arrested in the car park of the Huntsman Inn, Oormanstown, Co. Meath, minutes after Butterly was gunned down.
Yesterday, dad-of-three Butterly - a former RIRA leader in Louth - was buried in a low-key ceremony without any paramilitary trappings.Butterly had recently been expelled from the dissident organisation by the Northern-based leadership for allegedly pocketing RIRA funds. ~
Charged
Last Saturday, Tallaght man McGrath was charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm calibre Beretta handgun and ammunition. The suspected dissident was also charged with membership of an illegal organisation styling itself on the IRA. McGrath's arrest has sent shock waves through Shamrock Rovers,where he is on the coaching staff.
In 2005, he was a member of the fans' '400 club', who rescued Rovers from financial ruin by buying the soccer club.
Our photograph shows McGrath,from Land Dale Lawns in Tallaght,coaching a Shamrock Rovers team.McGrath remains a member of the club, is currently employed as the manager of club's U-1S squad and has previously been involved in coaching schoolboy teams.
A source said McGrath's arrest has "stunned" Shamrock Rovers, who did not know the coach was involved with dissidents. "He was a big supporter of Celtic and liked singing rebels songs but that's it," said a source. "Eddie has been a dedicated member of the club for a long number of years."
On Thursday, McGrath was one of three Dublin men remanded in custody for an extra week in connection with the Butterly shooting.
Bought
David Cullen, from Brackenwood Ave in Balbriggan, and Dean Evans (22), from Grange Park Rise,Raheny, were also brought before the Special Criminal Court.The three men had been charged in connection with the shooting at a special sitting of the non-jury court last Saturday night.
Evans and McGrath were each charged with the unlawful posses- sion of a 9mm-calibre Beretta semi-automatic pistol and seven rounds of ammunition with intent to endanger life.They were also each charged with membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the IRA on March 6. Cullen was charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm-calibre Beretta semi-automatic pistol.
Last night, a spokesperson for Shamrock Rovers said anyone working with the club has to undergo rigorous garda vetting. "Shamrock Rovers has over 400 members. However, most have no involvement in the running of the football club apart from attending AGMs and contributing their monthly membership fee. Along with that, we have 3,000 season ticket holders.
"Shamrock Rovers also has over 100 volunteers who help the club in a number of different ways, from our schoolboy section, to match-day activities, to selling tickets. Those volunteering in our schoolboy section are Garda-vetted for the protection of the young people they work with."
Butterly (35) - a former commander for the RIRA in Co. Louth - was blasted in the chest and head in the pub's car park last Wednesday.The Gardai's elite Emergency Response Unit (ERU) arrived at the scene within minutes and arrested five men in a number of cars at the scene.
It is believed that Gardai had the suspected dissidents under surveillance and had been monitoring the meeting between the group and Butterly. However, they had no advance knowledge of a shooting. Butterly's murder is just the latest shooting in a bitter internal battle for control of the so-called new IRA.
Dignified
Yesterday, he was laid to rest following a dignified funeral mass in his home parish in Co Louth.
Hundreds of mourners turned out to pay tribute to the dad-of-three at his funeral mass Saint Colmcille's Church, Togher. His body was carried into the church in a coffin which had not been draped in the Tricolour - in stark contrast to the practice at most dissident republican funerals.
During the service, one of his daughters fought back tears and was comforted by Butrerly's wife Eithne. Butterly is survived by his wife,his parents, Vera and Matt, and children Aoife, Ciara and Matthew.Unlike Alan Ryan's funeral last year, there was no visible sign yesterday of any paramilitary display at the funeral.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/18/1310:41 AM
However, it is understood that Eric Wilson was lying low in Northern Ireland at the time Amy vanished,and there is no evidence he was involved in the disappearance or issued any threat against Mahon.
I think this story has along way to go, Lucky Wilson was said to know about david lindsay alan napper July 2008 Rostrevor in County Down.
The disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick occurred on New Year's Day 2008 in Spain.
However, it is understood that Eric Wilson was lying low in Northern Ireland at the time Amy vanished,and there is no evidence he was involved in the disappearance or issued any threat against Mahon.
I think this story has along way to go, Lucky Wilson was said to know about david lindsay alan napper July 2008 Rostrevor in County Down.
The disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick occurred on New Year's Day 2008 in Spain.
i was there tat week in spain was all over newspaper when i was coming home, doubt that guy lucky had anything to do with it probably someone who doesnt like him trying to label him as a pedo,i mean they were trying to kill him & his brothers,at the time of her dad being told he was responiable,
also i always thought it was something to do with the step-dad....
In August 2008, the home of Mahon and Fitzpatrick's lawyer in Riviera del Sol was broken into and a laptop that was used in the search for Fitzpatrick was stolen. In addition, Amy Fitzpatrick's Nokia mobile phone was stolen. The 32-year-old lawyer, Juan José de la Fuente Teixidó, said the burglars got in to his property by forcing a locked garden gate. He said: "The stolen documents included confidential police reports about Fitzpatrick's disappearance. I believe the burglary was related to Fitzpatrick's disappearance. It makes no sense that they took documents which financially are worthless, and left behind all my expensive valuables like TVs, computers and music equipment.
seems they knew a bit too much about them for all the evedinece to dissapear?
However, it is understood that Eric Wilson was lying low in Northern Ireland at the time Amy vanished,and there is no evidence he was involved in the disappearance or issued any threat against Mahon.
I think this story has along way to go, Lucky Wilson was said to know about david lindsay alan napper July 2008 Rostrevor in County Down.
The disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick occurred on New Year's Day 2008 in Spain.
i was there tat week in spain was all over newspaper when i was coming home, doubt that guy lucky had anything to do with it probably someone who doesnt like him trying to label him as a pedo,i mean they were trying to kill him & his brothers,at the time of her dad being told he was responiable,
also i always thought it was something to do with the step-dad....
In August 2008, the home of Mahon and Fitzpatrick's lawyer in Riviera del Sol was broken into and a laptop that was used in the search for Fitzpatrick was stolen. In addition, Amy Fitzpatrick's Nokia mobile phone was stolen. The 32-year-old lawyer, Juan José de la Fuente Teixidó, said the burglars got in to his property by forcing a locked garden gate. He said: "The stolen documents included confidential police reports about Fitzpatrick's disappearance. I believe the burglary was related to Fitzpatrick's disappearance. It makes no sense that they took documents which financially are worthless, and left behind all my expensive valuables like TVs, computers and music equipment.
seems they knew a bit too much about them for all the evedinece to dissapear?
Lucky Wilson was in the North at the time Fitzpatrick's disappearance the Garda new he was up there MICKTHEHACK did a book on Fitzpatrick's disappearance.
Millionaire crimelord running cigarette scam from Spanish bolthole.
Ken Foy Crime correspondent – 20 March 2013 10:40 AM
A VETERAN crimelord who controls illegal smuggling of cigarettes into Ireland is making a fortune from his well organised enterprise despite being based on Spain's Costa-Del-Crime.
we revealed that customs officers have been forced to wear stab vests while on the lookout for smuggled cigarettes in Dublin city centre, such is the level of threats of violence from runners connected to the expat Ballyfermot crimelord.
Senior sources have revealed that, while he controls operations from his villa close to the resort of Fuengirola, his son has taken over the 'day-to-day business' in Ireland. Their operation is thought to be worth as much as €10m.
Detectives have been actively monitoring the son's movements and have established that he has been linked to a number of threats to kill rival criminals, particularly in west Dublin.
Gardai received intelligence in January that his millionaire dad, who is in his 50s, invested a five-figure sum in a west Dublin pub, which has been the scene of a number of violent incidents over the years.
The gangster – a long-term target of the Criminal Assets Bureau – has made millions from smuggling illegal cigarettes over the past two decades.
He was arrested in relation to a gangland murder in Ballyfermot in the 1990s, but was released without charge.
Legitimate
A senior source explained: "He is one of the most feared and respected men involved in organised crime in Ireland.
"The likes of Eric 'Lucky' Wilson, who is linked to loads of murders, would ask how high if this man told him to jump.
"Apart from his criminal business, he runs a number of profitable legitimate businesses and has a large property portfolio in Dublin and Spain."
Evidence of the scale of the illegal cigarette market was shown last October when a chilled container carrying €3.1m worth of cigarettes was seized at Dublin Port.
Customs said about eight million cigarettes were seized.
With a criminal pedigree going back years, the gangster built up a reputation as a money launderer for the Provisional IRA in the 1980s and 1990s.
He came to prominence in 2010, when he became involved in a feud with the Real IRA faction then led by slain terror boss Alan Ryan.
botched
This feud led to two murders and a notorious incident at the Player's Lounge pub in Fairview, north Dublin, in July, 2010, in which three innocent men were shot.
It is suspected that the Ballyfermot gangster ordered the botched hit in an attempt to kill Ryan.
Ryan's murder last September has nothing to do with the veteran Ballyfermot hood.
But back in July 2010, gardai had major concerns after the Ballyfermot gangster's pal, Colm 'Collie' Owens (34), was shot dead at the Corn Store, an animal feed warehouse, on the Grove industrial estate in Finglas as part of the dispute.
In a revenge attack, Keith Wilson (25) murdered Daniel Gaynor (25) in Finglas the following month.
Gaynor's murder led to a huge increase in garda activity surrounding the players in the feud and it is believed that at some stage in the autumn of 2010 a truce was called.
It is thought that one faction, most likely the Ballyfermot mob, paid the other a sum of cash to end to hostilities.
Last year, the crimelord's crew got involved in a separate feud with the Continuity IRA, which led to one murder and a number of shootings.
CONVICTED killer Brian Rattigan has been sentenced to a further 17 year in jail for running a drugs supply network by mobile phone from his cell in Portlaoise prison.
Ads by GoogleRattigan 32, from Cooley Road, Walkinstown in Dublin, had the sentence backdated to 2008 when he was caught with a mobile phone and notebooks in his prison cell which were linked to an ongoing drug supply business. He is already serving a life sentence for murder.
Judge Paul Butler said an aggravating factor in the case had been the fact that Rattigan had carried out the crime while in prison, something he described as "a very serious matter".
In mitigation the judge accepted that while the defendant had pleaded not guilty he had fought the case on legal matters.
"The honesty of the witnesses was not in any serious matter impaired during the course of the trial," he added. He also accepted that Rattigan's actions had had a huge effect on himself, his friends and family and had led to a fatality, adding that this was being taken into consideration.
It earlier emerged that Rattigan has taken up acting in prison, producing and appearing in two pantomimes.
During summing of in the case, Rattigan's defense barrister Brendan Grehan told the court that the convicted criminal had turned his life around while in prison taking up acting, catering courses and a number of courses on alternatives to violence to name but a few.
The Dubliner had produced and appeared in two Christmas pantomimes - The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella.
Mr Gehan told the court that the convicted killer and drug dealer had made the changes to his life because of his 10-year-old daughter Abbie.
Describing her as the "single most important factor in his life", Mr Grehan added that he now spends much of him time in the prison gym and had also undertaken a course in yoga and physio courses linked to his gym regime.
Mr Grehan presented a number of certificates to the court highlight how Rattigan had completed a Fetac level four certificate in catering. He had also received A grades in a number of course in addiction studies.
Rattigan had pleaded not guilty to the possession of heroin and two counts of possession of the drug for sale or supply on Hughes Road South, Walkinstown, Dublin 12 on May 21st, 2008.
Judge Butler said that while it could be interpreted that the convicted killer was trying to change his life it remained only a possibility. On that basis the court did not opt to suspend any of the 17 year term.
Mr Rattigan showed no emotion as the verdict was read out. Afterwards he thanked his legal team and spoke briefly with family members before being led away.
The court heard that gardai who raided the house on Hughes Road South discovered five kilos of heroin valued at just under €1m and a red and white Nokia phone in a shed at the back of the property, while a search of a bedroom inside the house yielded just over €36,000 in cash.
The court heard from Det Sgt Brian Roberts from the Garda National Drugs unit who spelt out in detail the devastating impact that heroin has in society. He explained that in the year the drugs were discovered there were 641 drug related deaths.
Judge Butler thanked Det Sgt Roberts for his evidence saying it was the first time such detailed evidence on the impact of drugs had come before his court.
"We are very grateful for this and it shall be useful even outside this case," he added.
It is thought that one faction, most likely the Ballyfermot mob, paid the other a sum of cash to end to hostilities.
I do not think so, @Ken Foy The Criminal Action Force never had a truce with Real IRA ? CAF never put out a statement to MICKTHEHACK on a truce you do not have a story cop your self on last year herald said there was no CAF philip o'toole CAF shooting yous are a JOKE.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1302:34 AM
WHACKER BACK FOR WAR Gardai on alert as former INLA terror boss back on streets
SICK: Duffy is known to be extremely violent
ONE OF the country's most notorious and dangerous criminals is back on the streets of the capital, despite being jailed for life just two and a half years ago. The Sunday World can reveal that former INLA boss Declan 'Whacker' Duffy has been released from prison despite being caged for life in July 2010 for the murder of a British soldier.
Gardai are on high alert after the 39- year-old psychopath was set free last weekend and immediately made his way to Dublin, where he is staying with the mother of his two children. The return of Duffy is a hugely significant and worrying development, with senior gardai expecting him to make a move to fill the power vacuum that exists in Dublin's gangland following the Real IRA civil war and the departure of several major drug dealers.
Officers are shocked that Duffy has reemerged and thought they had seen the end of him when a judge ordered that he serve a minimum of 24 years in jail after admitting the murder of Sergeant Michael Newman in Derby, England, in 1992. However, the callous killer managed to use the fact that the slaying was an act of terror to successfully argue that he should be freed under the Good Friday Agreement.
Scream
Despite renouncing the INLA when he was sentenced, gardai do not believe Duffy will lead an honest life and have already observed him drinking with several senior criminals. Sources say he is a ruthless and violent criminal who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on people. The Armagh-born thug has bragged about how he enjoys kneecapping victims and hearing them scream.
An undercover Sunday World team observed Duffy outside a flat in central Dublin on Friday. He was dressed in jeans and a woollen jacket and wore a cap to hide his face. He jumped in a waiting car and drove off in heavy traffic, where it is understood he met an associate in a pub in Tallaght.
One senior source said: "We couldn't believe it when the word came through that he was back. He was spotted drunk at least four times this week and is already associating with well-known criminals.
FEARS: Gardai keep close eye on Duffy
"Declan is not a man to rest on his laurels. He knows the Real IRA is imploding and that gangland is up in the air after Eamon Kelly was murdered last year and the lads who murdered Alan Ryan have fled the country.
"We think he has calculated that Dublin is rife for taking over. He is right too and we are keeping a very, very close eye on developments, as is the Special Branch.Where Duffy is, violence and death and destruction inevitably follow."
Whacker Duffy led the INLA in the infamous 'Ballymount Bloodbath' in 1999. During the notorious incident, an INLA active service unit took six men hostage when they went to a factory in the Ballymount industrial estate to demand money from the owner. The men were viciously tortured, but when 12 of their friends arrived a mass brawl ensued and INLA volunteer Patrick 'Bo' Campbell died after being struck with a machete.
Duffy was caught with a note detailing exactly what happened in Ballymount and was jailed for nine years. When he was released in February 2007 he reorganised the INLA and set about taking over from drug dealing gangs in Dublin 8. He lived in an apartment on Hanover Street with his longterm partner, which was not far from where gang boss Freddie Thompson lived.
BATTLE: Freddie Thompson went to war with Duffy over territory
He decided to target Thompson and took over the doors of pubs and clubs around the city centre and started dealing drugs. He stepped on the toes of three senior drug dealers that were supplied by Thompson and successfully demanded protection money to allow them to operate. It was common knowledge that Duffy once acted as muscle for 'the Border Fox' Dessie O'Hare and criminals were scared stiff of him because of this and what happened at Ballymount.
When Thompson heard of the protection racket he was furious and the pair had a massive row in a pub on Francis Street. Duffy said that he was in the area to stay and that if Freddie did not give up his territory then he would be murdered.
Harmed
Freddie took out a €10,000 contract against Duffy, which led the terror chief to say: "If any member of the INLA or our political wing is harmed, the INLA will wipe them out.
"If they think they can run off to Spain and live happy ever after, they should think again. They will be hunted down."
Despite his talk, Duffy took to wearing a bullet-proof vest and had two permanent bodyguards. In September 2007 he placed a pipe bomb under Thompson's car but it didn't explode. Duffy took his plan to another level on November 22 when INLA volunteer Denis Dwyer was arrested on Camden Street with an AK- 47 in his carrier bag. He was on his way to shoot Fat Freddie. When Thompson heard of the incident he knew that Declan Duffy would not give up until he was dead and fled to Spain.
As well as taking on Thompson's mob, Duffy also beat up the head of the IRA in Dublin and took over the Provos' protection rackets. Gardaí were alarmed by how quickly Duffy's control was growing, and members of the Special Detective Unit started to take a keen interest in him.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1302:40 AM
"I CHAT TO NICOLA AT HER GRAVE" Heartbroken mum reveals loss as she returns from killer's trial
ANGER: Nicola’s parents and sister at RTE on Friday
THE heartbroken mum of tragic Nicola Furlong has revealed she visited her daughter's graveside for some "chit chat" after returning from Japan on Friday.
Smirking monster Richard Hinds was jailed for between five and 10 years this week for her murder in a Tokyo court. The 'Christian' musician brutally strangled Nicola last May shortly after meeting her and a pal in the Japanese capital. He then tried to destroy the 21- year-old student's reputation by claiming he was forced to restrain her because she demanded rough sex.
Nicola's mum Angela has said the first thing she did after arriving back to her Co Wexford home on Friday was to visit her daughter's grave. "I went out to Nicola today (Fri). I do talk to her, I was telling her how I got on in Japan and that I'd seen 'the man'," she said.
Friends
"Generally chit chat. She's had a load of babysitters since we've been gone all my friends and work colleagues and Nicola's friends have been going out and leaving flowers for her.
"The grave actually looked amazing. I put my flowers out and everything for her - it was perfect."
Killer Hinds (19) - originally from Memphis, Tennessee - was classified as a minor under Japanese law and because of this the maximum term he will serve is ten years in prison. However, he could still be freed in half that time if he is granted parole.
CARE: Friends tended to Nicola’s grave while her parents were away
On RTE's Late Late Show, Nicola's sister, Angela, said she believes Hinds should have been given the death penalty. "We knew that was the most he was going to get was 10 years because he was tried as a minor.
"I would like the death penalty but that's not going to happen.
"He took Nicola's life but I feel like my life is over.
"I get up everyday, I've no purpose or meaning and he did that. I've so much hatred for him. Why should he get to live? Five years - he'll be 24 he can still live his life."
Last May, Nicola and a female friend were unconscious when they were brought to the hotel by two Americans - but staff helped put both girls into wheelchairs. CCTV footage also showed hotel workers accompanying the unconscious girls and the two men - Richard Hinds and James Blackston - to separate rooms.
Drugs
Nicola's dad, Andrew, said he believes his daughter and her pal were drugged by the two Americans.
"The two collapsed at the same time, so we're convinced," he said.
Andrew also confirmed that he is planning to sue the luxury Tokyo hotel. He believes his daughter's life could have been saved if hotel workers had acted differently.
"They should have been brought to a hospital, not up to a bedroom.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1302:43 AM
LIAR ‘LAWYER’ PANTS ON FIRE Di Stefano's life of fraud stuns court
FRAUD: Giovanni Di Stefano runs from the truth when confronted by our man Donal MacIntyre
BOGUS mob lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano ran scared from the Sunday World after being humiliated this week when a court heard details of his career as a serial fraudster.
The self-dubbed Devil's Advocate was left red-faced when we confronted him outside a UK courtroom, which had just heard how he duped clients out of hundreds of thousands of pounds by pretending to have legal qualifications.
Jurors also stifled laughter as they heard him describe Saddam Hussein as "a lovely man who noone can say a word against".
And there was shock as the trial was told how spoofing Stefano - who has duped some of the Irish media into treating him seriously as a lawyer - claimed he could have got Adolf Hitler off a war crimes rap as he had nothing to do with the holocaust.
Fraudster
But the loudmouth fraudster, who loves spoofing to gullible reporters, had nothing to say when approached by the Sunday World. Ironically, the 57-year-old conman, who loves to mingle with underworld killers and crime lords, pleaded with us to leave him alone or he would "call the police".
We can also reveal how the so-called Devil's lawyer and previously convicted fraudster - who once boasted he was worth €700m - is now living in a dilapidated, converted farm building which he laughingly describes as the centre of a global media empire.
Di Stefano denies 25 counts of deception, fraud and money laundering. The court hear how he tricked people into thinking he was a legal professional when he was "not a qualified lawyer at all". He faces a long stretch in jail if convicted. Sitting behind his qualified legal team, the once dapper businessman and advisor to the underworld bit his nails and cut a shambolic figure. And the jury at Southwark Crown Court in central London laughed while being told of his bombastic boasts about his friendship with Saddam Hussein, his defence of Adolf Hitler, and his support of fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
He also claimed to represent timeshare fraudster John 'Goldfinger' Palmer and the notorious drugs smuggler John Gilligan, as well as Harold Shipman, the UK's most prolific serial killer, and cop killer and crime godfather Kenny Noye.
His most infamous 'client' was Saddam Hussein, who in 1998 gave him a set of gold chairs and of which Di Stefano is very proud of.
Blushed
"I've always said that he's a nice guy - there isn't a person that can say a bad word about him," the court heard him say of Hussein, to the unrestrained laughter of the jury.
Shamless Di Stefano even blushed when the court heard his claims that there was no evidence that Hitler was responsible for the gassing of millions during World War II.
"Not a single document would connect Hitler with a signature or memo with those heinous crimes, and on that basis he would have been acquitted of war crimes," he said, before calling for a mock trial to establish the innocence of the German Nazi dictator.
His lies caught up with him in February of last year when he was arrested in Palma, Spain, and extradited to the UK to face a succession of criminal charges.
The legal qualifications of Di Stefano have been challenged for nearly a decade, but this is the first time that he has been charged with duping people into believing he is a lawyer.
The 57-year-old is accused of stealing €800,000 from clients while claiming to be a legitimate legal advisor.
The Court was told that Di Stefano would tell clients that he was "well connected" and extremely wealthy and would encourage the perception with offers of meetings in Rome and Portugal.
However, he is currently renting a rundown converted barn in North Stream, Marshside in the Kent Countryside.
Steps to the wooden building were in a dangerous state and weeds were abundant around the property, which now purports to be the headquarters of his new media empire.
The business, known as The Online Publishing Company, is currently being investigated in Ireland for incitement to hatred and defamation arising from the conman's outrageous and libellous attacks on anyone who has exposed his lies.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1302:47 AM
IS THIS MARY BOYLE'S SHALLOW GRAVE? Cops to dig for shallow grave in Ireland's longest missing child case
DISAPPEARED: Mary Boyle
THE LITTLE girl at the centre of Ireland's longest missing child hunt could be lying in a shallow grave yards from where she went missing. The grave was identified by three searchers looking for sixyear- old Mary Boyle just days after she disappeared in 1977.
However, despite the fact it was marked and reported to gardai working on the case, it was never checked out, a Sunday World investigation reveals today. We can also disclose how the site is set to be dug up in a new review that could lead to the first major breakthrough in the hunt for the little girl.
Just weeks ago, officers reviewing the 36-year-old mystery visited a bowlshaped area of land at Cashelard, in Donegal, near where Mary was last seen by her uncle Gerry Gallagher, as she followed him from his family farm to a neighbour's property.
Forensic
They have also interviewed and taken lengthy statements from the surviving searchers who found the freshlydug earth - one of whom describes today how the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when he saw it. Gardai under Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny have also taken evidence that is known to have been on the land at the time Mary vanished and sent it for forensic analysis.
A Sunday World Cold Case team this week investigates the mystery of Mary's disappearance on the lonely hillside where the secrets behind her death still lie.
We can reveal how:
a shallow grave was reported to Gardai THREE times across three decades but has yet to be excavated; senior New York Police Department (NYPD) officers have offered their services to the hunt for Mary and believe they have identified a suspect in her disappearance; a review team hope that forensics may still help them solve the case despite the passage of time; a cross erected in memory of the little girl has been mysteriously removed, and; how former chief suspect, child killer Robert Black, couldn't have been involved, according to experts. Today, Mary's twin sister Ann also issues a desperate plea to the Gardai to excavate the grave discovered by witnesses on the hillside where her sister disappeared 36 years ago. The site, a little over a hundred metres from the last place Mary was last seen alive, was identified by three witnesses just two days after she went missing, but has never been searched or undergone any forensic analysis.
SEARCH: Ann Boyle
"They need to search it to see if she is there or was there. I hope they will because if someone has come forward and said that they thought that this was a grave, then it's the only clue we would have in all this time," an emotional Ann said.
Mary and Ann were visiting their grandparents' home in Cashelard on St Patrick's weekend in 1977 when the unthinkable happened. After dinner, Mary set out to follow her uncle Gerry across the boggy hillside, but never came back. Her disappearance is the longest missing child investigation in the history of the State, but today, in the first of our two-part Cold Case review, we untangle the veil of secrecy that has hung over the files for decades.
The Sunday World understands that in the aftermath of Mary's disappearance, hundreds of local farmers came to offer their help searching for her. During day two, a line of volunteers stretched from the Gallagher cottage to the top of the mountain and began to walk across it. Three searchers, including farmer John Gallagher (no relation), say they came across what looked like a freshlydug grave measuring about four feet by two feet.
One of the trio, who has since died, later told an officer involved in the original investigation that he pulled at some of the sod and saw what looked like brown hair.
John Gallagher told our team last week: "The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. There is no doubt but it was a grave."
He said he marked the site with a stick and made his way to a mobile unit which was being used as the Garda's headquarters during the searches. He informed an officer of his find. The Sunday World understands that the grave was never mentioned again and weeks later, when Gallagher enquired, he was informed that it had been ruled out.
Weeks after her disappearance, two graves were dug in lands near the family farm. They were routinely excavated to make sure they held animal remains and not the child, but incredibly, the one nearest the place where she was last seen was left untouched.
In 1995, when Gardai began to reinvestigate the unsolved case, the man who claims to have seen the hair went with an officer to point out where he had stumbled upon the shallow grave. Again, nothing was done.
In the past few weeks, a team under Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny have again had the area identified to them and taken fresh statements in relation to it. It is unthinkable that it will not be searched at this point by officers reviewing the case. We can also reveal that two senior NYPD homicide detectives are carrying out enquiries in the area on behalf of the family and believe they have identified a new suspect.
Testing
FINAL SIGHTING: Gerry Gallagher was the last to see her
Forensics could still be the key to the case. An item has recently been removed by Gardai and has been sent for forensic testing. A scientist working with the Sunday World on the case, the man who recently identified the remains of King Richard III under a car park in England after 500 years, has said he believes the truth about what happened to Mary is likely to be preserved if her remains can be found.
Leading forensic pathologist Stuart Hamilton says the boggy and acidic soil of Cashelard would provide the perfect preservation for organic tissue and could have kept safe detailed clues as to how she met her end. Country singer Margo O'Donnell, a cousin of Mary, who demanded that officers re-open the case two years ago, says she is stunned that a cross she erected to the little girl at the top of the mountain, near an area known as the Blind Lough, has been removed.
"Why anyone would have removed it is just baffling. It must have been an uncomfortable reminder to someone that their past may be about to catch up with them," she said.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1303:57 AM
THE DEVASTATED dad of murder victim lee Slattery has broken his silence to reveal how his family have been subjected to a sick campaign of intimidation by his son's killers.
Tragic Lee (24), was found buried in a shallow grave in Moyross, where he had been dumped in June 2010 after being shot in the head.
Dad-of-one Lee - who was not involved in organised crime - was lured to his death and executed bv members of a mob involved in the drugs trade in Moyross.
Gardai have arrested a total of eight people in connection with the savage murder, including feared gun criminal Kurt Ryan, The thugs include a number of hardened young criminals who form the core of new mob causing chaos on Limerick's northside.
Earlier this month, Limerick's Joint Policing Committee heard how a "new violent gang" had emerged in Moyross and was responsible for an outbreak of violence.
Speaking to the Sunday World this week, Lee's dad Ray, who refused to show his face because of fears for his safety,
revealed how:
* his family have been harassed and intimidated by his son's killers;
• he was approached by crime boss 'Fat' John McCarthy, who denied all knowledge of the murder and;
• Lee had been under threat after refusing to set up mobster Shane Mason to be killed.
Lee's lifeless body was found in wasteland near the Delmege Estate on June 1, 2010, after three days of searching by his family.
Ray said he knew his son had been killed the minute he was told he was missing.
"I knew he had been murdered. I filed a missing person's report with the gardai, but it was my family who actually found his body," Ray said. "I got word that he was last seen cycling down to Delmege on his bike.
"We went down there ourselves and spend three days going through that place. A couple of people told me to keep searching in the wasteland there, so we knew he was lying in a shallow grave.
"My brothers and my nephews and my family went through it. It was actually Lee's own brother and his two uncles who found him. It was devastating. Some people from my family wanted to do some- thing about it, but I didn't want that.
Debt
"You can imagine yourself with families how they feel when someone murders your son. But my family didn't live like that so we weren't going to go down that road. It just leads to more and more trouble and then someone else ends up killed."
Initial reports claimed that Lee had been murdered because he owed money for drugs to an associate of 'Fat' John McCarthy's. However, Ray claims that this bedroom. I can't go into it all, but that was one of the things that was said in it."
Last year Mason (29), who is a senior member of the Keane-Collopy gang, was jailed for 17 years for shooting Danny Philips in the head.
Before he was jailed, Mason was involved in a violent feud with Moyross-based associates of 'Fat' John McCarthy.
McCarthy (41), controls the drugs trade in Moyross and Ballynanty and is currently serving a 14-year sentence for heroin trafficking.
Gardai believe he supplies heroin,cocaine and cannabis to a network of dealers - including the up-and-coming mob responsible for Lee's murder.However, Ray said he does not believe McCarthy sanctioned the hit on his son.
"Fat John came up to me and told me he did not have anything to do with Lee getting shot. To be honest, I believed him.
"The eight people that have been arrested know why and how Lee was killed. The Gardai have the right men. I believe they acted on their own."
Ray said that as soon as the Gardai started to investigate the crime, Lee's killers began to orchestrate a campaign of intimidation against the family.
Hanging
"They were hanging around our house.Five or six of them would be walking around the front of our house every day. I had to have words with a few of them.
"We all had to move out of the area, but they still kept up the intimidation if they met us in town. Recently, one of them followed a family member as they tried to something to eat.
"I knew them from when they were kids. I knew Kurt Ryan when he was growing up. He was alright as a young fella, but you could see he wanted to be a gangster. He wanted to be the big man.
"Two of my brothers died over Lee's death. One of them drank himself to death over it in England. He blamed himself.
"Lee left a little girl who talks about him every day and how he is in heaven."
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1304:03 AM
A PARISH priest said he feared 'for his me during a terrifying aggravated burglary at a parochial house in Co. Galway.
A four-man gang burst into the home of Fr Patrick O'Brien beside the Church of Mary Immaculate and St Joseph in Caherlistrane at around 9.30pm on Friday.
The raiders tied up Fr O'Bricn, who was alone at the time. A garda spokesman said: "All four were wearing balaclavas and gloves and one was carrying a crowbar."
Alarm
The gang ransacked the house for more than an hour while F1' O'Brien was tied up.
Eventually they fled the scene with a small amount of cash. Fr O'Brien subsequently managed to escape before raising the alarm at a neighbour's house.
The priest, who is originally from Co. Mayo, was not injured,but was badly shook up by the frightening ordeal. Headford priest Fr Ray Flaherty, a personal friend of Fr O'Brien, visited him after the attack.
He explained: "He was very shook up. He was saying the leader of the gang seemed to have a bit of compassion in him,but there was one particular guy he was afraid of. "He feared for his life because he was very threatening. The house looked like a tornado had hit it."
Fr O'Brien's home was previously broken into around a month ago while he was saying Mass and the raiders on that occasion took £1,000, which were the proceeds of a Trocaire collection.
Baptisim
Fr Flaherty said that Fr O'Brien was still making sure parish work continued. "There was a wedding happening today and there was a baptism and he was trying to organise other priests coming in to help. He was trying to get things sorted, that's just the kind of man he is."
Gardai say one of the attackers was wearing jeans and a blue tracksuit top with faded white writing on the front. Two of the thugs were wearing dark tops with jeans while a fourth was described as tall and thin wearing all black clothes.
Anyone in the vicinity of Caherlistrane between 9pm and midnight on Friday who saw any suspicious activity can contact Tuam garda station on 09370840 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1304:08 AM
A NOTORIOUS killer who brutally murdered a pensioner was permanently released from jail last Friday after serving 11 years behind bars.
Francis Palmer (42), was at the centre of one of the most savage crimes of the 1990s after he shot dead a pensioner during a raid on a home in Rosegreen, Co. Tipperary.
The Dublin criminal was part of an armed gang that gunned down innocent cattle dealer Danny Fanning (71), in cold blood in front of his terrified wife at their home.
The court heard that a gang had targeted Mr Fanning after being told that on cattle market days the elderly farmer often returned home with more than £60,000, which he kept in a safe. However, their information was out of date and they fled with a wallet containing just £155 after "punishing" Danny by shooting him in the knee.
Life
Bizarrely, Palmer's name hit the head-lines again in 2005,when it emerged his twin brother was dating pop queen Samantha Mumba.Former male stripper Gary Palmer went out with the singer for a few months.
However,killer Francis finally walked free from prison on Friday morning after signing forms agreeing to the terms of his release. Palmer is the second high-profile 'lifer' to be released from the Training Unit in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, DATE: Samantha & Garv killer Sean Courtney also walked free from the same jail after spending 20 years behind bars for the murder of Patricia O'Toole.
Courtney (46), was sentenced to life in 1993 after admitting he battered the 31-year-old newlywed to death with a rock and dumped her body in the Dublin mountains. A source said Palmer will be released under strict conditions and will be returned to prison if he gets up to his old tricks. "He will be released on permanent licence and, if he is arrested in connection to a crime, can be taken back into prison without being convicted in a court."
Last month, the Sunday World revealed how Palmer was commuting from Mount joy Prison to his job as a mechanic in West Dublin.
In May 1997, Palmer, originally from Foxborough Road, Lucan,Co. Dublin, was jailed for life. The court was told how two men wearing balaclavas and brandishing sawed-off shotguns had burst into Danny Fanning's home and ordered him and his 65 -year-old wife Biddy to lie on the floor.
The couple's youngest daughter Rose (26), was forced into the farmhouse by a third masked man wielding a baseball bat.Biddy and Rose were taken into a bedroom where they were tied up. After shooting the farmer in the leg and cutting the phone lines the gang made their get-away in Rose's car.
Bleeding
When the women wriggled free 15 minutes later they found Danny tied to a chair and bleeding heavily. By the time neighbours fetched a doctor he was dead.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 03/25/1304:15 AM
IT IS the worst night-mare for any woman who decides to give internet dating a try.
This ad - placed on a well-known dating web site-shows a seemingly innocent looking student who claims to be looking for a woman who "sees the beauty in life".
Mark Curneen (24), currently has lonely hearts ads running on six web- sites - including sixdating.com, completelyfree-dating.ie and best dating-now.com.
In his ads, Curneen that his ideal match be a woman who wants to "friends first" and that should be sensitive,and loving. But despite his fresh looks and romantic Curneen is in fact a pervert with a history of sex attacks on women.
Wrestled
Last week, he was jailed for three-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to a terrifying sex assault on a young woman near his home in Cabinteely, South Dublin.
The court heard how Curneen,from Marlfield Gardens, Johnstown Road, Dublin, had pulled out clumps of the woman's hair as he wrestled with her during the violent sex assault.
It is not the first time Curneen has come to the attention of the gardai for his perverted ways.
Last June, Curneen was dubbed the 'Dodder flasher' after he was convicted of exposing himself and performing a lewd act in front of a female bank worker.
The young woman claimed Curneen exposed and touched himself while his tongue was "lolling in his mouth" as he passed her on the banks of the Dodder in Ballsbridge.
It makes a sharp contrast to the mild-mannered persona put across by Cumeen on the dating websites.
Experts believe more than 400,000 Irish people have accounts with dating websites.
On the dating Curneen claims to be studying a range of different subjects including Medicine in UCD,Computer Science an Philosophy.
He writes: "I guess my ideal match should just be a girl looking for a boy looking for love and knows what she wants."
However, the truth behind Curneen's claims to be a kind-hearted romantic were exposed in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last week. The 6ft 3in pervert was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to three and a half years in prison with the final two years suspended. The court heard how the 22-year-old victim struggled with Curneen when he dragged her to the ground. She tried unsuccessfully to get away from him before he sexually assaulted her.
Lumps
She eventually ran off to a friend's house nearby, where the gardai were alerted. She was left with lumps on her head and clumps of her hair had been pulled out. Judge Mary Ellen Ring said if it had not been for the woman's "fortitude" and "bravery" in fighting off Curneen, he would be in a different court facing different charges.
She said she was particularly worried about the fact that Curneen had sexually misbehaved the year after the attack. Last year, Curneen was convicted of exposing himself to a woman who was walking home from work on August 25,2011.
Gardai on red alert as ex-INLA kingpin returns to Dublin.
Duffy was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010 after pleading guilty to killing a British soldier in 1992.
A judge jailed him for a minimum of 24 years – but Duffy served just two years after claiming the killing was an 'act of terror' under the Good Friday Agreement.
He is considered an especially dangerous individual and came to notoriety after leading the INLA in the notorious Ballymount Bloodbath in 1999.
During the incident, Duffy's INLA confronted a Dublin drugs gang in Ballymount, which led to the death of INLA man Patrick Campbell.
The row saw the INLA group strip, beat and interrogate the criminal gang, holding drills to the backs of their knees while threatening to shoot them.
Duffy and another man subsequently pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a shotgun and falsely imprisoning the four men at Ballymount Road Industrial Estate.
Duffy was later jailed for nine years by the Special Criminal Court.
Following his release in 2007, he set about reorganising his INLA gang, focusing on extortion and taking over from drug gangs in the Dublin 8 area.
In June 2008, he was arrested outside the home of a prominent Cork businessman after gardai foiled a suspected kidnap.
He was charged with INLA membership and remanded in custody.
In 2009, he publicly denounced the INLA and pleaded guilty before the Special Criminal Court to membership of an illegal organisation. It is understood he has been subject to death threats since distancing himself from the INLA.
He was jailed for four years before being arrested under a European Arrest Warrant for the murder of Sgt Michael Newman, who was shot dead in Derby in 1992.
After completing his sentence for INLA membership in April 2010, he was extradited to Britain, where he pleaded guilty to the murder of Sgt Newman.
Although sentenced to life, he was freed after two years.
release
Before Duffy was jailed in 2009, he was involved in a turf war with gang boss 'Fat' Freddie Thompson (32).
In the intervening years, Thompson has relocated to Spain, but sources feel his brother Richie could be under threat following Duffy's return.
Since his release last week, Duffy has gone back to the south inner city home of his partner and their two children, in close proximity to the Thompson family.
After his return to Dublin, he travelled to Tallaght to meet an associate in a pub.
With Thompson out of the country, the RIRA still reeling from the murder of Alan Ryan in north Dublin and the murder of Eamon Kelly, there is now a power vacuum in Dublin – one of which Duffy could take advantage.
Officers in Tallaght are said to be particularly concerned about Duffy's meeting there with an associate.
Following the reorganisation of his INLA gang in 2007, he decided to target Freddie Thompson, taking over security at a number of licensed premises and supplying drugs.
He crossed swords with three drug dealers who were supplied by Thompson, demanding protection money from them.
Duffy and Thompson subsequently had a row on Francis Street, with Duffy telling the crime boss he was staying in the area.
Thompson was threatened he would be killed if he did not leave the country.
EVEN one of Ireland's most notorious debt collectors appears to have been bitten by the recession.
The firm run by veteran criminal Martin 'The Viper' Foley has recorded a significant drop in profits.
Newly published accounts show that The Viper Debt Collection Agency suffered a loss of €6,324 for the year ending September 2010, a hefty fall from the €27,316 profits recorded in 2009.
Foley (62), who has 45 criminal convictions, is a director of the debt collection company with his partner, Sonia Doyle.
Accounts published last week by the Companies Office suggest that the recession has taken its toll on the business.
The firm recorded a gross profit in this period of €36,451 – a fall from €59,009 in the year previous. The news comes as sources close to Foley revealed that intends to "take a step back" from the running of the company later in the year.
The Viper has told associates in recent weeks that he intends to give up directly calling to people's doors.
The Viper has earmarked a date later this year when he will retire – as long as he can put in place a trusted individual.
Sources have revealed that he has become more concerned about his family's safety in recent months after an armed gang attacked his south Dublin home in the summer.
Opinion
The well-known debt collector has also become extremely irked with the level of media attention he continues to attract.
"Foley has made it clear he wants to take a back seat later in the year. I suppose you could say he will retire but he'll still hold on to the business," a well-placed source explained.
"He's been gauging opinion as to who he will ask to take over the running.
"But he doesn't trust many people so he won't take a step back until he finds someone suitable."
noconnor@herald.ie
The Viper has increased the security on his home on Cashel Avenue, Crumlin, after it was attacked by a three-man gang armed with golf clubs and baseball bats in July.
The Viper and Sonia Doyle were at home when the masked men attacked it and also smashed up two of the vans he uses for his agency.
Nobody was injured.
Sources say this incident caused great concern for The Viper, who has already been shot on four separate occasions.
But he has also complained to associates about the level of media coverage he continues to receive.
"He's been around for such a long time. He's into his sixties now and nearing retirement age anyway. But he still cares about the business and will be determined that any decision will not affect the collection agency."
The Viper did not respond to a request for comment.
•A TRAVELLER has revealed how his family are in fear for their lives after their home was burned down on Friday morning by a gang as part of a vicious feud.
Simon McDonagh said he is lucky to be alive after a traveller gang set fire to his house in Aonach on Chlair, in Clarecastle, Co. Clare, shortly before 5am. The arson attack came after masked men attacked the house armed with slash hooks, baseball bats and metal rods on Tuesday night.
Gardai have repeatedly warned that a traveller feud in Ennis, Co. Clare, is in danger of spiralling out of control after a series of violent tit-for-tat incidents over the last year. IDad-of-five Simon told the Sunday World: "The house is destroyed, we have nowhere to go. We have been in fear of our lives since all this started in July but nobody wants to help us." Gardai believe the latest round of feuding started following the breakdown of a relationship involving members of both families. There have been a number of arrests over recent months following damage to homes in the Ennis area.
Simon said his family are only alive because they did not return to the house after Tuesday's attack. "They came and smashed up the house, it is all on CCTV and I have given it to the gardai," he said. "Last month, one fella almost drove a weapon through my 19-year-old's head as he ran up the stairs with my seven -year-old in his arms trying to protect him. "After that, I said to myself I'm not going to stay in that house. The Council are not doing enough for us. We have phoned them 20 times and I think they've replied to us twice."
SENIOR gardai , accused of colluding with a major drug trafficker have been cleared of all wrongdoing,
The Sunday World can reveal that the Director of Public i Prosecutions (DPP) has decided that no officers will face charges in the case of convicted drug deal-er Kieran Boylan. The decision is a blow to the Garda Ombudsman, which spent four years and a . massive amount of money investigating the alleged , collusion between senior detectives and Boylan.
Sources say that the — Ombudsman was confident that at least one garda would 4 face charges, but the DPP did not liti' feel there was any evidence to justify bringing a criminal prosecution, despite a file being sent 4 which ran to hundreds of pages.
The careers of several respected ‘senior officers have been damaged by the allegations that they allowed Boylan to operate in exchange for information about rival dealers, but sources say that 4 the officers have now been totally 'vindicated. The 42-year-old haulier from Ardee, Co. Louth, was first busted.
No evidenceto suggest collusion in drugs case in 2003 in connection with a €750,000 haul of cocaine. He was on bail awaiting trial when he was again arrested by detectives from the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) in October 2005 in the yard of his haulage business.
He was in possession of €1.7m worth of cocaine and heroin. It had been claimed that while Boylan was in custody he said he was working for a senior detective and claimed he had been involved in several entrapment operations where smaller players were arrested.
He was charged with the possession of drugs with intent for sale or supply, but the charges were later dropped. They were then reinstated, but in 2008 the State dropped them again. In the meantime he was jailed in 2006 for three years for the 2003 bust. Gardai then conducted an internal inquiry into the Boylan case.However, the Garda Ombudsman's office was not happy and launched its own investigation soon afterwards.It spent the last four years trying to build a case.
The Ombudsman had investigated whether Boylan was given favourable treatment by the Gardai because he was involved in setting up other drug dealers for arrest. Officials also probed whether this was a factor in the charges being dropped by the DPP and whether gar-dai knew he was using his haulage business to import drugs. It was also alleged that senior gar-dai colluded with Boylan to get him an internationarhaulage licence and provided false and misleading infor-mation to the Department of Transport, saying that he had no drugs convictions.
His licence was subsequently revoked. Hindering A British Sunday newspaper has written extensively about the Boylan case, alleging all sorts of wrongdoing against officers, including that gardai were hindering the investigation by non-cooperation.
This led Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan to make an unprece-dented intervention last November, saying: "I was quite surprised when I saw the report, given the level of co-operation there has been between the two bodies. "I have cooperated fully and facili-tated fully all of the inquiries that the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission have requested. It would be unwise to go beyond that given that the report will be available in a number of weeks."
Although gardai were cleared of doing anything wrong in their deal-ings with Boylan, a new system for dealing with informants was introduced after the case. All informants must now be officially registered.
A MONEY-LAUNDERING pal of the late model Katy French has been admitted to hospital with "serious stress" after some of the country's most-dangerous villains came after him demanding €2m.
Dodgy car dealer Lee Cullen has been admitted to hospital for the sec-ond time in three months after being repeatedly visited by feared gang enforcer Paul Rice. The Tallaght-based hard man has been growing increasingly menacing because Cullen has no way of repaying the €500,000 he was given to launder on behalf of drug barons Christy Kinahan and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh.
Cullen was given the drugs money to invest in property six years ago and promised to return €1m, accord-ing tu sources. However, he has lost a fortune in the property downturn and six months ago he started receiving vis-its from Rice, who previously worked as muscle for Cullen himself.
Whacked
Rice said that Kavanagh and Kinahan were short of money and demanded that Cullen pay up in full. However, Cullen has no way to pay back what he owes and following Rice's latest visit three weeks ago, he now fears that Kavanagh will run out of patience and have him whacked. Cullen was regarded as an expert money launderer and also owes at least another Elm to other Dublin criminals.
Five months ago he received a serious beating because he could not pay a small-time dealer what he owes. Cullen is this weekend receiving medical attention and is said to be on the brink of a breakdown. He was only out of hospital a matter of weeks after a previous stress-related incident when he became ill again.Lee Cullen, who owned Exclusive Cars in Saggart, Co Dublin, lived the high life during the Celtic Tiger years. He mingled with the rich and famous and was a good friend of Katy French. He loaned the tragic model the €100,000 Range Rover she drove on the night she suffered a cocaine-, induced heart attack in Kieran.
RAID:
Cops search Cullen motors Ducie's house in Kilmessan, Co Meath. The Criminal Assets Bureau launched a major investigation into Cullen's dodgy car business in 2006, which led to him paying an incredi-ble €2.1m. Following a Sunday World expose on his activities after the CAB raids, Cullen ran to the High Court seek-ing to gag us for revealing he was at the centre of a €220,000 VRT fraud. Although Cullen claimed to be a legitimate businessman, the court heard how he had links to serious criminals, including Slzane Lyons, fraud-ster Brian Healy and drug dealers Kavanagh and Rice. Mr Justice Peter Charleton said that Cullen's evi-dence in relation to CAB was incredible.
He added that if Cullen tried to take a libel action against us, then a jury could agree that sto-ries about Isis links with money laundering and dubious characters were completely justified. Like many Celtic Tiger cubs, Cullen over-stretched himself and used investments given to him by major gangsters to borrow money to invest in a variety of apartment schemes. He specialised in the sale of huge-ly expensive motors and still owns dozens of valuable cars. Last year we revealed how the 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh were desperately short of money and had ordered Freddie Thompson and Paul Rice to start collecting everything that was owed to them.
Gangsters Rice was told in no uncertain terms to make sure that Cullen set-tled his tab and has been putting increasing pressure on Lee Cullen. Ironically, Rice was one of Cullen's closest friends and was put to work by Cullen, intimi-dating people who owed him money. Shortly after the CAB raids in late 2007, Cullen was charged with 21 counts of fraud and denied for years that he was guilty. However, last November he filially pleaded guilty to defrauding the State of E220,000. He will be sentenced in July.
THE FIANCEE of a British soldier gunned down by former INLA boss DecIan 'Whacker' Duffy says he has "got away with murder" after being released just two-and-a-half years into a life sentence.
Last week the Sunday World exclusively revealed that Duffy is back on the streets of the capital, despite being caged for life in July 2010 for the murder of Sergeant Michael Newman in Derby, England, in 1992. The judge ordered that 39-year-old Duffy, originally from Armagh city, should serve a minimum of 24 years, but the psycho terrorist was freed under the Good Friday Agreement.
Execution Now Sergeant Newman's heartbroken fiancée Elizabeth Robinson has slammed the move as a "joke", saying it takes away her "bit of justice" and that she will never forgive Duffy for the cold-blooded execution. Derby police called to Ms Robinson's door last week to give her the news. She was just 28 when Sergeant Newman (33), was murdered by Duffy and two other INLA terrorists, Joe Magee and Anthony Gorman. Speaking to the Sunday World from her home in Chaddesden, Derbyshire, this week, Elizabeth said: "It really makes me angry, but I have to learn to deal with that.
I expected it. "Why did he give himself up in the first place? He knew this would happen. He just wants to get back to his lovely little family. It's a joke." The couple had been together for five years before Newman was executed by an 'NIA hit squad that had stalked him for three weeks. Elizabeth said she had some comfort while Duffy was in jail, but that has now been shattered.
"It doesn't bring Michael back, but they should serve their sentences. That is my bit of justice," she said. "I just look at it like he's just been allowed to get away with it." Elizabeth Robinson said she has moved on with her life, but that it has not been easy. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about Michael. While you remember someone, they are always alive. No-one can take my memories, not even them. "I haven't stopped loving him and never will. I will never forget what they have done." Elizabeth was in court in July 2010 when Duffy pleaded guilty to the mur-der and was caged for life. She found it a harrowing experience.
CAUGHT:
Clothes dumped after murder "I dared myself to look at him once because that was enough for me. My friends said that when the judge told him to stand up, he didn't quiver or show any remorse, he didn't even flinch." The terror chief told police to apolo-gise to Newman's family on his behalf, but Ms Robinson, who is a nurse, says she will never forgive him. "He wouldn't get forgiveness from inc.
That would not be closure for me," she said. Michael Newman was divorced with a six year-old daughter when he was mur-dered. He worked as a recruitment officer for the army and had never even served in Northern Ireland. He was not even wear-ing his uniform when he was murdered. His ex-wife Dawn Boyle is also angry at the decision to release Duffy.
"I just think the whole justice system is totally wrong. If we were to go over there [Northern Ireland] and do some-thing like that, we'd get life. The whole thing makes me angry," she said. "We knew he wouldn't get long because Joe Magee didn't. It took us 12 years to get Magee and he only did a couple of years. In court, they sat there with smiles on their faces because they knew they would get away with it.
" Gardai are on high alert after Duffy was set free and immediately made his way to Dublin. He is regarded as being one of most dangerous criminals to emerge from The Troubles. The return of Duffy is a hugely signif-icant and worrying development, with senior gardai expecting him to make a move to fill the power vacuum that exists in Dublin's gangland following the Real IRA civil war and the depar-ture of several major drug dealers. Infamous He is being monitored by the Garda Special Branch and left the country for a few days this week to travel to the UK.
It is understood he was meeting an associate regarding getting money to set himself up now that he is free. Duffy led the INLA in the infamous `Ballymount Bloodbath' in 1999. During the notorious incident, an INLA active service unit took six men hostage when they went to a factory in the Ballymount industrial estate in Dublin to demand money from the owner.
The men were viciously tortured, but when 12 of their friends arrived, a mass brawl ensued and INLA volunteer Patrick 'Bo' Campbell died after being struck with a machete. Duffy was caught with a note detailing exactly what hap-pened and was jailed for nine years. When he was released in February 2007 he reorganised the INLA and set about taking over from drug dealing gangs in Dublin 8.
He was eventually arrested and charged with membership of an illegal organisation. In May 2009 he surprisingly pleaded guilty before the Special Criminal Court and publically denounced the INLA. He was jailed for four years. After completing his sentence for DILA membership in April 2010, he was extradited to Britain, where he pleaded guilty to the murder of Sergeant Newman. He was shot at point-blank range in the head in what the judge described as a "heinous crime".
UNLA killer DecIan Whacker' Duffy's right-hand man is also back living in Dublin and has linked up with drug dealing criminals from the south inner city.
Joe 'Mad Dog' Magee is originally from Armagh, but moved to Dublin with 'Whacker' after the murder of Sergeant Michael Newman in 1992. Magee (46), was a key member of the INLA and worked as a 'thug for hire' for a number of drug dealers, • including John Gilligan. , In 2004, he became the first person to be jailed for Sergeant Newman's 'Murder, when he pleaded guilty in Nottingham Crown Court.
After being released early under the Belfast Agreement, Magee returned to Ireland - eventually moving to Dublin. A source said the convicted killer is regularly seen in the company of a drug gang based in Charlemont Street. The mob are heavily involvedin selling heroin and are locked in a bitter feud with rival criminals from the Vincent Street area.
Magee is said to be friendly with gangster's moll Natasha McEnroe - mobster Brian Rattigan's ex-girlfriend - who lives in Ranelagh. Last month,the funeral of Anthony Burke Geraghty in Raihmines. Anthony - who is the brother of McEnroe's new boyfriend Paul - died suddenly after a night out with friends on February 24.
JAILED fraudster and bogus lawyer Giovanni di Stefano tried to ban the Sunday World from reporting the case which led to him being locked up.
In proceedings which can only be reported now, Di Stefano brazenly tried to get this paper banned from covering his trial after we had tracked him to his rundown home in Kent, England, and exposed him as a liar and fan-tasist when we confronted him outside Southwark Crown Court in London. The 57-year-old Italian was jailed for 14 years on Thursday for 25 counts of fraud and money laundering.
Di Stefano pretended to be legally qualified while claiming to represent Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and a host of underworld undesirables, from Patrick Putchy' Holland to John `Goldfinger' Palmer. But the serial spoofer made sure his own lawyers were qualified when he tried to stop the Sunday World from exposing his activities.
Di Stefano's lawyer Leonard Smith QC claimed that this reporter was harassing his client outside the courthouse and at his home in Kent when we tracked Di Stefano to a rundown farm-house where he was living while on hail. Despite insisting he was worth C700 million, we embarrassed him about his new claims that he was building a multi-million pound media empire out of an old chicken shed in Marshside in the Kent countryside. His legal team claimed our reporting had prejudiced his trial and was unfair,
SPOOFER:
Giovanni di Stefano and asked for the trial to be stopped because of our hard-hitting questions. However, in a special hearing halfway through the two-month trial, Justice Alistair McCreath refused to criticise this reporter and rejected all demands by Di Stefano to have the trial halted and this paper banned from the press gallery., Justice McCreath refused to rule on the 'content of our stories and allowed the paper to continue to report the case and Di Stefano's ludicrous attempts at evad-ing the overwhelming evidence that was stacked up against him.
Arrogant For more than three decades, the Italian fraudster and liar relied on an honorary degree from Serbian war crimi-nal Slobodan Milosevic and membership of various international law associa-tions to claim he was entitled to act as a solicitor. Sitting behind his team of lawyers, he Cut an arrogant figure until the returned guilty verdicts on all counts of deception, fraud and money laun-dering involving more than €1.3m.
He had pre-was living in run-down countryside shack convictions for fraud which he tried to hide and had been deported as an undesirable alien from the US - but for years he continued to pass himself off as a respectable lawyer chasing some of the world's most dangerous and desperate defendants. During the trial, jurors stifled laughter as they heard him describe Saddam Hussein as "a lovely man who no-one can say a word against".
And there was shock as the jury was told how Di Stefano - who has duped some mem-bers of the Irish media into treating him seriously as a lawyer - claimed he could have got Adolf Hitler off a war crimes rap as he had nothing to do with the Holocaust. But the loudmouth fraudster, who loves spoofing to gullible reporters, had noth-ing to say when approached by the Sunday World.
Ironically, the conman, who loves to mingle with underworld killers, pleaded with us to leave him alone or he would "call the police". "How does it feel to be repre-sented by a qualified lawyer?" we asked him. "Any thoughts of representing yourself or did you think you weren't up to the job?" we asked, as the so-called Devil's Advocate ran for cover. The judge told Di Stefano:
"I recognise that you did not actively seek out those whom you defraud-ed. They came to you. You did not approach them but there is more than one kind of predator. "Some predators hunt down their vic-tims, others lie in wait for them. "Your victims in this case were all des-perate people and people who, because of their desperation, were vulnerable.'
The judge also noted that "while this case is about money, it is also about some-thing different and great - it is about the real distress you caused to many people". "You had no regard for them nor for their anguish," he said. "Your only con-cern was to line your own pockets." During the trial, Di Stefano told of his links to Robert Mugabe, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and his "friendship" with the daughter of Slobodan Milosevic.
Boasted The court was shown a 2004 BBC docu-mentary in which he described Saddam as a "nice guy" and boasted of being asked to defend killers such as Jeremy Bamber, Harold Shipman, Kenneth Noye and Linda Calvey. Di Stefano was born in the small town of Petrella Tifernina in central Italy, but moved to the UK as a boy and went to school in Wollaston, Northamptonshire. He will have no shortage of potential clients as he spends the next 14 years at her majesty's pleasure in company of fel-low fraudsters, criminals and thieves.
After the case, Det Insp Matthew Bradford, from the fraud investigation team in the City of London Police Economic Crime Directorate, said: "This is a man who courted publicity, fame and even generated notoriety and respect for his legal services - but it was all built on his lies, deception and greed. "The irony is that among Di Stefano's clients were individuals who were being prosecuted for serious criminal offences or had a criminal background - yet they themselves became victims of Di Stefano's crimes."
A BRUTAL bare-knuckle brawl between the McGinley clan and Celebrity Big Brother Paddy Doherty's family took place in the UK on Sunday to settle a bitter feud.
These grim scenes show Trevor McGinley clashing with Hughie `Quie' Doherty under a motorway fly-over outside Stoke. McGinley can be seen repeatedly punching Doherty in his bloodied face during the gruelling 40-minute fight. By the end of the brawl, McGinley's arms are cov-ered to the elbows in blood from the brawl.
Trevor is the brother of legendary bare-knuckle box-er Barney 'The Gorilla' McGinley. Last year, Hughie Doherty - a relative of Celebrity Big Brother winner Paddy Doherty - starred in the Channel 4 documentary, Gypsy Blood, during which he spoke about training his seven-year-old son to fight.
However, Doherty failed to live up to his own high standards of boxing and was declared the loser after he lashed out and kicked his opponent this week. After he is disqualified, McGinley can be heard shouting: "I won. Up the McGinley, I f**kin' won.
"Respect The two men have to then be pulled apart, as Doherty aims another kick at his rival. The pair continue to argue and Doherty repeatedly attempts to restart the fight while McGinley jumps about declaring himself the victor. McGinley shouts: "I bate ya, ya f**king' muppet."
After the two fighters are pulled apart, Doherty again attempts to punch his victorious rival. McGinley says: "The fight was stopped because a man was kicked and head butt. That's why it was stopped." In a post-fight interview in a pub, McGinley attempts to put the feud to bed - acknowledging Doherty as a worthy opponent.
"He's not a bad chap but nowhere in my class of boxing. How do you bate a man you can't hurt? "No blackguarding, I hope Quie shows me the same respect," he says. The fight came after months of tit-for-tat taunting on YouTube. In September, Hughie Doherty threw down the gauntlet to Barney 'the Gorilla' McGinley in an online rant, telling him: "You're nothing but a burger king."
VICIOUS:
The brutal fight lasted for 40 minutes CLAIMS WIN: McGinley
The challenge came after Northampton-based Doherty claimed McGinley said he had beat-en members of his clan in previous fights. In the video posted on YouTube, Doherty called on McGinley to fight him. "You were arguing on the internet about another Doherty man in Birmingham. You said you'd do to them what you done to the 'Punk' sons. You did f*** all, you wouldn't fight us,"
Hughie said. "If you are man enough to fight me I'm putting it straight to you now. You hid from my brother for five year the whole world knows that and you are going around the place telling everyone you are the king. "If you want to fight, ring me and get it on," Hughie taunted. "l'm giv-ing you seven days to ring me or I'm coming to find you sausage boy.
" The reply was not long in coming from the McGinley family, who cast doubts on the Doherty clan's ability to fight. • In December,Barney McGinley and four of his sons recorded a response and uploaded it onto YouTube. Barney McGinley claimed the Doherty family would regret chal-lenging them to a fight. "We are going to be boxing ye little men.
Don't be ringing up the phones and apologising, we are not happy till we bate ye little men. Ritter "Ye're not fighting men, ye never were fighting men - ye are far from fighting men." Both Hughie Doherty and Trevor McGinley come from well-known traveller clans with a history of bare-knuckle boxing. Trevor's father, Denis `Aney' McGinley, was previously crowed 'King of the Travellers' after a series of fight with bitter rival Big Joe Joyce in the 90s. Hughie is the son of Francie "The Punk" Doherty, once one of the most feared bare-knuckle box-ers in the UK.
Adam Graham and Michael Fagan managed to avoid jail terms this week, despite evidence that a garda had to jump out of their way and nar-rowly escaped being hit by their speeding stolen car, which ran over his bike.
Both men are key figures in a gang of 25 young thugs based around the Basin Street area in Dublin 8. They are well known to gardai and officers were disappointed after Graham was given a three-year sus-pended sentence for his part in the incident, while Fagan was also spared jail and hit with a two-and-a. half-year suspended jail term. Graham (22), was high on cocaine and booze in September 2011 when he was spotted driving erratically on the South Circular Road in the city.
Michael Fagan was in the front pas-senger seat of the €15,000 jeep, that had been stolen the previous month, A marked garda car signalled for the pair to stop, but Graham swerved around the patrol car and sped away. He broke several red lights and a number of motorists had to take eva-sive action to avoid being hit.
Two gardai on mountain bikes were waiting at St James's Walk to inter-cept the motor, but Graham didn't stop and drove straight at them. One garda had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit and his bike was crushed by the thugs. The impact was so strong that the jeep's windscreen was smashed. Panicked The jeep then lost control and crashed into the wall of a garden on Uppercross Road and the pair were arrested a few minutes later hiding in another garden. The jeep was written off after the crash. The two admitted their involvement, with Graham claim-ing he "panicked" when he saw the gardai.
He has 21 previous convictions for offences includ-ing drugs possession and theft. He had been banned from driving at the time of the incident. Adam's older brother Paul is also well known to gardai. The 23-year-old was recently jailed for five years after being caught with €35,000 worth of heroin which he claimed he was selling because he had a baby on the way. The pair are originally from Crumlin but now live in Portlaoise.
Michael Fagan, from Sperrin Road in Drimnagh, is regarded as being an up-and-coming gangster and has links to jailed gang boss Brian Rattigan. In September 2009 his family home was shot at by criminals aligned with Freddie Thompson, and the previous year his cousin Mark was shot in a field in Ballyfermot by three senior mem-bers of the Thompson mob.
Fagan briefly moved to England after a bench warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with a car theft. He is regularly stopped and searched by detectives. Graham and Fagan both featured in our exposé last month when we identified them as key members of the Basin Street mob. - The gang is led by Brian Rattigan's cousin Aaron.
We revealed how he had been warned by gardai that his life is in danger because of his feuding with mobsters linked to Thompson. The Rat tigan and Thompson gangs have been replaced by six new mobs with 200 members. Gardai have declared war on the outfits and have set up an elite new anti-gang squad to crack down on their activities.
Dangerous The 200 serious criminals, some as young as 16, are operating in just a few square miles in Dublin's south inner city and sources say they are the most dangerous mobsters that gardai have ever encountered. The new mobs have sprung up from the original Crumlin/Drimnagh feud, but sources say that Thompson and Rattigan have no control over the latest generation of criminals.
THE heartbroken brother of an engineer who was brutally murdered by prostitute Tanya Doyle has said he believes she is "psychopathic" and could kill again.
Killer Doyle (40), was sen-tenced to life in prison earli-er this month for savagely stabbing her husband Paul Byrne (48), to death. The Tallaght-born prostitute knifed Byrne more than 60 times in a frenzied attack at his home on September 4, 2009. During her trial, the jury heard a recording of a chilling 999 call where tragic Paul was heard beg-ging for help, saying: "My wife is stabbing me."
The court also heard evidence that Doyle had claimed to be a high-class hooker and that Paul had profited from a sleazy escort agency she was running. Devastated But speaking to the Sunday' World, Paul's devastated brother Noel said his reputation was unfairly attacked by Doyle in court. He claimed that:
His brother was a successful professional with no involvement with the vice trade; • He forgives Doyle but believes she is a psychopath who could kill again;His family were pursued for two years by banks looking for cash for Doyle's cosmetic surgery.
During her murder trial, the jury heard evidence that Doyle had claimed Paul had been taking €900 out of her account every month from her escort agency. However, Paul's brother Noel said Doyle had just made this up to jus-tify her action's. "Besides everything else, Paul didn't need the money. At the height of the Celtic Tiger he was earning €120,000 a year. "It would be totally out of charac-ter for him. Paul was an introvert and shy. He would never have been involved in anything like that and there was no evidence or proof to back up her claims.
"In fact, the only evidence of money transfers was the fact that Psychopath Tanya has no remorse Paul was giving her €1,300 a month after they broke up. "It was difficult to sit there and lis-ten to that. The person who dies does-n't have any course to redress when their character is taken." The court heard Doyle owed more than €70,000 to financial institutions - some of which she spent on breast implants and cos-metic surgery.
She told gardai that she had spent the cash on "boob jobs, nose jobs, veneers". Noel said that banks threatened to sue his family for the money owed by Doyle - despite the fact she had killed their brother. "Those banks sent people out to us to try and get that money back for up to two years, even though we told them about the circumstances. "Having to deal with the banks while we were trying to deal with Paul's death really added to our stress and grief.
" In 2006, Paul was lucky to escape with his life after he was stabbed in the chest by Doyle. Following the stabbing, the cou-ple had effectively separated and Doyle had moved abroad for a peri-od of time. Despite everything, the pair had remained close and Doyle sometimes stayed with Paul when she was in Dublin.
Two weeks ago, Doyle, who is now jailed in Mountjoy Prison's female wing, showed no emotion when she was convicted of murder. Emotion "She was psychopathic, she did-n't show any emotion. She was detached all the time and that was evident since the stabbing in 2006," said Noel. "There was never any sign or indication of remorse. I think a true sense of remorse would help our family.
"I don't have any feelings towards her one way or another. Paul forgave her after 2006. He might not have felt comfortable liv-ing with her and obviously that fear had subsided. "But he wouldn't have liked to see her sent to prison, even though it was his call that got her caught. I feel he would have forgiven her and I have forgiven her too. "But I do think, plainly and sim-ply she could do it again. Without remorse there is no ability to change."
THEY LIVED the Celtic Tiger dream on the proceeds of a cocaine and cannabis empire.
The children of 'businessman drug lord' Philip Baron mixed with celebrities and bankers and appeared in the gossip columns charting the love lives of the rich and famous. His daughter Nicola once dated tycoon's son Andy Quirke, whose brother Wes is engaged to former Miss World Rosanna Davison. But now the daughter of the major international criminal, who pleaded guilty to a massive drug conspiracy this week, and her brother Philip junior, have been dragged into the search for the prof-its of his international trafficking ring.
The Sunday World can reveal that the hunt is on for secret trusts worth millions set up by the Kildare-based drug smug-gler in the names of his children. And in a tale of two families, we can disclose how he exploited his daughter from a previous relationship, recruiting her into his evil business, while lavishing his second family, based near the K Club in Kildare, with all the luxuries drug money could buy. The 57-year-old Straffan-based crime kingpin, originally from Salford, Manchester, ran a criminal empire for 15 years from this country.
Today, we can reveal that he put a slice of the proceeds from international cocaine traf-ficking aside for his children, who were brought up as Celtic Tiger cubs in a luxury property at Bawnogues, New Road, Straffan. The money trail is revealed in financial logs and telephone intercepts secured by the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the Gardai during a lengthy investigation into the 'Baron of Kildare'. Baron, who presented a face f of total respectability and who sent his two children to private school in Ireland, was in fact a major drug importer who liaised with Colombian drug cartels and major mafia fig-ures across Europe to import tons of cocaine and cannabis into Ireland and the UK for the past two decades.
The Baron connection revealed a dramatic shift in the type of international syndicates deal-ing in drugs, according to SOCA officers. He started out in the legitimate haulage business, but quickly spotted that there was nothing to rival drugs as a transport commodity. "This was essentially a group of busi-nessmen who became drug dealers. It wasn't violent and each key person had their role," police sources revealed. Code "Losses were absorbed and there was a division of labour, much as you would expect in any corporation, and their sys-tem involved a complex arrangement of couriers and money men who spoke only in code." According to SOCA, Baron, his sidekick Walter Callinan and their associates acted like a board of directors.
Profits were divided like shareholders and consign-4 ments seized by cops I: around the globe were even put down on paper as 'losses'. The extensive investigation conducted by the Gardai and SOCA uncovered unprecedent-ed paperwork, logs of drugs deals and the massive profits being made by the traffickers. It also showed how Baron cruelly used his daughter Rachel, who lived in Manchester, while favouring his Irish children. In one deal, prof its were allocated and pre-pared for distribution and included a €2,000 fee that was kept aside to pay for Philip Baron Jnr's 18th birthday party.
The money paid for match-day tickets and a pri-vate suite at a Man United game. Meanwhile Baron cruelly exploited his other child from his estranged first mar-riage in the UK and manipulated Rachel into doing his dirty work, paying bills and laundering cash. "He treated Rachel disgustingly. When she had a child six year ago - his only grandchild - he sent over a skanky Salford drug dealer with €200 for a cot," a source told the Sunday World. Rachel (30), was also convicted and sen-tenced to three years in jail for her involvement in the conspiracy, but the court was lenient due in no small meas-ure to the manipulation of her father. "While Rachel was penniless, he was asking her to pay off bills with an American Express card, and to buy cars including a €100,000 Bentley convertible and a Range Rover on his behalf.
LUXURY:
Philip Baron's house in Straffan "While his Irish children, Philip and Nicola lived in the lap of luxury, his first daughter was smviving on benefits and the small crumbs from his proceeds of crime. He was just cruel beyond belief". Brains In an echo of Al Capone's demise, it was the gang's meticulous bookkeeping of profits and losses that became their downfall. Officers were able to link 'loss-es' in the ledgers with seizures of drugs by European and UK drug agencies. Callinan (61), who was the financial brains of the operation, also rented a property on the exclusive K Club estate in Straffan, Co. Kildare, through the Celtic Tiger boom years, and even used it to secure an ALB bank Account in Mullingar which was used to launder cash.
But it was 'respectable millionaire' Baron who specifically dealt with the notoriously violent Colombian cartels for his cocaine consignments, which he trans-ported from Costa Rica into Spain and then into the UK and Ireland. His criminal empire spread over three con-tinents and he lived a life of opulence until his extradition to the UK. Eighty-nine peo-ple were arrested in the five-year investiga-tion before Baron was targeted.
He organised a network of 12 virtual offices across the UK, from Glasgow to Cardiff, from where he would arrange for parcels of drugs to be delivered by main-stream legitimate international couriers. He was finally caught when months of police work recorded him giving orders for drugs and arranging deliveries in code which matched up to consign-ments which were found in the gang's financial logs. Other phone calls linked Baron to 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan and his bil-lion-euro Costa Cartel. Officers believe that both organisations cooperated to bring drugs into Ireland.
SIDEKICK:
Callinan Trusts He is facing a 20-year sentence, but has refused to divulge anything about the trusts which his associate Malcolm Carle is believed to have set up in his children's names in Eastern Europe. SOCA sources say that finan-cial logs relating to the gang's drug deals and intercepted prison phone calls confirmed the existence of the trusts, which were set up to benefit both Callinan's and ft) Baron's children. \ If It's understood that both Nicola and Philip Baron Jnr are in line to benefit, - but SOCA officers are keen to confirm that neither had any criminal involve-ment in any of one coded phone call, Baron advised an associate to destroy mobile phones linked to Kinahan's Irish Mafia in Spain.
Baron, who was known as '4X' because of his love of Range Rovers, regularly attended English football matches and the Ashes test series as well as attending black-tie balls. This week, the 57-year-old pleaded guilty to money laundering and drugs importation their father's activities. Baron's wife Elaine told SOCA officers that the children had been in contact with their father between 2006 and 2008 when he was being held on drugs charges in San Sebastian, Spain. Although Baron's current conviction relates to activities from 2008 and drugs importation into the UK, he is under-stood to have been active in the drugs world for two decades.
A case is already being prepared for the seizure of Baron's assets under proceeds of crime laws. With much of his wealth hidden, Baron was pleading poverty in recent years as he fought extradition from Ireland to the UK in a case which went all the way to the Supreme Court until he was eventually extradited in December last year. It's understood that his Straffan house is in negative equity and that his wife Elaine pawned off a €250,000 ring to finance his legal bill. He will be sentenced in June in Liverpool Crown Court, where a 20-year sentence awaits him despite his guilty plea. A recorded phone call from prison heard Baron lament that the evidence was so strong that "not even the Pope could get out of it".
Gardai have launched a nationwide operation to snare a gang of dangerous thugs — who have gone on a vicious armed robbery spree in a top-of-the-range car.
The thugs are using an Audi S4 car — capable of hitting speeds of more than 260kph — and leaving normal saloon cars used by gardai trailing in their wake.
Sources have told The Star that officers believe the gang of criminals, who target as many as six shops in one night, have stolen tens of thousands of euro in the robberies.
The gang targets shops and garages in night raids for cigarettes, money and booze — and have been known to drive 300km in one night to carry out their heists.
The S4 car, with a massive 5.2 litre V8 engine, easily outpaces any normal vehicle gardai on patrol have access to.
Raids have taken place all over Ireland, including counties Clare, Galway, Sligo, Mayo, Donegal, Offaly and Portlaoise.
Senior officers were so anxious to catch the gang that they sent a Garda helicopter to chase them after they carried out a series of raids in Monaghan and Meath early yesterday — but the criminals managed to escape across the border.
Sources have revealed that the thugs have attacked unarmed gardai at least three times in the last fortnight — pelting them with rocks and other missiles.
“They are active all over the country,” a source told The Star last night.
“And they are not afraid of being confronted by gardai.
“They actually wait for members to arrive and then attack them.”
Just two weeks ago, they attacked a premises in Castlebaldwin in Sligo — and prepared an ambush for gardai.
The criminals had lined up a row of rocks outside the shop, ready to be thrown at officers.
A few weeks earlier, they carried out another raid in Crusheen, Co Clare — and lined up cans of beans and peas to attack gardai.
In the latest incident, the criminals targeted a Garda car in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, before targeting a local shop.
Sources say the gang slashed the tyres of the Garda car to make sure officers could not stop them getting away after the robbery.
Then the thugs drove to nearby Newbliss, where they carried out another raid, before driving around 50km for even more mayhem.
They targeted shops in Summerhill and Tullyallen near Drogheda in Co Louth.
Gardai tried to catch them there but they launched a barrage of rocks and missiles at officers.
The Garda helicopter then started to give chase — but the gang hit speeds of more than 240kph on the M1 motorway and escaped into the North.
Sources say gardai believe the gang bought the Audi legally on a website.
KEN FOY, CRIME CORESPONDENT – 13 APRIL 2013 10:40 AM
GARDAI are braced for bloodshed following crimelord Christy Kinahan's release from prison. A major gangland alert has been issued after the international drugs baron walked free from a Belgian jail.
Detectives fear there will be carnage in the capital as the so-called 'Dapper Don' now goes on the warpath against drug gangs who owe him money.
"The fact that Kinahan is a free man again is causing huge concern to gardai, particularly the specialist units because he is owed so much money by dealers of all rank here.
"A lot of people are not going to be happy to hear about this news," said a senior source.
The 55-year-old is understood to have jumped straight on a plane and flown to his base on Spain's Costa Del Sol, following his release on Monday.
According to sources, Kinahan held a meeting with Tallaght crimeboss Paul Rice at the Spanish hideout.
"Information has come in that Rice flew out to Spain to meet Kinahan – the two men have been working together."
Flex
Rice (43) is one of the capital's most feared criminals and was previously put on a death list by the Real IRA. Both men will now seek to flex their muscles on the capital's crime underworld to force dealers and gangs to cough up cash.
Rice and his mob have been causing panic among drug dealers across the capital as they try to recoup hundreds of thousands of euro in cash that is owed to Kinahan's organisation. One of a number of criminals who have been targeted by the syndicate is a massive dealer who was the chief target of the special garda Operation Vulcan last February.
It is understood that apart from coming under pressure from Kinahan's mob, the Criminal Assets Bureau are at an advanced stage of seizing property and cash from this dealer who is based in Drimnagh but is originally from Cabra.
Rice's most serious conviction was when he was jailed for 10 years in July 1995, after he pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of a bank.
Tallaght man Rice escaped the scene on horseback after the incident in which shots were discharged and a security guard was kicked and beaten on the head with a lump hammer.
His associate Kinahan is the undisputed head drugs kingpin in Ireland.
Kinahan was released from the prison near Antwerp after serving a four-year sentence for fraud-related offences. The money laundering case was brought against the drug boss following his arrest by Belgian federal police, in May 2008.
He was extradited to Belgium from Spain in 2010 as part of the massive international Operation Shovel into his estimated €500m drugs enterprise.
The extensive cross-border police investigation into Kinahan's organisation was set up in 2008 but progress has been slow because of the complexity of the task.
While most of the inquiries carried out by the Garda National Drugs Unit and their counterparts overseas have been finalised, alleged assets are still being tracked around the world.
Suspects including Christy and his son Daniel Kinahan, and 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, are being investigated.
KEN FOY, CRIME CORRESPONDENT – 15 APRIL 2013 10:40 AM
DETECTIVES have begun a major clampdown on Triad gangs operating in Ireland.
Asian gangsters involved in extortion, drug cultivation and other criminal activities are being targeted by gardai.
Sources say several Triad groups are now established here and are involved in serious criminal activity.
"There is such a culture of secrecy and fear in relation to how these gangs operate that it is often very hard for gardai to make much inroads in these investigations," a source said.
Our exclusive photo shows one suspect being arrested after a dawn raid in Dublin city centre.
He was questioned by gardai in Mountjoy about the false imprisonment of another Asian man, which happened in north Dublin over Christmas.
Bosses
The kidnapping is linked to Asian gang activity particularly in the Parnell Street area of the capital, which has a large number of prominent Asian restaurants and businesses.
In many incidents the gangs here are working under instructions from Triad bosses outside of Ireland.
"This is a relatively new problem, but there are a number of Asian gangs operating now extorting money from businesses and their fellow nationals," said a source.
"There is a Triad gang problem in the city but there are also other Asian gangs operating including some from countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines.
"This week's arrest involves southeast Asian gangs. These criminals target people from their own countries and are making quite a lucrative trade in their enterprises."
During the photographed arrest this week, armed detectives swooped on the north inner-city apartment complex before escorting the cuffed Asian man to one of their unmarked patrol cars.
Since last year gardai have been monitoring gangs with some success.
On one occasion they raided 236 premises and arrested 54 foreigners under an investigation codenamed Operation Wireless.
Officers seized 4,200 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of €3.5m during searches in Dublin, Meath, Wexford and Cork last November.
The most serious outbreak of violence involving Triad gangs in the capital in recent times broke out last October at Capel Street.
In the early-morning attack, two men were left seriously wounded, one of them with a near-severed leg.
The incident occurred just before 2am on October 26 and involved a gang of six men armed with weapons that included knives, a hammer and a machete or sword.
Blood
A large pool of blood stained the footpath and the front of a bar on the street where the attack unfolded.
Gardai believe six men attacked three other men on the street as part of a dispute within the Chinese community.
In a separate matter, the Herald previously revealed that a small family based gang of Vietnamese criminals based in Birmingham are controlling much of the multi-million euro Irish cannabis growhouse industry, garda investigations have revealed.
The gang are exploiting "down and out and destitute" fellow nationals to come to Ireland and operate highly sophisticated growhouses all across the country.
"WHEN YOU shoot a man, he drops down. He doesn't go flying backwards. It doesn't matter if it's a shotgun or a nine mu, that stuff you see in the pic-tures is pure crap. I never saw anyone move more than a few inches in my life. I'll tell you another thing. If you shoot a man in the back of the head, a funny thing happens. His two eyeballs will pop out of the front of his head and just hang there on stalks - ha ha!"
THESE DESPICABLE remarks were made by twisted Limerick hitman, Gary Carnpin, the only Irish contract killer to ever have been twice convict-ed of murder. The warped world of the smug sicko is revealed in a book Blood On The Streets: A Murderous History of Limerick, by Anthony Galvin.
It's a grim Tale of Two Cities sto-ry about the Edwardian mansions on the banks of the Shannon and the street corner yobs who gradu-ate from drinking dens and joyriding to owning them. Motormouth Campion was top of the race from the gutter, but is now serving two life sentences for the murder of bouncer Brian Fitzgerald and the gangland double cross of Tat' Frankie Ryan.
Another insight into what makes the Moyross mobster tick was revealed in this vile rant: "I have shot people in this town for €10,000, and I'd have no difficulty spending €20,000 to have you blown away. It wouldn't be my first time. If it's the last thing I do, I'll get you and your family."
Madman At the receiving end of the abuse was John Ryan - a Limerick prison officer aware the thug had previous-ly firebombed the home of another colleague in the past. "Ryan, you still have to go out that Dublin Road every evening," Campion added, to let the officer know he knew where he lived. From an early age, the Moyross madman was blooded for a life of crime, writes Galvin, a Limerick Leader crime reporter and true crime author.
Some gardai believe Campion's older brothers William and Noel let the teenager tag along when they broke into an isolated farmhouse near Bridgetown, Co. Clare, in 2004 and hung 68- year-old Paud Skehan upside down before dousing him in petrol. The pension-er died of his injuries after a neighbour heard him the following day in terrible agony. By the time he'd come of age, Gary Campion was more than capable of inflicting horrors all on his own.
Initially allying himself to the war-ring McCarthy-Dundon faction in the city, the two-faced-gangster switched sides to double cross 'Fat' Frankie Ryan.Gary shot Ryan in the back of the head while Ryan was driving, then leaned forward to take over the steering wheel. His brazen bloodlust made him the first choice contract killer for Philip Collopy - the mobster who took over the warring Keane-Collopy faction after the murder of mobster Kieran Keane. Collopy wanted someone to burst into a party and "kill everyone".
Campion was caught with a loaded Sig automatic pistol with a full clip of 15 rounds after gardai got a tip-off. While awaiting trial for the mur-der of Ryan, he was charged with the murder of bouncer Brian Fitzgerald. His involvement in yet another of Limerick's milestone murders saw the affable father-of-two and head of security at Doc's nightclub shot dead on his own doorstep.
Evil Campion went on another of his infamous rants: "Fucking scum-bags is all ye are. I'll clean up Moyross, not ye." The thug thicko has been banged up for life since 2007. But even behind bars, he can't stay out of trouble. A total of 73 knotted bags of heroin - each with a street value of €2,300 - were found in his cell. In marked contrast, the book also covers the heavy toll paid by the vic-tims of crime at the other end of the spectrum.
Last year, Steve Collins was forced to flee the country with his family. He'd spoken out against the thugs who'd murdered his son Roy for tes-tifying against a member of the McCarthy-Dundon gang. Roy was gunned down in cold blood because he had testified against a member of the McCarthy-Dundon mob. That murder and the murder of Garry owen rugby captain Shane Geoghegan in a case of mistaken identity has threatened to turn Ireland's third largest city into a no-go zone.
At the heart of the city there are also crimes typically associated with poverty and deprivation. Demon When Michael Manning (25), raped and murdered a 65-year-old nurse who happened to cross his path, he blamed the demon drink. He would become the last man hanged in Mounjoy in 1948.
Majella Boland (23), paid Declan Malone IR£200 to blow away her violent husband Patrick in the 1980s, in a domestic that involved no mercy. Having been beaten twice during her pregnancies and suffering two miscarriages as a result, Majella was not prepared to allow her husband turn on her daughter. After he dangled the child out the window of a second storey window, she paid the bargain basement price to have him bumped off. By the 1990s the gangs of maraud-ing teens were stoning windows, joyriding, breaking into empty hous-es to use as drinking dens and fire-bombing others as they turned sec-tions of the city into a warzone.
IDIOT thugs who posed with weapons on a social network site, sparking a series of garda raids, are trying to reignite gang feuds in Sligo.
Last week the Sunday World revealed how the pic-tures led to gardai raids, culminating in the seizure of drugs and firearms. This week, locals have told how the young thugs are run-ning amok because they are trying to live up to the hard-man reputations of gangsters from the town. The young thugs, calling them-selves the 'Fort Hill Ultras' and 'Hill Boys Elite', are causing havoc on the northside of the city with residents saying they are afraid to walk out at night in the area. Murder In the Forthill area, a group of youngsters with connections to 2008 gangland murder victim David Lynch are the main instiga-tors of trouble.
Several of the young thugs are related to each other and are sus-pected of involvement in anti-social behaviour, including assaults, arson attacks, vandalism and intimidation. Other youngsters who have links to suspected mobster Hughie Irwin are also involved in trouble in Sligo. "They are at each other's throats. You have a younger gen-eration who think they must live up the reputations of those who went before them. They range in age from as young as 11 to about 17 or 18, with four or five key pro-tagonists," a local source said. One Forthill resident said peo-ple were fed up with the trouble. "It's total anarchy. We have fel-las standing on the top of derelict houses flinging slates down on to A boarded-up house in the Forthill area of Sligo cars driving by. We've had break-ins,senior citizens threatened with knives, houses burnt out. "
Last week there was a riot between the two groups on Forthill. These thugs were throw-ing stuff and calling the guards abusive names. They told one gar-da they would rape her when she went to speak to them. "A disabled boy was walking over the hill last week and by the time those boys were finished with him he needed 18 stitches. There was a youth club running in the area which had to be closed down. These thugs were standing at the window exposing them-selves to five and six-year-olds." Sources say they believe the youngsters linked to Lynch are supplied drugs by a Sligo-based traveller criminal.
Another source said rival gang-sters linked to Hughie Irwin were driving around Forthill last week throwing golf balls at windows trying to intimidate people. The gang linked to Irwin are believed to have carried out the murders of traveller criminal Hughie McGinley in 2005 and armed robber David Lynch in 2008. Irwin bases himself in Lanzarote, but he is understood to return to Sligo on occasion. Gardai are set to bring charges against a number of people fol-lowing the raids two weeks ago. They uploaded pictures to Facebook of themselves in masks holding weapons including a shot-gun, axes and crossbows. However, the pictures identified what houses they were taken in and one youngsters used his own phone to upload the pictures.
As a result gardai carried out raids and seized drugs with a street value of €50,000 and sever-al weapons. Gardai are expecting to bring charges shortly. A source said: "The people who own the drugs will also realise it was directly because of these pic-tures that the drugs were seized. That was a costly mistake." History Local Labour Councillor Veronica Cawley said: "I would appeal for calm and for people to sit down and try to deal with this issue.We're in big fear here of his-tory repeating itself." She added that a lack of commu-nity facilities is leading to anti-social behaviour.
However, Sinn Fein Councillor Arthur Gibbons said some of the thugs have no intention of using any facilities provided. "There is a whole big sporting facility with three different foot-ball pitches. Youths went up there a couple of weeks ago and nearly took the roof off the place. "Politicians think they can bury their heads in the sand and this is going to go away, but it's not. We're going to hand over this country to the criminals and once we lose this country we're not going to get it back."
FURY greeted the 10-year sentence handed down to American dancer Richard Hinds, convicted last month of murdering Nicola Furlong.
However, a brutal regime awaits him in the notorious Japanese prison where foreign inmates are held, with sources saying it makes Ireland's jails look like holiday camps. Even Amnesty International has criticised how prisoners are treated in Japan's jails, especially at the high-security prison at Fuchu, just out-side Tokyo.
Punish One south county Dublin man, 'John', who spent three years in the military-style lock-up for drug smuggling offences, this week told the Sunday World what's in store for Hinds. "When they punish you your wrists are cuffed to a belt and you wear shorts with a hole in it so you can go to the toilet, but you can't clean yourself," he said. "The food is pushed in through the door and you basically have to get down on your hands and knees and eat it like a dog," he told the Sunday World. "I spent two months extra in the prison for looking to the left one day. It's impos-sible not to break the rules if they want to catch you," he explained. Even at night, if a prisoner kicked the door or made noise out of frustration, they could be subdued with a stun gun and ., carried to the 'investigation block'. \ Inmates move and work in silence under strict supervision.
They are regularly strip-searched and never get to mix with each other. "I spent three years on the top of three landings, but in all that time I never ever seen the bloke in the cell next door to me," John said. For foreigners, the extreme disci-pline is a shock to the system. Everything from how to walk, sit and where to place things in a cell are detailed in a long list of rules which, if broken, results in punishment. "On arrival you're placed in the induc-tion block. You spend about a week there, getting your head shaved the second day and then you start being woken up at six every morning to be trained in how to march properly," John said. Bark "It's a real shock to the system, both mentally and physically. They use long-term foreigners that have been there years and speak Japanese fluently to assist them with this training as none of the prison officers will speak English, even if they know it.
"All they do is bark the orders with a foghorn at the new arrivals and the long-term trustees that are bilingual bark them on to you in English," he added. "When I say these guys are trustees they don't get any privileges for this work, but it's easier than working in the factories. At least they get to move around." "Finally, after you've been trained to their satisfaction you then get allocated to another cell on the work-er-bees wing, which has 80 cells on each floor and there's three floors," he said. In the morning, as prisoners face the wall, they obey as orders to move are shouted through a foghorn. "We'd then turn around and stand on a white line that is in the middle of the land-ing, so the 15 of us would be standing on this white line and we'd have to outstretch our arms to make sure we were the correct distance away from the guy in front," John added.
"Basically we had to start marching on the spot on this white line for about five minutes to warm up." Prisoners were then marched out of the landing, where they would join up with Japanese prisoners. "Each of the 50 or so factories hold about 60 prisoners, 15 foreigners and about 45 Japanese, so we would be in three lines of 20 pris-oners in each line," he said. "On arriving at the factory we were made march upstairs and into a changing room, to change from our drab cell clothes into the working uniform, which is exactly the same kind of clobber.
"The deal is to get you to strip naked, open your mouth to show you weren't hid-ing anything, which would be impossible as we had absolutely no access to any kind of implements or weapons. "This strip search was more of an excuse to make you feel embarrassed and simply part of the twisted regime. "We'd be made open our mouths, turn around naked, spread your ass checks, also armpit checks and the soles of your feet where checked, before we had to change into the factory version of clothes," John told the Sunday World. Escaped "Then we had to line up again inside the factory and start with the ridiculous regime of lining up in three lines of 20 to get our number called again, as if one of us might have escaped while we were walking the 300 metres from the cell block to the factory."
"All the staff are martial artists on a mission to inflict as much mental torture on you as is possible — usually for doing nothing at all," he claimed. John believes Hinds will be singled out by the prison guards because of the high-profile nature of the case. "I guarantee he won't be coming out after five, he'll serve most of the 10-year sentence," he said.
SHE was the Continuity IRA's very own Jihad Jane, a fanatical nationalist driven by the love of a notorious terror chief.
But as she settles in to her life sentence in Limerick prison this weekend, female assassin Rose Lynch is remaining staunchly loyal to her lover despite the fact that he has now dumped her and left her to carry the can on her own. The Sunday World can reveal that gardai believe Dermot Gannon, who has a conviction for membership of an illegal organisation and is currently serving a seven-year sentence on gun charges, was with Rose the day she assassinated innocent delivery man David Darcy.
The 49 year old mother of four, shocked the nation this week when she shouted `Tiocfaidh Ar La' from a court as she was convicted of the cold-blooded murder of the innocent van driver. She defiantly told the Special Criminal Court she was proud of her membership of to her victim's family. David Darcy was on a list of six men that Lynch had planned to coldly assassinate and bomb "in retaliation" for the murder of CIRA terror chief Liam Kenny in 2011. They blamed a Ballyfermot criminal - who was believed to have been sanctioned by the Real IRA - for ordering the murder of Kenny and the subsequent gun attack on his associate Frank Nolan. They were intent on revenge and retaliation before any other CIRA activists were hit.
Paranoid
But CIRA intelligence had got it wrong and Darcy was in fact a hard-working man who only came to their paranoid attention because his route often took him to and from Limerick to deliver meat. Gardai have twice arrested Gannon in connection with the murder and have now sent a file to the DPP in relation to his connection to Darcy's assassination at the gate of his Cabra home in November 2011. Rose had admitted her own part in the killing but refused to name anyone else involved. Officers believe she is making the ultimate sacrifice for her deluded cause — by loyally taking the blame alone. As she was convicted, David Darcy's heart-broken family asked how any mother could do what she did to another mother's son.
They, like most of us, find it so difficult to comprehend how a woman could coldly assassinate another human being, a father of two, a brothel; a son. While female assassins are rare, the path that led Rose Lynch to Darcy's Cabra home on a cold November morning where she emptied a handgun into him, was one steeped in a fanaticism so deep that her own father Joe insists that he is nothing but proud of her actions. "She did admit everything on her fifth day in custody hut she admitted she'd done it alone. She didn't blame anyone else. "According to the gardai there were more people involved but as far as I know she didn't name anyone else and I wouldn't agree if she did," said Joe who was once tried and acquitted for membership of an illegal organisation himself.
Rose was born and reared on the notorious Balhnacurra Weston estate in Limerick — the same area that spawned crime families like the Dundons and the Collins. At age five she joined Fianna Eireann and at 16 became a member of the IRA. After We unmask terror chief who inspired fanatic Rose Lynch to become cold-blooded assassin finishing school she moved to England where she married John Bardon. The couple had four children and Rose got some qualifications in psychology and social work before moving to Belfast where she became involved in Sinn Fein community initiatives. Notorious In 1998 she first met Gannon - a notorious prove from Mulhuddart in Dublin. He was married and a father of four but the pair forged a deep bond and began a relationship that divided her family. They set about earn-ing money for the cause and regularly used her kids to hold cash from robberies. Her father Joe said last night: "I know Dermot Gannon and 1 admire him. He is an honest man, a good republican who is very.
Her mother Nora doesn't like him at all and never did. "I spat on him once," she proudly admitted from her Limerick home. Rose's eldest son John doesn't like him either. "My mother was in active service when Mr Darcy was shot dead but she was not alone when he was shot," he said. "Dermot Gannon can rot in hell. He used my mother. He knows she is so staunch that she would never say anything about him." John is the only member of the Lynch family who has shown any remorse for what his mother has done. "My heart goes out to the Darcy family. I had a lump in my throat when they were reading the Victim Impact Statements. I wanted to walk out but they wouldn't let me.
It was very bad," he said. A year into their relationship Gannon was jailed for member-ship of an illegal organisation at the Special Criminal Court and received a four-year sentence. The couple went their separate ways but Rose always held a torch for Gannon. In the months before the murder of David Darcy the pair got back together again and this time it would prove to be a fatal attraction for Rose. Sources close to the investigation say that following the murder of CIRA terror chief Kenny, the organisation drew up a list of those they believed had planned and sanctioned the hit. Death The Ryan brothers who were running the Real IRA's Dublin brigade were said to be on the list as they were believed to have sanctioned the hit.
Joe Lynch is adamant that there were no republicans on the list. It is believed that Rose was given intensive training to become the assassin who would reap revenge for Kenny's death. In her fanatical mind she believed she was a soldier for Ireland when she took up arms against the innocent Darcy. Her mother Nora says that Rose will serve her time in prison 'without a bother'. "There would be nobody there who could break het: She will cope very well," she said. Her father Joe says his daughter is a ' true martyr: "Any woman or man who joins the Republican movement does-n't co through life without being on active service, it was her duty and she has made me very proud."
Majella Boland (23), paid Declan Malone IR£200 to blow away her violent husband Patrick in the 1980s, in a domestic that involved no mercy. Having been beaten twice during her pregnancies and suffering two miscarriages as a result, Majella was not prepared to allow her husband turn on her daughter. After he dangled the child out the window of a second storey window, she paid the bargain basement price to have him bumped off.
This story got me interested, I checked it on internet and there is written the woman was given a life sentence. There are not enough foul words in this world that I could use to describe what I think about the judges.
A BRITISH agent who infiltrated Sinn Fein to spy on Martin McGuinness has told how Margaret Thatcher helped smuggle him out of the North as an IRA assassination gang was closing in on him. And Derry man Willie Carlin even had a private audience with the Iron Lady in her draw-ing room in 10 Downing Street. It took place just days after he was spirited out of Derry by his MI5 handlers in Thatcher's ministerial jet - which she personally put at his disposal. Carlin was lucky to escape with his life because the security forces warned him that if he had stayed even an hour longer, he would have been scooped by an IRA killer squad. We have learned that even before Thatcher met the Derry man, she often sang the praises of MI5 agent 3007 - codenamed the Fox'. Shortly after he escaped with his life Carlin was pre-sented to the Tory PM at a late-night meeting inside 10 Downing Street.
She told the diminutive Derry man: "I have been looking at briefing notes outlining your work for years. Concerned "I only knew you by your agent number 3007 and your code name, but I can't thank you enough for all the work you have done for us over the years." And the PM added: "It's nice to put a face and real name to a number and a code name after all these years. And I now realise why they called you 'the Fox'." At that time Carlin had bright red hair. Thatcher also thanked Carlin's wife Mary - who only discovered her hus-band was a spy 48 hours earlier - and she even arranged for fish supper to be delivered to No.10 for the Canine' young daugh-ter Maria. As far as friends and neighbours back in Derry were concerned, Willie Carlin was just another Sinn Fein activist who lived with his family in Derry's Waterside. In reality he was a highly-placed British agent who had just completed a 12- year stint inside the Republican movement, where he operated as a member of Martin McGuinness's inner circle.
Speaking to the Sunday World this week, Carlin, now 64, recalled the night he was introduced to the Iron Lady and he revealed he will be attending -Thatcher's funeral in London next week, albeit in a private capacity. He said: "First of all Margaret Thatcher helped save my life by allowing me to escape in her jet. That's a good enough reason to be going to the funeral, but apart from that, I admired her toughness. "I know she was a woman, but she had more balls than any IRA man. Also, she never gave up. Martin McGuinness did give up. Martin McGuinness delivered the IRA - Maggie Thatcher delivered nothing! "I'll be happy to salute her at the funeral next week; she saved my life." The former soldier's nat-ural organisational ability and gift for facts and fig-ures meant he was ideally suited to Sinn Fein's plans of building a credible politi-cal machine.
He also became a close aide to McGuinness. Carlin's roll as an MI5 agent was to photocopy documents relating to any significant political devel-opments taking place inside Sinn Fein which he later delivered to his MI5 handlers. Exciting Down through the years Carlin also met his han-dlers at various locations around Derry. Last night the Sunday World asked Willie Carlin if he was asked to embark on such a dangerous undertaking again, would he do so? He said: "I would find out what time the next plane to Derry was. It was the best and most exciting thing I ever did in my life. I would do it again tomorrow!"
A CRUEL thief stole a mobile phone out of the hands of a dying woman after break-ing into her bedroom in the hospice where she is being cared for. Terminally ill Kate Byrne has spoken of her terror and heartache after a device on which she was recording messages and storing photos for her loved ones was also taken in the sickening raid The 52-year-old woman from Clondalkin is being treated in Our Lady's Hospice in Harold's Cross, on the city's southside.
Dignity? She was admitted to the hospice, which provides end-of-life care for patients, six weeks ago to see out what could be the last weeks of her life in dignity. However, on Holy Thursday morning she was awoken in her room in St Gabriel's Ward by an intruder who had slipped past security and broke into several rooms before escaping. "I was absolutely out of my mind with fear," Kate told the Sunday World yester-day.
"I awoke in the middle of the night to find this man coming in through the door, turning around and locking it behind him. "He came over and was leaning over me as he took my mobile phone from out of my hand. At first I thought it might have been one of the nurses, but then I realised I did not recognise him. "He was walking around my room root-ing around my stuff and looking in my locker and around the window and fridge. I tried to call out for a nurse, but not a sound came out of my mouth I was that scared. "Eventually I made some noise and he turned to me and asked 'are you alright' before he bolted out the door."
Kate claims the man startled another ill patient and his wife who was asleep with him in another room before he made good his escape. Devastated However, as the nurse arrived to com-fort her, she realised that several of her most important personal possessions were missing. "He got away with a little device I have which I was leaving messages on for my family," the foster mum-of-two added.
Community in total shock as gunman leaves father of four fighting for life.
A DAD was fighting for his life in hospital last night after he was shot on the doorstep of his Dublin home. Named locally as Patrick Sullivan, who was in his 50s, he was rushed to Tallaght Hospital after being gunned down at his home in west Dublin at around 6.40pm. He was taken to hospital follow-ing the incident, which occurred at Rowlagh Park in Clondalkin. He was described as being in a seri-ous condition following the shooting.
It is understood that he answered the door to the gunman and his accomplice who were looking for his son. An altercation ensued on the doorstep that led to him being blasted at close range. It was suggested last night that he had been shot in the face. Gardai said that he had no criminal connections. They issued an appeal for informa-tion and in particular are looking for witnesses that may have seen a dark coloured car speeding from the area in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Experts The shooting took place in an area that is well known as a long estab-lished housing estate.
Gardai cordoned off the estate as forensic experts arrived to carry out an investigation. Shocked locals looked on as garda vehicles arrived and officers con-ducted door-to-door enquiries. "Patrick, or Peadar, as he is known is a real gentlemen," said local Sinn Fein councillor, Matthew McDonagh. "I'm shocked and saddened by events of this night. "Most people are law abiding citi-zens in this area, but then we come up against this," he added. "If you knew him you'd know he wouldn't hurt a fly. "He's a father of three lads and a daughter and this is the worst thing that could have happened to him and his family.
"This man was a man of the com-munity, you know? He'd be well known around the area and I'd have had a few pints with him now and again. "In fact, I was only speaking to him recently and it was all about his fam-ily. That's all he Peadar cared about. "I'm sickened, I really am I'm sorry but I'm just very upset right now," he said, before hanging up. Anyone with information is asked to contact Ronanstown Garda Station 01 666 7700.
THIS IS the picture that will send a chill through gangland this morning - the Godfather of Irish crime Christy Kinahan back on the streets.
Our exclusive snaps reveal that 'the Dapper Don' is back in his Costa del Crime stronghold after being freed 18 months early from a prison term for money laundering in Belgium. But he wasn't happy to be greeted by a Sunday World team as he arrived to sign on at a Spanish court, where he is still under investigation for masterminding a half a billion euro drugs cartel. Kinahan, from .
Oliver Bond flats in Dublin, looked furious when he was cor-nered by our investigative team and asked to comment on being at the centre of one of Europe's biggest ever narcotics probes. He sent a female companion to bring him an umbrella and a baseball cap to hide tails,per as we pursued him to a waiting car. It's the first taste of freedom Kinahan has had since he was arrested in his underwear during a dramatic dawn raid by Spanish cops in May 2010. And it spells trouble for gangsters around Ireland who he believes owe him cash.
Kinahan is emerging into a transformed criminal landscape in Ireland, where his former confidante Eamon Kelly has been murdered, the recession is playing havoc with revenue from the drug trade and chaos reigns. He has already sent enforcers like Tat' Freddie Thompson and Paul Rice to demand payment for all outstanding cash he believes he is owed by the rival gangs he has supplied from his drug network. Looking fit and living up to his moniker as 'the Dapper Don', he strode into the local court building in Estepona on the Costa del Sol last Monday. He spent over an hour inside the offices, where an investigation into his Spanish. based crime network is being conducted. When he emerged the Sunday World asked if he wanted to make a comment, but Kinahan grimaced.
He briefly opened his mouth as if to say something, but changed his mind and walked away. However, he dropped some documents and had to balance the brolly with one hand while picking them up. A furious Kinahan then walked straight at the Sunday World photographer and deliberately tried to block our man with his open brolly. Thinking better of the confrontation, he walked away and got into the black VW Touareg driven by his companion, who took pictures of our journalists in an act of intimidation. Despite the fact that 'the Dapper Don' is again free to roam the streets, Operation Shovel, the investigation into dozens of front companies used by Kinahan and his associates to launder illicit cash, is still continuing.
Sources claim that the scale of the probe means it will be next year before any trial will take place. It is believed that the gang funnelled as much as €500 million, buying commodities and properties all over the world. Investigators now believe that a plan to develop tourist resorts on a stretch of Brazilian coastline was a money-laundering ruse to borrow cash from banks they had no intention of paying back. Huge commodity deals involving millions worth of goods, such as bananas and cement, were also used to disguise cash from drug transactions.
The probe by officers from Operation Shovel is not the only setback Kinahan has to grapple with. Since the major bust in 2010, one of his key lieutenants in Ireland, Eamon Kelly, was shot dead by dissident republicans. Kelly had played a key role in guarantee-ing deals between Ireland's criminals both in Ireland and the Costa del Sol.
Nothing happened in Ireland's under-world without the blessing of Kinahan and Kelly, before the ageing gangster was gunned down in December last year. His killing threw Ireland's drugs busi-ness into disarray. During Kinahan's spell in a Belgian jail another of his under-world cronies Tat' Freddie Thompson arrived on the Costa del Sol after being extradited by Spanish police. Demanding Thompson had avoided arrest during the Operation Shovel swoops, but remained a wanted man.
He has since been told he is free to leave Spain and at Christmas he was back in Dublin spreading fear and demanding cash on behalf of Kinahan. Another Kinahan thug, Paul Rice,also sent home to Dublin last year to col-lect the debts owed to Kinahan's network, which was being managed by son Daniel in his absence. Drug dealers all over Ireland were told in no uncertain terms to cough up the cash they owed or face serious consequences. The collapse in the cocaine market, as well as the global property crash since 2008 has hit Kinahan's cash flow hard, even though he is believed to have as much as €200 million already stashed away. Although dozens of high-end cars were seized and bank accounts frozen, Kinahan and his son Daniel have reportedly kept their luxury villa homes in Estepona. Kinahan's release from jail now means that he can resume control of his illegal business, which had suffered badly in the last two years. Kinahan and his sons, Daniel and Christy junior, were among the 23 people initially arrested by Operation Shovel.
It emerged then that the Kinahans' organisation had laundered at least €500 million through property and commodity dealing all over the world. Sources claimed that he had become so succeSsful at money laundering that other international criminal syndicates paid for his services. Christy spent six months in custody in notorious Alhaurin del Torre prison near Malaga. The Kinahans were then allowed out on bail of €60,000, but Belgian authorities requested Christy senior's extradition. Kinahan had previously been handed a four-year prison sentence by a court in Antwerp after being found guilty on 10 counts of money laundering in September 2009. The probe into Kinahan's operation also revealed a web of corruption involving criminals, a professional soccer club, FT Forcom, and local police officers.
Unusual Christy senior is now regarded as one of the biggest players in Europe's criminal underworld. Although he served time in Ireland in the late 1990s for various offences he is an unusual criminal. During one stint behind bars he complet-ed a degree and he is fluent in a number of languages, including Dutch and Flemish. He heads a serious criminal outfit which has a global reach and makes millions of euro every year. Kinahan's outfit has also been linked to murders in Spain, the UK and Ireland — including Eamon 'the Don' Dunne — over the years.
NOTORIOUS criminal Gerry Hutch went from Monk to drunk yes-terday after spending an estimated €30,000 on free booze for his guests as he celebrated his 50th birthday in style.
These exclusive Sunday World pictures show the legendary crook clearly the worse for wear at 3.30am yesterday after a three-day bender in Lanzarote. Hutch spent this week desperately trying to avoid our cameras and shouted "the paper, no" when confronted by our snapper. He then ordered his wife into a taxi before speeding off into the night. Around 250 of Hutch's friends and family flew to the sunshine island to help the criminal mastermind celebrate turning 50 on Thursday.
Despite telling gardai he has gone straight for years, the Monk clearly has plenty put aside from his various crime and business ventures. He spared no expense and is said to have personally footed the bill for the flights for 40 fam-ily members and made sure they didn't put their hands in their pockets during their stay.
The paranoid robber was so concerned that the media would crash his bash that he booked out an entire bar in Lanzarote's New Town on Thursday and Friday and employed a team of Irish bouncers to make sure there were no unwanted guests. The criminal put his credit card behind the bar of Mulligan's Irish bar, with sources saying that thirsty revellers drank more than €20,000 worth of gargle dur-ing Thursday's knees-up alone. Three security men patrolled while 'the Monk' belted out songs with three local bands.
They confiscated revellers' mobile phones and deleted footage taken of him singing Frank Sinatra's My Way. One reveller said that Hutch's wife Patricia employed a party planner for Thursday's main event, with guests able to help themselves to unlimited platters of food, while the bar sold out of pint bottles of Bulrners cider Notorious Several of Hutch's criminal cronies looked on, including his best friend Noel 'Mr Kingsize' Duggan. The 52-year-old is a notorious cigarette smuggler who paid the Criminal Assets Bureau €4m a decade ago. Gerry Hutch got his nickname because he would never get involved in selling drugs and never touched alcohol — but he took up drinking two years ago and is obviously catching up for lost time.
He drank so much on Thursday night that he had to be carried out a back entrance to get a taxi. Patricia Hutch and the couple's five children had left the party before the Monk's pals had to bun-dle him into a waiting car. One of his sons brought a bin liner full of presents in another cab to take them home for safe keeping. Despite the boozy 50th cele-brations, Hutch and his guests were eager to put their hang-overs behind them and attended a karaoke night in Mulligan's on Friday night. Hutch was the last to leave the bar at 3.30am, letting his guard down and stumbling to a taxi and was shocked to be confront-ed by our undercover team.
It can also be revealed that Hutch has effectively moved to Lanzarote full time and spends at least three weeks each month on the island. He owns a villa near the Old Town, but vacated it this week to let his three daughters stay there and instead moved him-self and his wife into a plush hotel in a village near Puerto del Carmen. It is believed that Hutch has investments in at least two pubs on the island. Around a dozen of his associ-ates travelled to Lanzarote from the UK, while people also came to the island from the Spanish mainland.
Influx At least 200 people arrived from Dublin Airport last Wednesday and Thursday, with gardai observing several crimi-nals among the travellers. Hutch paid a visit to several pubs in Puerto del Carmen on Wednesday night and told pals that he wanted to make sure that as many local businesses as possible benefitted from the influx of his guests.
It is understood that the enter-tainment and food bills for both nights topped €10,000.Hutch became the gardai's public enemy number one in January 1995 when he pulled off the heist of the century, escap-ing with €3.6m from the Brinks Allied depot in Clonshaugh. He was also behind the C1.9m Marino Mart robbery in 1987 and had to pay CAB €1.5m in 2000. He set about becoming a 'legiti-mate' businessman and famously bought a limo company in 2005.
However gardai still believe that the Monk is involved in the planning of armed robberies although younger criminals actually carry out the raids. Because of the unwanted attention he still has a strained relationship with gardai. Hutch is obviously on much better terms with the local police in Lanzarote, though. Last Thursday night an undercover Sunday World team was stopped by an unmarked police Jeep in the New Town carrying four plain-clothes officers. One of the policemen drew his gun and ordered one of our Hum ruin Up VAMIK oar bill for 250,pals at 506 birthday on holidatiste team to get out of the car and interrogated him for 20 minutes. He asked what we were doing near Hutch's 50th birthday par-ty and knew exactly who the criminal was.
After taking copies of our driving licences we were allowed to go. However, at 3am on Friday morning the same officers vis-ited our team's hotel and all the men displayed their firearms and quizzed us about what we wanted with Hutch. Brawls However, local police were kept busy by the heavy-drinking gang from Dublin's north-inner city and were called by worried bar own-ers to deal with several ugly brawls last week. Six young men who arrived on a flight on Wednesday got into a fight in the Route 66 bar in the early hours of Thursday morning and 10 police officers were on the scene within minutes.
There were no further inci-dents on Thursday or Friday, but while the local constabulary could relax, four local prosti-tutes were kept very busy. We observed at least six middle-aged men disappearing to the beach with prostitutes between 1.45am and 3am on Friday morning. A local drug deal-er operating from a strip joint near Mulligan's was also doing a brisk trade. Hutch spent yester-day at the poolside of his hotel with his wife by his side trying to get rid of his hang-over. His enjoyment of the 23-degree heat was spoiled by the fact that his attempts to frustrate our photographer were in vain.
But why isn't Kinahan in prison in Spain? Have they dismissed the case against him?
above article for dwalin2011
Thanks, interesting article. So he is still under investigation but they allow him to go around free nevertheless. And what about Fat Freddie Thompson, is he free too, what is his legal situation now? I also remember this documentary "Cocaine wars" about his war against Rattigan. Do Rattigan loyalists still resist or did Freddie take over his gang?
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 04/17/1312:26 AM
Originally Posted By: Dwalin2011
Originally Posted By: DonMega
Originally Posted By: Dwalin2011
But why isn't Kinahan in prison in Spain? Have they dismissed the case against him?
above article for dwalin2011
Thanks, interesting article. So he is still under investigation but they allow him to go around free nevertheless. And what about Fat Freddie Thompson, is he free too, what is his legal situation now? I also remember this documentary "Cocaine wars" about his war against Rattigan. Do Rattigan loyalists still resist or did Freddie take over his gang?
Rattigan gang never did much, Freddie gang came out on top but an another gang from west Dublin took Rattigan gang members out.
THIS IS the lethal cache of 9mm ammunition found beside a crowded bus stop this week.
Gardei believe that a gangland assassination could have been prevented after an eagle-eyed member of the public came - across a paper bag containing 100 rands of ammo for a Luger semi-automatic pistol.
Detectives have launched a major investigation after the live rounds were found last Thursday morning. Detectives believe that the bullets could have been in the process of being transported to a local criminal gang when the courier was unexpectedly disturbed on the Jamestown Road, in Finglas, Dublin. Officers immediately moved to seal off the area in a bid to find the Luger pistol and have described the find as "highly significant". They are currently trawling CCTV to see if they can identify the criminal who was carrying the dangerous haul. The bullets, which were inside a brown paper bag with writing on it, had then been placed inside a white paper bag.
They were found on top of a small wall behind a busy bus stop. One theory being ang hit found at bus stop examined is that the courier was walking down the road and may have seen a pass-ing patrol car and panicked, placing the bag on the wall. Once the coast was clear he planned to return to pick up the parcel, but it had already been spotted by an innocent member of the public who had been wait-ing to get a bus into the city centre. Stashed It is thought that less than 10 minutes had passed between the bullets being stashed and found by the man. The member of the public contacted the Sunday World to tell of his find and said he wanted to highlight how dangerous that Finglas has become.
He said he feared that young children could have picked up the bullets and that a serious accident could have happened. He was especially concerned that a courier could transport bullets in broad daylight when there were scores of peo-ple around. The man requested that we hand in the bullets to gardai and we immediately con-tacted Finglas station, who collected the ammunition. The haul is now being forensically examined to see if there are any traces of fingerprints or DNA. The man who found the ammunition said he was relieved that lives had been saved and said that if an unscrupulous person had came upon the bullets he could have sold them on the streets for at least £10 a pop.
The Luger 9mm pistol has become increasingly popular in gangland in recent years and has been used in sev-eral high-profile shootings. Shot Innocent young mum Donna Cleary was shot dead with a Luger in 2006, while senior Finglas criminal John Mangan was found with a loaded Luger down his trousers in a pub in Santry in 2007. The Luger 9mm is especially popular among the Limerick gangs, with gardai having seized a munber of such weapons over the last decade. Finglas is one of the busiest areas for gardai in the country and there have been several gangland hits there in recent years. In February 2312, 36-year-old Alan McNally was gunned down in a pub in Finglas village.
In July 2010, Calm Owens was gunned down in an industri-al estate by the Real IRA. In February of the same year cousins Mark Noonan and Glenn Murphy were killed in a double assassination at a serv-ice station by the Real IRA in a case of mistaken identity. In October 2039, 42-year-old David Thomas was murdered outside another pub in the village. Some of the most serious criminals in recent times have been from Finglas or operated there, including Eamon 'the Don' Dunne and Martin 'Mario' Hyland.
THIS IS the lethal cache of 9mm ammunition found beside a crowded bus stop this week.
Gardei believe that a gangland assassination could have been prevented after an eagle-eyed member of the public came - across a paper bag containing 100 rands of ammo for a Luger semi-automatic pistol.
Detectives have launched a major investigation after the live rounds were found last Thursday morning. Detectives believe that the bullets could have been in the process of being transported to a local criminal gang when the courier was unexpectedly disturbed on the Jamestown Road, in Finglas, Dublin. Officers immediately moved to seal off the area in a bid to find the Luger pistol and have described the find as "highly significant". They are currently trawling CCTV to see if they can identify the criminal who was carrying the dangerous haul. The bullets, which were inside a brown paper bag with writing on it, had then been placed inside a white paper bag.
They were found on top of a small wall behind a busy bus stop. One theory being ang hit found at bus stop examined is that the courier was walking down the road and may have seen a pass-ing patrol car and panicked, placing the bag on the wall. Once the coast was clear he planned to return to pick up the parcel, but it had already been spotted by an innocent member of the public who had been wait-ing to get a bus into the city centre. Stashed It is thought that less than 10 minutes had passed between the bullets being stashed and found by the man. The member of the public contacted the Sunday World to tell of his find and said he wanted to highlight how dangerous that Finglas has become.
He said he feared that young children could have picked up the bullets and that a serious accident could have happened. He was especially concerned that a courier could transport bullets in broad daylight when there were scores of peo-ple around. The man requested that we hand in the bullets to gardai and we immediately con-tacted Finglas station, who collected the ammunition. The haul is now being forensically examined to see if there are any traces of fingerprints or DNA. The man who found the ammunition said he was relieved that lives had been saved and said that if an unscrupulous person had came upon the bullets he could have sold them on the streets for at least £10 a pop.
The Luger 9mm pistol has become increasingly popular in gangland in recent years and has been used in sev-eral high-profile shootings. Shot Innocent young mum Donna Cleary was shot dead with a Luger in 2006, while senior Finglas criminal John Mangan was found with a loaded Luger down his trousers in a pub in Santry in 2007. The Luger 9mm is especially popular among the Limerick gangs, with gardai having seized a munber of such weapons over the last decade. Finglas is one of the busiest areas for gardai in the country and there have been several gangland hits there in recent years. In February 2312, 36-year-old Alan McNally was gunned down in a pub in Finglas village.
In July 2010, Calm Owens was gunned down in an industri-al estate by the Real IRA. In February of the same year cousins Mark Noonan and Glenn Murphy were killed in a double assassination at a serv-ice station by the Real IRA in a case of mistaken identity. In October 2039, 42-year-old David Thomas was murdered outside another pub in the village. Some of the most serious criminals in recent times have been from Finglas or operated there, including Eamon 'the Don' Dunne and Martin 'Mario' Hyland.
SIX people were in cus-tody last night after cannabis worth almost E4million was seized in two separate drug raids.
Both seizures were made as part of the Garda's ongoing investagion into Sale and supply of drugs in the west of Ireland, The raid in Galway and in Kells, Co Meath, were conduct-ed Wider the auspices of Operation Nitrogen, which tar-gets cannabis growing operations. In the Galway operation carried out yesterday, gardai found cannabis plants worth an estimated €2.5million in the Tuam area. Two men, in their mid-40s and early-50s, were arrested at the scene and held at Mill Street Garda station.
Operation
In a follow-up operation, two more men were stopped in a car and also arrested. The four are reported as being Asian nationals. Gardai uncovered what they called a "sophisticated" cannabis growing operation at a local busi-ness premises. Gardai from the Divisional Drugs Unit at Mill Street Garda station in Galway, assisted by local gardai and the Regional Support Unit, swooped on the building in an industrial estate in Milltown About 3,000 plants at various stages of growth and growing para-phernalia were seized. A spokesman said investigations are continuing.
The Tuam raid was the second sig-nificant seizure in 48 hours after €1.5 million worth of cannabis herb was seized earlier from a business premises in Kells, Co Meath. Two people, a than and a woman, were arrested in that operation on Friday night, The two also remained in custody last night when they were arrested after the bust. Officers from the Kells Garda drug unit, assisted by the Regional Support Unit, searched a business premises in the town and discov-ered a large cannabis cultivating operation. The 53-year-old man and 43-year-old woman were detained at the scene and held at Kells Garda sta-tion. The raid was part of an intelli-gence-led operation by the Kells Garda drug unit.
GARDA! SEIZE CAR AT TRAVELLER CHRISTENING
=GARDA! seized a luxury car and arrested two people after they swooped =on a traveller Christening in Coolock, Dublin, yesterday. The vehicle was impounded by officers after they arrived during the service in Priorswood Church, Clonshaugh, yesterday afternoon. It is believed that gardai are investigating if the car had been bought with =the proceeds of crime. Following the seizure, a number of travellers angrily remonstrated with gar-dai and a group eventually descended on Coolock Garda station.
A source said one thug issued a sinister threat to "kill" a garda officer as he was trying to calm the situation down. The traveller thug subsequent-ly fled the building and was chased by officers who attempted to arrest him. In total, two people, a 43-year-old male and an 18-year-old woman, were arrested for public order offences. IThe garda operation is believed to have been targeting criminal associ- Mates of murdered Joyce brothers Tommy (20) and John Paul (30).
THESE were the extraordinary moments the city of Boston erupted in joy and relief as cops ended the biggest manhunt in US history with a violent gun battle.
Nineteen-year-old Chechen student Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured hiding out in a boat in the backyard of a house in the city's Watertown suburb after a tip-off from a homeowner. Hundreds of cops, soldiers and agents supported by Black Hawk helicopters, armoured vehicles and a robot cornered the teenager who, with his older brother, is believed to have killed three people and maimed 176 in the worst terror attack in America since 9/11. Cheering The ar.rest ended five days of terror sparked by the double bombing at the finishing line of the Boston Marathon. The city's mayor, Thomas Menino, took to the police radio to exclaim: "We got him! I have never loved this city and its people more than i do today. Nothing can defeat the heart of this city. nothing."
Relieved law enforcement officers began cheering, clapping and high-living citizens after Tsarnaev, was arrested. Last night he was being heavily guarded and was in a serious condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center after losing a lot of blood. He surrendered after being hit twice by a fierce volley of fire unleashed by a cordon of officers who surrounded his bolthole. The Boston police department confirmed the end of the hunt on its official Twitter account by declaring: "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won.
" Thousands of jubilant members of the public emerged from a citywide lockdown and took to the streets of Watertown to salute FBI, SWAT, ATF and police officers as they left the scene of Tsarnaev's final showdown. The bloody endgame came four days after the bombing and just a day after the FBI released surveillance-camera images of two men suspected of plant-ing the explosives that ripped through the crowd at the marathon finish line. Two blasts killed three people, including eight-year-old Martin Richard who tragically stood just feet from where Dzholchar Tsarnaev placed a rucksack with a deadly home-made pressure-cooker bomb. The captured bomber's older brother, Tamerlan (26), was shot dead on Friday after a 24-hour drama Boston police commissioner Ed Davis was celebratory in his tone as he took to Twitter to say: "It's a proud day to be a Boston police officer. Thank you all.
" Police cornered the younger bomber around 7pm local time, midnight in Ireland, and less than an hour after issuing an unprecedented order for citizens to lock themselves in their homes. Reports that the terrorist suspect had turned himself into a ticking human timebomb sparked fear throughout the city. The dramatic breakthrough came after a elderly boat owner went to his backyard and noticed blood on his boat. About 5.45pm, David Henneberry stepped outside his house on Franklin Street hi Watertown, less than three quarters of a mile from the center of the police search in the town. Neighbour George Pizzuto told ABC News that Mr Henneberry thought the canvas tarpaulin that covered his 25ft boat appeared to be askew. Blood "He looked and noticed something was off about his boat, so he put his ladder up on the side of the boat and climbed up, and then he saw blood on it," said Mr Pizzuto, Mr Henneberry fled to the home of neighbour Pizzuto with his ill wife, while hundreds of law enforcement officials converged on his backyard.
Two Black Hawk helicopters circled the area while SWAT teams moved through in formation, taking up shooting positions on garden sheds and suburban walls. Authorities used a bullhorn to call on the suspect to surrender but he refused to give himself up. "We used a robot to pull the tarp off the boat," said David Procopio of the Massachusetts State Police. "We were also watching him with a thermal imaging camera in our helicopter. He was weakened by blood loss — injured last night most likely." As nearby homeowners filmed the showdown on camera phones, a deafening burst of fire hit the boat along with flash-bang grenades and gas. The teenage terrorist surrendered moments later. The capture sent waves of relief through Boston and the suburb of Watertown where jubilant crowds took to the streets to thank police, FBI and law enforcement officials.
Teenagers waved American flags, people cheered and motorists honked car horns across the city. Hundreds of people marched down Commonwealth Avenue, a wide thoroughfare near the scene of the bombings, chanting "USA" and singing Sweet Caroline, the anthem of the local baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. New York Mets fans cheered when it was announced during a game against the Washington Nationals that the suspect had been apprehended.
In Boston's Irish-American neighbourhood of Dorchester, where eight-year-old bombing victim Martin Richard lived, residents set off fireworks to celebrate."We've closed an important chapter in this tragedy," said US president Barack Obama in a televised address. But he acknowledged that many unanswered questions remain about the motivations of the two men accused of perpetrating the attacks that unnerved the nation, and whether they had a support network of other Islamic extremists. "The families of those killed so senselessly deserve answers," said Mr Obama, who branded the suspects "terrorists". The Irish-American family of little Martin – whose six year-old sister also lost a leg in the bombing – issued a statement: "Tonight, our community is once again safe from these two men." Cornered Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed on Thursday night in a shootout with police less than a mile from where his brother was cornered. One witness of the firefight in which Tamerlan was killed said the younger brother made his getaway in an SUIT and that he ran over Tamerlan's body as he fled.
The men were identified within hours of Monday's bombing outrage in which 100 Irish citizens and marathon runners were caught up. After combing through a mass of pictures and video from the bomb site in the minutes before the bombing, the FBI had publicised images of the two men on Thursday and asked the public for help to find them. The manhunt and a full-scale lock-down cost the city an estimated $500 million. In separate interviews, the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers said they believed their sons were incapable of carrying out the bombings. "He [Tamerlan] was controlled by the FBI, like, for three to five years," his mother Zubeidat said, speaking in English and using the direct English translation of a word in Russian that means monitored. "They knew what my son was doing, they knew what sites on the internet he was going to," she said from Makhachkala, the city where she lives in Russia's Dagestan region. The brothers were described as "all American kids" by friends. They had moved to the US as refugees from the war-torn Chech_nya region hi 2002.
AN IRISHMAN has spoken of his shock after the world's most want-ed terrorist was arrested following a fierce gun battle - in his next door neighbour's garden.
Brendan Toye, from Carrigart in Donegal, lives in the house next door to 67 Franklin Street, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured after one of the most dramatic manhunts in US history. Hiding Brendan was holed up inside his home with his wife and nine-month-old baby as part of a massive city lockdown when hundreds of armed cops descended on his neighbour David Henneberry's back yard, where the 19- year-old Boston marathon bomber suspect was hiding in a boat. The 33-year-old carpenter revealed his shock at being told the terror suspect was in his neigh-bour's garden. "We had been watching TV and we knew the bomber was in the area somewhere, but we thought he was miles away," he said.
"The last thing we expected was to get a knock on the door saying he was next door to us." An armed cop, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest, calmly took Brendan's son and told them to get out of the house immediately. The policeman told Brendan they were not sure if the house next door or the boat had been booby-trapped or the bomber was carrying explosives. "I have to say I was shaking a little and toy wife was absolutely terrified," said Brendan. "For all we knew the house could have been
HORAN'S COUSIN KNEW BOMBER
SINGER Niall Horan's cousin Katie was a univer-sity colleague of bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and he lived on the floor beneath her, the Sunday World can reveal. 'N/Fellow students on the MI Dartmouth campus of the University of Massachusetts had no clue that the teen they knew as a keen sports star and social animal was a cold-blood-ed killer in their midst. =In a series of tweets as the drama unfolded, Katie Horan wrote: "I can't believe I know him. This is absolutely insane... This is crazy.blown up at any stage. It was surreal. We went into a neighbour's house and we stayed there.
" The Donegal man, who moved to America 12 years ago, then said he heard rapid gunfire about 15 minutes later followed by a serious of controlled explosions. He said they then heard loud applause after people realised the bomber had been caught. As he was going back to his house Brendan then caught sight of the suspect being removed in an ambulance. "He was covered in bandages and was moving so we knew he wasn't dead," he said.Someone is at gunpoint at my school? There are literally 9,000 cops out... Still shocked that this was the bomber and he lived on the floor above me." Another student said: "He Mlwas just so calm and relaxed. It's unimaginable he could commit such an atrocity." "This is such a quiet area and this won't put us off living in the area.
Trust an Irishman to be living next door to all this commotion," he said. For two hours Brendan - who has lived in Boston for 10 years - looked on as Black Hawk helicopters and SWAT teams swarmed the quiet suburban street where he lives with his wife Lori and their nine-month old baby son. Armoured He even telephoned his family in Donegal to tell them what was happening and joke that he couldn't get out for supplies for the baby. As well as hundreds of officers from the Boston PD and state police, there were SWAT teams and FBI and ATF agents armed to the teeth on the scene. They were backed up by armoured cars and black hawk helicopters. As the terrifying drama unfolded, Brendan phoned his family in Ireland to tell them what was happening on his street. His sister Laura, who lives in Donegal, said: "It was surreal as we got a lot of the news yesterday before it was reported on TV. It's been a sad week, but at least there is some relief that both suspects have now been accounted for"
HIS SCHOOL-MATES found nothing remotely strange about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
To his father, he was a "true angel", and to a family friend "a beauti-ful boy in a tux" at a prom party. He attended the prestigious the Rindge and Latin state school in Cambridge, and won a $2,500 scholar-ship in 2011, his final year. He then won a place at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and was in the second year of a medical degree. Confusion Dzhokhar obtained a green card allowing him to stay in the US in 2007, and became a naturalised citizen on September 11, 2012.
Friends expressed confusion and dis-may at how a sociable if reserved 19- year-old became America's most want-ed man. In this own home, Tsarnaev had an alternative life, clearly attached to a homeland, Chechnya, he had never even visited, and to its faith, Islam. On his account with the Russian social networking site VKontakte he lists his 'World View' as 'Islam' and his
MYSTERY:
Dzhokhar Tsamaev 'Personal Priority' as 'career and mon-ey'. He posted a video expressing sym-pathy with rebels fighting in Syria, and a clip of a Kuwaiti sheikh talking to a blind boy who memorised the Koran. He also has links to pages calling for independence for Chechnya, which lost its bid for secession from Russia after two bloody wars in the 1990s. He also wrote: "Islam is not a religion of terror! Judge Muslims on Islam, and not vice versa!" On another social networking site Larry Aaronson, a retired teacher at the Rindge and Latin school, said: "I knew this kid. He could not have been a sweeter more gracious young man."
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 04/22/1301:24 AM
TAMERLAN TSAHNAEV appeared to be an unremarkable young resident of his cosmopolitan suburb of Boston.
Yet the 26-year-old must have been an intense hatred for the US that led him to launch the lethal bombing of theBoston marathon with his brother,before being shot dead by police in the early hours of Friday morning.It was a violent end to the life of a young man who grew so radicalised after arriving in the US from Dagestan a decade ago that one of his favourite songs was ‘I will dedicate my life to Jihad‘.
A deeply religious Muslim and teeto- taller, Tamerlan saw sin all around him in the liberal north-east. “There are no values any more,” he once said. “People can't control themselves."
After five years in the US and still living with his parents, he told a student interviewing himfor a university project in 2011:
“I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them."
Tamerlan is believed to have became more focused on‘ his religion after dropping out of Bunker HllI_ Community College, where he was a part-time student for three terms between 2006 and 2008.
He also dedicated himself to boxing,a sport rewarding discipline, at which he excelled. Despite describing how he felt like an outsider in his adopted country,Tamerlan even told his student inter-viewer that he aspired to one day represent the US in boxing at the Olympic Games.
He was arrested for assault and battery after a complaint of domestic violence against his girlfriend in 2009.Tamerlan is believed to have been denied citizenship after his arrest.
An aunt of the brothers, Maret Tsarnaev, defended the men andsaid she was “suspicious that this was staged”.Travel records disclosed that he left New York on January 12, 2012, heading to Moscow, raising the prospect that he may have received training close to his birthplace.
THIS IS ONE of ireland's most dangerous sex beasts back on the streets after serv-ing his time in jail for a brutal kidnap and sex attack.
Robert Quigley's 22-year-old victim was beat-en so badly she thought she was going to,,,clje after being abducted and driven to the Dublin Mountains. Now he's is back Hying in his family home in Tallaght, Dublin, where the Sunday World snapped him on the street. He took a trip to a garden centre where he helped a female companion load shopping into a saloon car. Dressed in a fleece and tracksuit bottoms, the unshaven ex-bouncer cut a shabby figure. Much heav-ier compared to when he was arrested in 2006, Quigley mingled with shoppers who were oblivious to his disgust-ing background.
Fantasist
The warped fantasist sparked off a huge Garda manhunt following the sinister attack in November 2006 He was given an eight-year sentence after pleading guilty and Judge Moran commented: "It would be quite wrong and irresponsible to release this man into the community without some kind of strict supervision." Quigley was also jailed for another assault on his then girlfriend after driving her to remote woodlands in Co. Kerry. He walked free from jail earlier this year after serving most of his time on a protection wing in the Midlands Prison. His disturbing and unexplained sex attack forced cops to launch a cold-case style probe amid fears he may have carried out other attacks. A 22-year-old woman attacked by Quigley in Dublin suffered a -brutal and prolonged ordeal after her night out ended in terror. She mistakenly got in Quigley's car after leaving a nightclub on Harcourt Street thinking it was a hackney cab. After giving him directions, she feel asleep and when she awoke Quigley told her he was a detective and that he had found cocaine in her handbag. He used plastic cable ties to bind her hands, at which point the young woman realised he wasn't a cop. He drove the woman up the Dublin Mountains, where he punched her sev-eral times and used a black baton to hit her in the face. He also tried to choke her, at which point the woman said she thought she was going to die. The young woman suffered serious facial injuries, including fractures to her cheekbones. When he attempted to rape her, two passing cars distracted him long enough for the woman to make her escape and raise the alarm. - Her victim impact statement was lat-er read out in court. Changed "Before the attack I used to be a hap-py-go-lucky girl.
After that night, when I walked down the street everybody looked at me. Some laughed and joked and remarked how I had two fine shin-. ers and that I deserved them. "My teeth were pushed back and my lip was cut. I could not eat or speak for two weeks. Six months on so much of my social life has changed. I can't trust people anymore. I never want to be left alone. "Sleep is supposed to be enjoyable, but all I have is nightmares. I'd rather if he had killed me that night. I'd rather he kill me than rape me. I was hoping he'd pull a gun out and end the pain. I don't think the memory of it will ever go away." In the bizarre attack on his girlfriend Quigley forced her to hand over cash, threatening that she and her family would be attacked by gangsters.
The young woman was forced to seek loans and give the money to him to stave off the threats from the fictitious gang. A psychiatric report concluded that Quigley suffered no major mental ill-ness, but had a history of "fantasising and fabricating stories" and there were hints of self-harm. Quigley is not the only serious dangerous sex offender to he released form jail since the Sunday World's spe-cial investigation into how many are behind bars. One of those was John English, who was sent back to jail for drinking alco-hol, in breach of his release conditions. The 35-year-old has previous convic-tions for rape, false imprisonment and sexual assault dating back to 1993, when he was in his mid-teens. Menace In 2004 he was jailed for 13 years for raping an Australian tourist after meeting her in a bar in Cork. He was described at the time as "a danger and a menace to society" and "a serious threat to the women of Cork". Shortly after his release in September last year he was spotted drinking and the case was put back into court to have a five-year term activated.
THIS IS the massive haul of amphetamines that finally brought one of Ireland's most notorious and exlusive crime lords to justice in England.
Gangster Brendan Kinlan (42), was sentenced to eight -rears in prison in Leeds Crown Court on Monday titer he was caught with a ,2 million drugs haul near Wakefield, West Yeashire. Bizarrely, the massive stash of designer drugs was only dis-covered after Kinlan had crashed his van as he swerved to avoid 'hitting a pheasant which had ran out on the road. When police came to the crash scene they realised Kinlan wasn't the registered owner of the van and impounded the vehicle.
SUSPICiOUS
After the van was towed to a garage in West Yorkshire, Kinlan continually"Called to the business asking staff to return his property in the back of the van. During the trial, the court heard that Kinlan's persistence led to garage staff becoming suspicious and discovering the stash. The eight-year sentence will be ! the first time Kinlan has been giv-en a lengthy prison term despite being heavily involved in organ-ised crime for two decades. When Kinlan was born in 1970 in Bray, Co. Wicklow, drug crime was a relative rarity in the county. By the time he turned 30 he headed up a major crime organi-sation, distributing millions of euro worth of cocaine, heroin and cannabis along the East Coast. During the early 1990s, Kinlan
BUSTED:
Massive amphetamines haul found in Brendan Kinlan's van had forged close links to a num- ber of Dublin gangs. A source said Kinlan regularly got 'high' on his own supply and blew thousands of euros in the local bookies every month. During his time as Wicklow's top mobster, Kinlan also earned a reputation for using extreme violence and intimidation. Gardai believe he was responsi-ble for intimidating two State wit-nesses who failed to turn up in court during the murder trial of his pal Richie O'Carroll. They believe Kinlan personally lodged money in their accounts in exchange for them agreeing to stay away from Bray. In 2005 O'Carroll's guilty to manslaughter plea was entered and accepted by the State 10 days after a jury failed to reach a ver-dict in his murder trial. Kinlan's gang are also the prime suspe,cts:for the murder of local criminal Joseph Vickers (43), in 1999.
The murdered man was found beaten to death outside his burning caravan on a beach at Greystones, Co. Wicklow. It' believed Vickers was the victim of a revenge attack after his pal Vincent O'Brien had seriously injured Kinlan in a stabbing. Five years later,Vincent O'Brien was murdered after he was shot at his home at Kilbride Grove in Bray, on August 10, 2005. Gardai believe the chief sus-pects for the murder are two asso-ciates of Kinlan's. Kinlan had spent the last few years moving between the UK, Holland and Spain, sourcing drugs from Peter Tatso' Mitchell.
THIS IS the man behind a European crime wave in which millions of euro worth of rhino horn exhibits have been stolen.
The traveller-trader from Rathkeale is one of a core group known to have made a fortune flogging rhino horns to China. The exhibits stolen from a stor-age facility in Swords, Co. Dublin, this week were still on display and within arms reach when the Sunday World first revealed the scam two years ago. The audacious robbery of the muse-um warehouse this week is the latest in dozens of raids across Europe since 2010. A key player, `Smokey Burns' previ-ously featured in the Sunday World thanks to his lucrative international tobacco smuggling operation. Others have close links to the tar-mac crews who travel all over Europe doing botch jobs for over-inflated prices. Just after the Sunday World expose, the rhino exhibits were moved to a warehouse in north County Dublin for safe-keeping.
Rhino horns can command as much as €60,000 per kilo on the black mar-ket, supplying Chinese traditional veal the traveller medicine makers. On Wednesday four rhino heads were stolen from the warehouse in what appears to have been a careful-ly organised raid. Gardai were alerted shortly after midnight by a security man at the premises. At about 10.40pm three masked men entered the building and tied up the security man on duty. The three men loaded the rhino heads and horns from the building into a large white van. The raiders were in the building for approximate-ly one hour. The security man, who was uninjured, later freed himself svp=ges:foeci The thieves knew exactly what they were looking for in a warehouse the size of two football pitches. Museum staff confirmed that nothing else was taken during the raid. The keeper of the Natural History Museum, Nigel Monaghan, said this week the robbery was well planned.
"It looks like a targeted robbery with a specific agenda. It's not unusu-al. Unfortunately, there's been quite a few of these across Europe," he said. "Rhinoceros are poached in the wild so people can cut off the horn of the animal they've just killed and this is basically an easier target. They go and find museums, stately homes, private individuals with big-game tro-phies or decorative artworks made Out of rhino horns." With more than 60 raids reported from Scandinavia to Portugal, the gang has attracted intense police attention. In a recent Europol report they were count-ed among 3,600 identified organised criminal gangs operating in Europe. The major players among the Rathkeale traveller-trader communi-ty stay at arm's length from the hoods who carry out: the raids. Contacts based in England and, to buyers in China, where it is highly-prized as an ingredient in traditional medical cures. However, the criminals contracted to carry out the robberies or who are trying to cash in have used more vio-lent methods to get their hands on rhino horns. In one raid in July 2011, would-be robbers used tear gas to subdue secu-rity_ guards at a museum in Liege, Belgium. Police arrested two British nationals and recovered a rhino horn at a roadblock.
They told cops they had been promised €3,000 for the raid and had been ordered to leave the rhino horn near a statue in Holland. In the UK last year an antiques deal-er was beaten unconscious as he chased thieves who snatched a rhino horn from him. The dealer in Nottingham had set up a meeting with potential buyers at a McDonald's restaurant when he was targeted. In a series of raids in Germany dur-ing June 2011, thieves hit a string of museums snatching a total of eight rhino horns worth up to -€2 Last year the Sunday World pub-lished a photograph that was being touted around Rathkeale in the wake of one robbery in the UK. A source claimed that the exhibit was worth €200,000 and that three members of the Rathkeale traveller community who had played a minor role got €16,000 as their share. Convicted The involvement of Rathkeale trav-eller traders emerged in January 2010 when customs officers seised a cache of eight horns at Shannon airport. This year brothers Jeremiah and Michael O'Brien were convicted of illegally importing the horns, which had since risen in value from €500,000 to €1.5 million.
Two other young Rathkeale men were arrested in 2010 in a sting oper-ation in the United States and later jailed for six months. One of those, Richard 'Kerry' O'Brien, was previously jailed in Belgium for cigarette smuggling. His father, Richard senior, is regard-ed as one of the wealthiest traders from the County Limerick town. O'Brien junior and his brother-in-law Michael Hegarty travelled to the US after a buyer responded to an email sent out to taxidermists all over the world. The email sought mounted rhino head exhibits for an African-themed hotel due to open County Kerry. Another two Rathkeale men are currently subject to extradition pro-ceedings in Ireland, One man is want-ed in connection with a rhino horn robbery in the UK and the other over a robbery in Austria.
Paul Williams Special Correspondent – 30 April 2013
THE family of a man facing charges of withholding information about the murder of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan believe he may have been abducted.
Yesterday a court issued an arrest warrant for Robert Carroll (27), from Clonee, Co Meath, who has not been seen for over a week.
In October he was charged under Section 9 of the Offences Against the State Act for allegedly withholding information that might be of material assistance to detectives investigating Ryan's murder.
The feared crime boss was gunned down as he walked along Grange Lodge Avenue, in Clongriffin, north Dublin, on September 3 last.
The Irish Independent has learned that Mr Carroll's father reported him missing last week and has told gardai he fears something sinister has happened.
He said he believes his son would not have gone missing voluntarily and that there had been no contact from him.
Security sources have revealed that detectives investigating the disappearance are "keeping an open mind" about what happened to him.
Struggle
It is understood that officers have visited Mr Carroll's home at Ard Cluain in Clonee and found no evidence of a struggle.
"Robert Carroll is currently the subject of an arrest warrant and we are looking for him in relation to that," a source said.
"The fears of his family have to be taken seriously but so far there is no information that anything sinister has happened to him and we are keeping an open mind."
Mr Carroll was charged in connection with the murder on October 9 and was subsequently granted bail.
A second man, Thomas Hunt (39), from Canon Lillis Avenue, in Dublin's north inner city, is also facing similar charges for allegedly withholding information. Last month he was sent forward for trial to the Circuit Criminal Court.
Mr Carroll failed to turn up at the Dublin District Court last Friday where he was due to be served with a book of evidence in the case and be sent forward for trial.
No one has yet been charged with the murder of Alan Ryan.
The hit attempt on gangster Derek McLoughlin may be linked to the murder of a man three years ago.
McLoughlin (48), who was a close associate of Eamonn ‘the Don’ Dunne, was in a car park at the Castle Shopping Centre in Swords when a gunman walked up to him and pulled the trigger twice around 11.30am on Tuesday morning.
He had been at the Image Health and Fitness Centre before getting into his car when a people carrier pulled up beside him and the gunman got out.
Luckily for McLoughlin the would-be killer’s gun jammed and he was unable to fire any shots.
McLoughlin tried to run over the hitman after he fired the shots but he managed to flee the scene.
The gunman was spotted waiting around outside shops near the gym for two days before the hit attempt. Witnesses said he looked foreign.
McLoughlin, originally from Ballymun, was a close pal of Dunne who was shot dead in Cabra in 2010.
The gangster, who was hit with a €600,000 bill by CAB in 2010, is not cooperating with gardai over the incident but detectives are examining a number of lines of inquiry.
Sources say they are sceptical that the hit attempt was carried out by the Real IRA but they are not ruling it out.
Gardai are also examining any links to a hit attempt on Sean Enright the day after the attack on McLoughlin.
Another line of inquiry is that associates of David Thomas were responsible.
Thomas was shot dead by Dunne’s gang in Finglas in 2009. Back in 1998 Thomas killed the Don’s associate Brian O’Reilly’s brother David following a row in a pub.
Thomas later shot and injured two gardai after barricading himself into a flat in Dublin’s inner city. He claimed he believed associates of O’Reilly were trying to kill him.
Several associates of Dunne have been targeted by the Real IRA since his death including veteran gangster Eamon Kelly who was shot dead near his home in Killester last December.
The Trinity girl, the IRA arms haul and the gangland hit.
Gardai have traced a gun that was recovered from a dissident republican active service unit to a gangland slaying 11 years ago.
The Sunday World can reveal that Garda forensic experts have linked a 9mm semi-automatic pistol seized from dissident republicans last November to the murder of David
McCreevy in Tallaght, Dublin, in 2002.
Trinity College student Ursula Shannon (29), along with John McGreal (36) and 33-year-old John Troy are currently charged before the Special Criminal Court after being found with two handguns and 32 rounds of ammunition in Rahan, Co Offaly, last November.
They were arrested after a failed attempt to get a gun shop owner to open his shop door so the gang could force their way in and nab 250 weapons.
Shannon posed as a pregnant woman in distress in a bid to get the owner to open up but the plot failed and gardai were alerted and the trio were arrested nearby.
The Sunday World understands that McGreal and Troy were arrested by gardai again on Monday in connection with the brutal assassination of McCreevy.
The were quizzed by detectives about the execution of 23 year-old McCreevy, who was gunned down outside his parents’ home in Tallaght, west Dublin, in February 2002.
It can also be revealed that McCreevy was murdered because he was selling heroin for one of the country’s biggest dealers, which was a major embarrassment to the IRA because one of his close relations was a senior Provo.
McCreevy, from Belgard Heights in Tallaght, had been arrested in November 2001 with €100,000 worth of heroin and cannabis. He was one of the prime targets of Operation
Jumbo, which was a major crackdown on the activities of criminal heavyweight Jeffrey Mitchell.
Mitchell was one of the country’s most successful drug dealers and McCreevy was one of his most trusted couriers.
However, the IRA decided that he had to go because he was drawing too much attention on the terror group, as he was openly dealing drugs despite the fact his relation led the Provos’ ‘campaign’ against dealing.
He was warned on several occasions that if he did not distance himself from Mitchell, then he would be murdered.
He refused and it is thought that the officer in command of the Dublin branch of the IRA sanctioned his murder, without informing McCreevy’s relation of his plans.
A professional hitman approached the victim as he left home to go to work and calmly opened fire, shooting him several times in the head and body.
He escaped in a stolen car which was later found burnt out.
Gardai always suspected that the IRA had been responsible but they got a major break in the case when McGreal, Troy and Shannon were arrested in Offaly last November.
The trio have been charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm Taurus PT92 semi-automatic pistol, a 9mm Walther P5 semi-automatic pistol, a stun gun and the possession of 36 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
McGreal, from Palmer Road in Rush, north County Dublin, and Troy, from Dunard Avenue in Cabra on the capital’s northside, are also charged with membership of the IRA.
The three were released on bail and their trial is expected to go ahead later this year.
McCreevy’s boss, Jeffrey Mitchell, was one of Ireland’s most senior dealers in the early 2000s.
His gang was shipping an estimated 40 kilos of heroin into the country each month and making massive profits.
However, just three months after McCreevy was whacked, justice caught up with Mitchell when he was arrested in the middle of an armed robbery on a jewellery shop.
He was jailed for six years and was seriously injured in prison after being slashed by fellow inmates.
Murder accomplice gets €45,000 under Witness Protection Programme, court hears.
A murder accomplice with immunity from prosecution receives €45,000 annually from the State for himself and his family while living under witness protection.
A Detective Superintendent confirmed the payments while being cross examined by the defence in a Dublin murder trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Christopher Zambra (38) of Galtymore Road, Drimnagh, Dublin has pleaded not guilty to murdering 33-year-old John Carroll.
The Charlemont Street native was shot dead on February 18, 2009 as he socialised in Grumpy Jacks pub in The Coombe.
Accomplice-turned State witness Joseph O’Brien has testified that Zambra ordered the murder.
O’Brien (28) said that the accused told him to source the motorbike used in the killing and to destroy it afterwards.
The trial has heard that O’Brien was never charged in connection with the murder despite admitting his involvement.
Now in the Witness Security Programme (WSP) and living in another jurisdiction, he testified in the knowledge that nothing he said could be used against him.
Detective Superintendent Liam King today confirmed that the State pays O’Brien, his partner and two children about €45,000 in cash and allowances annually as part of the WSP.
D Super King, who is responsible for the programme, agreed with Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, that a person would need to earn €65,000 per year gross in order to end up with €45,000.
He had already explained that the family received the equivalent of a similar family on social welfare, along with a contribution towards utilities, €315 per week in rent allowance and at least €40 per week for healthcare.
He also confirmed that the DPP had not been informed that a file on O’Brien existed in the possession of the ‘Host Force’ outside the jurisdiction.
He agreed that this foreign force was precluded from voluntarily disclosing its records for security reasons. He agreed that steps could have been taken to have this information released on a non-voluntary basis.
After making enquiries, he also said that O’Brien’s sworn testimony that his partner was now his ex-partner was incorrect.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight women and four men.
A male prisoner has been taken from Portlaoise Prison to hospital. RTÉ News understands he is John Dundon, who is in custody awaiting trial for murder. He has been on hunger strike at Portlaoise Prison for a number of days.
MOBSTER John Dundon has refused water for the last five days after going on hunger strike in protest at his failure to have his murder trial adjourned, a source has revealed.
Dundon has been refusing food for the last five weeks in the Midlands Prison and has dropped from 18 and a half stone to 11 and a half stone.
The notorious Limerick criminal is now also claiming he has refused all water for the last five days before his upcoming trial, which is due to start on Tuesday.
On Friday, Dundon (29), from Hyde Road, failed in his bid to have his trial for the murder of rugby player Shane Geoghegan adjourned.
He had brought High Court proceedings over the Special Criminal Court’s refusal to adjourn his case until 2014.
He sought the adjournment because his lawyers claim they have not been given sufficient time to go through the large volume of material, including CCTV footage and documentation, about the case furnished to them by gardai.
A source said Dundon claims he suffered a similar “injustice” during his previous trial for the murder of bouncer Brian Fitzgerald.
Dundon was acquitted of murder after documents given to the defence proved supergrass witness James Martin Cahill was unreliable.
The source said: “Dundon claims his lawyers have not been given time to go through more than 26,000 pages of documents given to him by prosecutors.
“He has been saying it took the prosecution seven months to prepare, but he is only getting two weeks to mount a defence.”
A man who died in the early hours of this morning after being found badly beaten in Athy, Co Kildare was a prominent member of the Republican movement who had convictions for bombing and remained supportive of dissident republicanism in recent years. Larry Keane, a 56-year-old father of six, who served in the Army from 1974 to 1980 including a stint in Lebanon, was found unconscious with serious head injuries in a laneway in Athy at 11.50pm last night. Paramedics treated him at the scene before he was taken by ambulance to Naas General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5am. In 1998 he was caught be gardai driving a car bomb twice the size of the Omagh bomb onto a car ferry in Dun Laoghaire, south Dublin. The bomb was bound for England but Keane from Cloney, Athy, claimed at the time he was transporting it for payment and denied he was a member of any illegal organisation. Last September he was a prominent figure among mourners at the funeral in Donaghmede, north Dublin, of Real IRA leader in Dublin Alan Ryan who was shot dead. A large amount of blood was visible in the spot where his body was found and the laneway was sealed off immediately gardai arrived. The laneway underwent a forensic examination yesterday by members of the Garda Technical Bureau. While the results of a post mortem on the remains of Keane have not been officially released, Garda sources said the dead man had suffered catastrophic injuries to the back of his head and was either kicked to death or beaten by somebody using a blunt weapon. A number of witnesses have report sightings of the dead man up to around 11.30pm, suggesting he had been attacked only shortly before his body was found. The laneway where he was found bloodied and unconscious joins Dukes Lane to the Greenhills estate in Athy. While the dead man had spent time in prison after being caught with bomb making equipment he also had at least four convictions for violent assault, the latest of these was recorded at the end of last year. Gardai believe he had regularly become involved in verbal and sometimes physical alternations around Athy where he lived and was well known. Detectives investigating his death believe the fatal attack on him was the outcome of one such altercation and was most likely not linked to his involvement with dissident republicans. In 1998 at the Special Criminal Court he pleaded guilty to having 980 lbs of an improvised explosive mixture, a timer power unit, an electrical detonator, two improvised booster tubes and an improvised detonating cord with intent to endanger life at Dun Laoghaire port on April 2nd, 1998. He was sentenced to 15 years which was later reduced to 10 on appeal. The court was told that Keane was paid £300 sterling in advance and was to get the balance of the £2,000 on his return from England.
Brian Kavanagh – 20 July 2013 07:00 AM A 45-year-old man who was charged with IRA membership and possession of ammunition has been granted bail at the Special Criminal Court despite the objections of gardai.
Stephen Hendrick of Balbutcher Drive, Ballymun, Dublin 11, was arrested at a yard in Cloghran by members of the Special Detective Unit and the Crime and Security Section earlier this month as part of ongoing investigations into dissident republican activity in Dublin.
At an out-of-hours sitting of the Special Criminal Court, Hendrick was charged with membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on July 3.
He was also charged with possession of ammunition in suspicious circumstances on the same date at Furry Park, Turnapin Great, Old Airport Road, Cloghran, in Co Dublin.
Counsel for the State, Garnet Orange, told the non-jury court that gardai were objecting to bail because of the circumstances of the accused's arrest and the seriousness of the charges laid against him.
CONDITIONS
However, presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler said the court was satisfied that bail should be granted, as for bail to be refused the accused man would have to pose a flight risk or a risk of witness interference, while there was also no objection to bail under Section 2 of the Bail Act, 1997.
He said that bail would be set on two independent sureties of €43,000 and €20,000, and on Hendrick's own bond of €100.
Mr Justice Butler said that the accused must abide by a number of conditions, including signing on daily at Ballymun Garda Station between 9am and 9pm and living at his home address.
Hendrick must observe a curfew between midnight and 7am, must surrender his passport and cannot apply for any new travel documentation nor leave the jurisdiction, which includes travel to Northern Ireland.
Mr Justice Butler said the accused must provide a mobile phone number to gardai and ensure that this phone is in operation at all times.
The accused man also cannot contact any proposed prosecution witness in the case or associate with anyone charged with or convicted of a scheduled offence.
Ken Foy Crime correspondent – 20 July 2013 07:00 AM A 56-year-old man who gardai believe was beaten to death at midnight yesterday was a prominent mourner at the funeral of Real IRA terror chief Alan Ryan.
Larry Keane (56) suffered fatal injuries to the back of his head when he was assaulted in a laneway at midnight in Athy, Co Kildare, yesterday.
He was still alive when he was found by a passer-by but died in hospital at 5am yesterday.
Former soldier Keane had been jailed for 15 years for transporting a bomb twice the size of the Omagh bomb.
This sentence was later reduced to 10 years on appeal.
ASSAULT
A senior source explained: "Mr Keane suffered a horrendous hiding.
"Because of the severe injuries to the back of his head, gardai first thought that they were caused by a weapon but it now seems far more likely that he was kicked to death.
"Gardai are looking at whether the assault is linked to Keane's links to dissident Republicanism.
"What is known is that Keane was photographed by detectives at the Alan Ryan funeral last September when he stood beside the colour party outside the church.
"And he has been trading off his reputation as a Republican hardman around Athy for years, even though he has become frail in recent times."
This did not stop Keane being involved in a number of assaults and he received a six-month suspended sentence last November for his role in assaulting a local man.
In December 1998, Keane, a father-of-six from Cloney, Athy, Co Kildare, pleaded guilty to having 980lb of an improvised explosive mixture, a timer power unit, an electrical detonator, two improvised booster tubes and an improvised detonating cord with intent to endanger life.
The bomb was destined for England.
The home-made explosives were packed into a silage bag which filled the boot of a stolen red BMW car that Keane was driving.
IRA sympathisers agree not to fire shots over Larry Keane coffin.
Associates of IRA sympathiser agreed not to fire a volley of shots over his coffin but the ceremony had all the other hallmarks of a paramilitary funeral.
Keane (56) was found seriously injured following an assault in a laneway between two housing estates in Athy on July 18. He had suffered head injuries and died despite efforts of gardai and the emergency services.
Keane was a notorious figure in the IRA and was sentenced to 15 years for what was believed to be a plot to bomb the Grand National in Aintree in 1998.
The sentence was reduced to 10 years on appeal.
Gardai allowed Keane's associates to wear black berets and permitted elements of Republican traditions, but banned a volley of shots over the coffin as had happened at the funeral of Dublin Real IRA leader Alan Ryan last September.
Uniformed gardai, backed up by members of the Armed Support Unit and mounted units, were visible in the streets and outside Keane’s Athy home.
A number of cars were being searched on approach to the town.
Black flags hung from windows and lamp posts, and a tricolour was placed in the window of the house with the words ‘Oglaigh Larry Keane RIP’ written in red across the flag.
Outside in the rain a party waited for the remains of Keane to be brought from the house.
Wearing black, berets, ties, trousers, shoes and gloves, along with white shirts, they stood to attention as the coffin draped in the tricolour was brought out.
A beret and gloves adorned the coffin also which was walked to St Michael's parish church as a lone piper played.
Keane's body was released to his family this week and lay in repose in his son Laurence's house in Castlepark overnight where a family rosary was held.
The house is close to where Keane was attacked.
His remains were due to be buried in St Michael's new cemetery this afternoon.
Detectives kept a close eye on the event amid expectations that it would attract senior figures in the Real IRA. Members of the Divisional Crime Scene Investigation Unit also video recorded the funeral procession.
Members of the 32 County Sovereign Movement – known as the political wing of the IRA – held a demonstration in Athy last week after what they saw as delays in the release of Keane's body.
A spokesman for the group said a “full republican funeral” was being planned but that no volley of shots would be fired.
Gardai investigating Keane's murder arrested a 47-year-old man in the Athy area last Thursday. He was later released without charge.
Gardai are continuing to appeal for information about the assault that led to Keane's death.
By Conor Feehan – 31 July 2013
ARMED gardai flanked the funeral cortege of murdered dissident Larry ‘Bomber’ Keane today.
Detectives do not believe there is any terrorist connection to the murder.
In December 1998, dad-of-six Keane from Cloney, Athy, Co Kildare, pleaded guilty to having 980lb of an improvised explosive mixture, a timer power unit, an electrical detonator, two improvised booster tubes and an improvised detonating cord with intent to endanger life at Dun Laoghaire port eight months earlier.
Ken Foy, Crime Correspondent – 07 August 2013 02:30 PM
A MAN who drove himself to a garda station after being shot in the head had been stalked for days.
Detectives are investigating reports that Gerry O'Neill (33) had been targeted by two separate gangs.
In dramatic scenes around 9.40pm last night he was chased by a gunman on a motorbike who was recklessly firing shots on a city street.
After driving more than a kilometre from Seville Place
to Store Street, O'Neill stumbled into the garda station shouting: "They're after shooting me, they're after shooting me."
He is expected to survive even though the bullet went through his head and exited his mouth.
It is the second time in just over a year that he has escaped a murder attempt. In May 2012 he drove to Cloverhill Prison to escape his attacker.
Gardai at the front desk in Store Street station last night were shocked when O'Neill arrived at the station with blood pumping from a head wound.
"It was chaos in there and it wasn't helped by the fact that his car was pulled up outside on a Luas track which led to lots of onlookers gathering around," a source explained.
Today senior sources revealed that detectives are probing two different crime gangs suspected of being involved in the attempted murder.
Surveillance
One is the mob led by exiled gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, while the other is an up-and-coming crew based in Newbridge, Co Kildare.
A source told the Herald: "Both these theories are being looked at but what is not in doubt is that Mr O'Neill had been under surveillance for a number of days – the culprits had built up a pattern of his movements.
"The gunman knew his movements and had been waiting for him in the Sheriff Street area last night.
"Gardai are also satisfied that last night's attempted murder is linked to the incident in which Mr O'Neill was lucky to survive when he was shot in Ballyfermot last May."
His Mercedes car was abandoned halfway on the path and on the Luas tracks which caused a suspension of tram services last night.
The back windscreen was blown out and there was a bullet hole in the front window.
Just a couple of minutes before abandoning his car at Store Street, O'Neill had been shot as he pulled up on a kerb at Seville Place and the junction of Oriel Street Lower.
He then drove from that location onto Amiens Street while being pursued by the hit team on a motorbike. The gunman continued to fire shots until O'Neill miraculously was able to rush into the doors of the garda station.
At around 11pm on May 15 last year, O'Neill had another lucky escape when the he was shot as he sat in his Audi A4 car outside Ruby Finnegans pub in Ballyfermot.
Wound
On that occasion a bullet just skimmed his chest. He also suffered a flesh wound to the shoulder. A window in the car was shot out.
In the aftermath of the shooting, he drove his Audi to the gates of nearby Cloverhill Prison for help arriving there shortly before 11.30pm.
He told prison officers that he had been shot and was given emergency treatment at the prison.
You was right on this matter Wilson no involvement.
SPANISH cops have now ruled out the involvement of hitman Eric ‘Lucky’ Wilson in the disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick.
Dublin teenager Amy was just 15 years old when she vanished from the family’s Spanish home in Calahona on the Costa del Sol on New Year’s Day 2008.
In an email sent to Amy’s mother Audrey, the embassy of Ireland in Madrid confirmed that Wilson is not regarded as a suspect in the case.
“The police confirmed to the Embassy that they had received the information reported…to the Irish police via Interpol,” an embassy official wrote.
“Their investigations did not uncover any evidence that Eric Wilson was in the area where Amy went missing at the time of her disappearance.
“Furthermore, they confirmed that a property leased by Mr Wilson in Coin was thoroughly searched in 2009 in connection with the investigation of another crime.”
Wilson (30) from Ballyfermot, Dublin, is serving a 23-year sentence in a Spanish prison for the brutal 2011 killing of British man Dan Smith.
Argument
Wilson shot him eight times at close range following a drunken argument over a girl in June 2010.
The girl in question was a friend of the missing teenager and the victim was also known to her, Audrey later revealed.
In the wake of Wilson’s conviction, Amy’s mum and partner Dave Mahon told Irish police that they had been contacted by an anonymous tipster who claimed Wilson boasted of killing Amy.
However, Spanish police have found nothing to link the gangster to the crime.
Meanwhile, Audrey’s partner Dave Mahon is still awaiting word from the DPP as to whether he is to be charged over the death of Amy’s brother Dean.
The 23-year-old father-of-one, from Clarehall in Dublin, was fatally injured when he was stabbed during an altercation at the Burnell Square apartments, Northern Cross, on the Malahide Road, on May 25 last year.
He was taken to Beaumont Hospital where he was soon pronounced dead.
Gardai subsequently arrested Mahon and he was later released without charge.
Updating the coroner on the investigation in January, Detective Inspector Tony Howard said a file was given to the DPP last November.
He added that the Gardai were “pretty hopeful” that they will receive directions back “in the very near future”.
Loss
Yesterday, Dean’s dad touchingly reached out to him on his 24th birthday.
Christopher Fitzpatrick (48) revealed his “heart is broken” at the loss and that Amy is also thinking of him “no matter where in the world she is”.
Christopher wrote online: “Remembering my son Dean who should be celebrating his birthday with us and not in Heaven.
“You will always be missed by your dad. My heart is broken for you son.”
He added on his Missing Amy Facebook page: “Love dad and your little brother Alex and your little sister Amy will be thinking of you today, no matter where in the world she is. x.”
Christopher also posted a touching ‘memory card’ of Dean showing a bicycle, because he loved to cycle and a set of weights as he liked to work out in the gym.
Dean had a two-year-old son Leon.
The message said: “Happy Birthday in Heaven, I wish you were here even for just a little while so I could just say Happy Birthday and see your smile.”
picture sharing. Court hears 16-year-old went on crime spree after threats from 'local heavies' A 16-YEAR-OLD Dublin boy broke into 14 cars over two days to pay back a drug debt to a group of “heavies” who intimidated his family, a judge has heard.
The first-time offender had been doing well in school and active in sports until he began abusing “street tablets” which led to him building up a massive drug-debt he could not afford, the Dublin Children's Court was told.
Following a garda investigation it was established he broke into 14 cars during a two-day crime spree , and when he came to court he pleaded guilty to 15 criminal damage charges. The 16-year-old also admitted four connected charges for: possessing a long piece of steel and a hammer use in thefts, theft of €5 and a bottle of aftershave, and one for attempted burglary.
All the incidents happened in the Dublin 7 area at houses at Villa Park Road, Villa Park Gardens and Villa Park Drive, on December 4 and at Croke Patrick Road on January 24 last.
Evidence has yet to be heard on the bulk of the charges but Judge John O'Connor was given details of the attempted burglary.
Garda Adrian Burns told the juvenile court that on December 4 a report had been received of a number of car break-ins. Gda Burns spotted the youth coming out of a garage at the side of a house and trying to hide before he was arrested.
Gda Burn said 14 cars were broken into and property was taken from them; when detained for questioning the boy, who had no criminal convictions, made admissions.
The teenager was accompanied to the hearing by his mother who sat by his side and was visibly upset.
Defence solicitor Gareth Noble explained that “this is a young man who has never been before the courts before” and the crimes happened at a time the boy had become heavily addicted to “tablets he procured on the street”.
He was in school and was involved in sports but both “fell by the wayside” as a result of his taking drugs, described in court as “street tablets”.
“In these circumstances he was not able to afford the amount of drugs he was consuming on a daily basis,” Mr Noble said. The teen was under influence of these pills when the offences took place and his “memory is somewhat blighted”, the judge heard.
The juvenile court was also told the teen's drug-taking led to him building up debts which placed his family under huge strain. Mr Noble said they were “visited on occasions by a number of local heavies asking for the money back”.
“To do that, they suggested he get the money whatever way he could,” the lawyer also said.
Judge O'Connor was also told that the boy was given a “time-scale to get it back” and committed the offences to build up the funds necessary to pay the money.
The lawyer said the boy continued to have family support and his life has become more stable. He also asked the judge to note that the teenager had pleaded guilty to all the charges despite some evidential gaps in the prosecution's case.
He would work with the Probation Service to address his offending and the possibility of reimbursing the car owners for the damage he caused, the court was told.
Judge O'Connor said the teenager, who is on bail, faced very serious charges and had affected a number of victims. He adjourned the case until July when a pre-sentence probation report is to be furnished to the court.
The Irish Mobster, Domenyk Noonan, the head of the Manchester crime family, has been remanded in custody after his arrest on allegations of rape against a vulnerable adult and been charged with lewd behaviour in front on a 15-year-old boy. gifs upload. The publicity hungry gangster could face an indeterminate life sentence if convicted of the sexual offences and although he has been bailed on adult rape charges he had been remanded on the charge of conducting sexual behaviour in front of a minor.
Noonan is accused of paying a child to watch while he was pleasured by another adult over the last two weeks.
The Manchester Court has placed reporting restrictions on witnesses in the case but Noonan has protested his innocence.
His legal team has said that it is concerned with the 'conduct of the police' and have claimed that there was not enough evidence to charge the Irish gangster who has admitted stealing one €4m in transit van robberies over the last two decades.
Noonan has spent 32 of his 49 years in jail and has just been released after a nine year sentence for gun possession.
He has claimed that Greater Manchester Police has stitched him up having previously charged him with two sets of sexual offences over the last three years - an assault against a 15 year old boy and the rape of a 24 year old woman - but none of those charges ever made it to trial.
His twitter account run by his supporters said that "we were happy he was going straight, planning to marry, set up a business but in custody for sex offences. It's a set up", the account claimed.
Noonan's own son, Bugsy was sentenced to 38 month in jail for his part in a car ringing gang.
Upon sentencing he shouted '38 months what's that', he told supporters in the dock.
photo storage Central Criminal Court A Dublin man charged with INLA membership has been granted bail by the Special Criminal Court, despite the objections of gardai.
Paul Mason (26) with an address at Ballygarra Park, Garristown, Co Dublin was earlier this month brought before a late sitting of the non-jury court charged with membership of an unlawful organisation within the State, to wit an organisation styling itself the Irish National Liberation Army, otherwise the INLA on May 7, 2014.
Detective Garda Peter Cooney, of Ardee Garda Station, this morning told State Solicitor Mr Liam Mulholland that gardai were objecting to bail on monetary grounds as it was believed a proposed independent surety of €5,000 did not reflect the seriousness of the charge of INLA membership.
The court heard that gardai also objected to bail on other grounds.
Det Gda Cooney agreed with counsel for Mr Mason, Mr Marc Thompson Grolimund BL, that gardai were seeking bail conditions based on an independent surety of €20,000.
He accepted that Mr Mason has been unemployed for a substantial period of time and that his mother was not a person of substantial means.
Asked if he accepted that a €5,000 independent surety was substantial amount for both Mr Mason and his mother, Det Gda Cooney said he accepted it was a substantial amount personally but said it did not reflect the seriousness of the charge.
Presiding judge Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley said the court was disposed to settle the terms of bail. She said the main difficulty was the amount proffered and although it was accepted that €5,000 was a substantial amount personally, the court found the sum was too low and would require an independent surety of €8,500.
She said that Mr Mason must also reside at his mother’s address, sign on daily at a garda station and observe a curfew between 9pm and 9am. He is to keep a mobile phone on his person at all times and is not to interfere with any witnesses in the case.
Mr Mason is also to stay out of Co Louth, save in advance of 24 hours notice to gardai, and is not to associate with anyone convicted of or charged with an offence.
A man charged with the murder of Limerick businessman Roy Collins ran away from a garda patrol car just minutes after the murder, the Special Criminal Court has heard.
Nathan Killeen (24) of Hyde Road, Prospect and Wayne Dundon (36), of Lenihan Avenue, Prospect, have pleaded not guilty to the murder of 35-year-old Roy Collins at Coin Castle Amusements, Roxboro Road Shopping Centre on April 9, 2009.
Detective Garda David Baynham, of Henry Street Garda Station, today (Friday) told counsel for the prosecution, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, that shortly after noon on April 9 he got a call about a shooting in the Steering Wheel Pub. He said he arrived there and saw that Roy Collins was seriously injured.
Last week the court heard evidence from Mr Steve Collins, the father of Roy Collins, who said that at around noon on April 9 one of his barmen at the Steering Wheel Pub told him there was “a fellow bleeding next door”.
He said he ran next door to the arcade and saw his son crouched on his knees holding himself. Roy said: “I’m after being shot Dad”.
Det Gda Baynham agreed with Mr O’Higgins that he decided he would head up to where the McCarthy-Dundons were based in the city, which was in Ballinacurra Weston.
He agreed that about 12:15pm he arrived at a house on Crecora Avenue where Christopher McCarthy Gareth Collins, Lisa Collins and another man were present.
Det Gda agreed that he and his colleagues then continued to drive around Ballinacurra Weston and became aware that a black Mercedes car was on fire in the Greenfields area.
At approximately 12:20pm he was travelling from Hyde Avenue toward Hyde Road when he observed two males walking from the direction of Garryglass Avenue. Both youths were dressed in dark clothing and had their hoods pulled up tight, Det Gda Baynham said.
Det Gda Baynham said that as they approached one of the youths, he turned to his left toward the garda patrol car and the witness immediately recognised him as Nathan Killeen.
Asked if the fact he saw Nathan Killeen was striking in any way, Det Gda Baynham said that it was important at that particular time.
He said he wanted to speak to the youths as he suspected they were involved in the earlier shooting, but they ran from the car.
Det Gda Baynham said Nathan Killeen ran across the road on to Hyde Avenue while the other youth also crossed the road and ran toward Crecora Avenue. He told the court that the Nathan Killeen used a junction box to jump over a wall where he disappeared from his view.
On Thursday, Mr O’Higgins told the court that the trial was moving into a new phase involving garda witnesses and evidence of warrants secured to search a block of houses.
Counsel for Nathan Killeen, Mr Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, told the court that he would be challenging the admissibility of all evidence arising out of any searches and entries to properties of foot of Section 29 warrants, the lawfulness of the arrest and detention of Mr Killeen and all material arising from that detention.
He asked that the court regard itself as being in a voir dire when this evidence became relevant. A voir dire is a trial within a trial to determine the admissibility of evidence.
The trial will continue in the voir dire on Tuesday before presiding judge Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley.
image url. Shane Rossiter A jury in a murder trial has heard that the accused told gardai he would ‘do 15 to 20 years knowing that it is over’ when referring to the death of Shane Rossiter in 2012.
Maurice Power (31) of Dranganbeg, Kilmoyler, Cahir has pleaded not guilty to murdering Shane Rossiter (29) in Co. Tipperary on October 17 more than one year ago.
The court heard that the accused told gardai in interview that he had ‘decided to keep him (Mr Rossiter) close’ and that he ‘didn’t want to show the fear’.
When asked if any effort could have been made to repair the relationship, the accused said ‘this was going on years. I should be dead five times over’.
Questioned as to whether he had come face to face with Shane Rossiter before he died, the accused said ‘I didn’t disguise my face. I was wearing a hood.’
Asked whether or not the accused regretted anything he replied ‘no. I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder. I would either do 15 to 20 years knowing that it is over and feeling the way that I did.’
‘I spent my whole life arguing and now its done. The way it is he is dead, people can get on with their lives.’
Under cross examination by Mr Dominic McGinn SC defending, Detective Garda Adrian Cooke rejected the suggestion that the accused was made to tell gardai what he told them.
Detective Cooke confirmed that he was involved in five separate interviews with the accused and accompanied him on a number of cigarette breaks.
“You were involved in 6 breaks where Mr Power was having a cig break,” said Mr McGinn.
“I suggest the reason was to put pressure on Mr Power to make a confession.”
Detective Cooke replied “no” adding “there was no interaction apart from supervising cigarette breaks and interviewing.”
Mr McGinn continued “I suggest this process was a way of making him tell you what he was going to tell you” to which Detective Cooke replied “absolutely not”.
The trial continues before a jury of seven women and five men with Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy presiding.
image sharing. Christopher Evans Hubbart, 63, raped a hundred women over a 12 year period.A serial rapist who has raped and abused up to 100 women is to be released into a small community on the orders of a senior judge, despite going on rape sprees every other time he was released.
The rapist who has undergone a course of anti-testosterone injections and will have a electronic ankle strap has been adjudged to be safe by a senior judge despite passionate objections from the Police and residents.
Christopher Evans Hubbart is to be released on July 7th into the small town of Palmdale, in California after a local Judge in Santa Clara ordered his release.
The offender admitted raping and assaulting at least 40 women between over more than a decade before his capture in 1982 but Police has put the figure at nearly 100 but his release after more than 34 years in jail is considered humane and necessary, according to the Judge ordering his release into the Los Angeles community.
A judge has ordered a serial rapist released to live in a Los Angeles County community in spite of objections from residents, the Daily News reported.
His new home will be in a college town with more than 3000 female students.
He was convicted of rape, sodomy, and burglary at the age of 21 in 1971 and immediately on his release in 1979 he went onto commit another 15 rapes. When released again he went onto rape at least two women a month before a 16 year sentence for multiple rapes in 1982.
A further release in 1990 saw him attack a jogger within two months and he was placed in a mental institution in 1996 where he remains until his release next month after a long legal fight.
photo uploading Trip: Kim and Kanye After shopping in Paris, booking out Versailles and getting hitched in Florence, Kimye have reportedly picked Ireland for their honeymoon
Sunday World spies in Cork spotted the Wests hitting the rebel county this afternoon before being whisked away to the luxury Castlemartyr resort near Middleton in Cork.
The stunning 5-star resort features golf and a spa for the newlyweds to recharge after their hectic weekend of partying.
The couple were famously secretive about their wedding plans and these sightings can't, as yet, be confirmed. A rumour last month said that Kanye was set to hit Dublin for his stag with best pal Jay Z jetting in for the party but this was discovered to be a hoax started by a Dublin nightclub boss.
However, the couple are well-known for their love of the finer things in life and would certainly fit in in one of Munster's finest hotels.
image upload free. Pay the bribe or take the bullet, the Mexican cartels warn US drivers on Mexican border. The Mexican mafia have taken over some US border billboards and warned people to pay bribes or take a bullet, scaring drivers and citizens along the Mexican border.
The brutal warnings with mannequins hung from the road signs reinforced the brutal message, “Plato o plomo” (silver or lead) a message that means 'pay the bribe or get a bullet', according to mafia experts.
The warnings in the border town of El Paso, echoe the direct threats issued by major Mexican cartels for many years across the border, recently appeared on the billboards without notice and as yet, there is no indication as to who put them up.
Police have since brought them down but the investigation continues, as the human effigies have also been taken down.
Across the border, real bodies often are found hanging down from bridges and buildings as a direct threat to those not co-operating with the Cartels.
"Whoever did this went through a lot of work to get this accomplished. This is possibly a message to someone who hasn't cooperated with the cartels. But even if it's a hoax, something like this is going to make the El Paso population uneasy, given that the city is not far from the killing fields of Mexico,” Phil Jordan, a former DEA agent who has worked on the border told the NY Daily News.
On this day in true crime a republican was hanged for planting a bomb outside a London prison.. free picture hosting. Prison: Visiting time - Clerkenwell The man reputedly responsible for the Clerkenwell bombing – the worst terrorist incident in Britain in the nineteenth century - was hanged on May 26th, 1868.
27-year-old Michael Barrett was born in Co Fermanagh and blamed for the planting of a bomb in a wheelbarrow outside a prison wall in Clerkenwell, London in December 1867.
A dozen people were killed and many more severely injured in an attempt to free Richard O’Sullivan-Burke, a senior Republican arms agent imprisoned in the jail.
A dozen people were killed and many more severely injured when the bomb, left in a wheelbarrow, exploded outside the prison wall.
At his trial in the Old Bailey, a Dubliner Patrick Mullaney claimed Barrett had informed him he triggered the bomb.
Despite a lack of corroborative evidence, and a free passage to Australia for the chief witness, Barrett was found guilty of murder.
He was hanged on Tuesday, May 26th, 1868, outside Newgate Prison before a “vast concourse of a crowd.”
The hanging made history, being Britain’s last public execution.
Queen Victoria was outraged that only one man went to the gallows. She urged that in future, instead of being brought to trial, Irish Republican suspects should be lynched on the spot.
However, a socialist Sunday newspaper stated: “Millions will continue to doubt that a guilty man has been hanged, and the future historian of the Fenian panic may declare that Michael Barrett was sacrificed to the exigencies of the police, and the vindication of the good Tory principle, that there is nothing like blood.”
Possible dissident bomb plot foiled by gardai after cars searched in Co Louth.. image hosting services. Gardai have arrested five men and uncovered what is believed to be a bomb after stopping a number of vehicles close to the border in Co Louth.
It is believed that the device was in the process of being transported across the border.
It's also thought that it was destined to be used in an attack in Northern Ireland, possibly on the security forces.
The operation by armed gardai took place near Kilcurry, Dundalk earlier this evening and the men arrested ranged in age from early 70s to mid 50s.
They are detained at Drogheda and Dundalk Garda Stations under the provisions of Section 30 Offences Against the State Act.
Gardai believe they have foiled a major incident being planned by dissident Republicans.
Hard Dun By: Notorious Dundon-McCarthy gang split and are out for each other's blood. free image hosting. The notorious Dundon-McCarthy gang have split and are out for each other’s blood, we can reveal.
The once-close allies are now sworn enemies with members of the McCarthy faction taking hits out on former Dundon associates who they believe let them “take the fall” for murders and other crimes down the years.
Tensions between the two gangs have escalated in recent months with leading members of the McCarthys warning the Dundons – including recently freed gangster Ger – not to set foot in Limerick again.
Ger Dundon strangles Batman in Amsterdam
A prison source last night revealed that members of the two criminal tribes have even been placed in different prisons amid fears of bloodshed.
The source said: “Leading members of the McCarthy gang realise that they took the fall for a lot of crimes they carried out over the years under the instructions of the Dundons.
“To say that they now hate the Dundon gang would be an understatement. There is much bad blood between the two sides.
“It is believed there is so much hatred and vengeance now that the McCarthy gang have taken out hits on all leading members of the Dundon gang both in and out of prison.
Anthony McCarthy (20) arriving at the Four Courts in Dublin
“They have told inmates in the prisons where the Dundons are that they will be rewarded if they manage to get to them and take them out.
“The McCarthys are in Limerick Prison while the Dundons are being kept away from them and are in Portlaoise, the Midlands and Wheatfield.
“The McCarthys have also let the Dundons know that if any of them set foot in Limerick again they will be killed on the spot.
“They want to reclaim Limerick, which they once ruled with an iron fist, as their stomping ground.”
Ger Dundon is the only member of the gang who is not in prison after he was released from Dublin’s Wheatfield Prison in January.
It's a dark knight as freed gangster Ger Dundon lives it up in Amsterdam
He fled to England to stay with family and has not been seen in his native city of Limerick since.
His brother Wayne is back in jail until at least 2016, serving six-and-a-half years for threatening to kill April Collins.
Wayne Dundon arriving at the High Court in Dublin
While Dessie Dundon is serving a life sentence for the 2002 murder of rival gangster Kieran Keane.
John Dundon is serving a life sentence for the murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan in November 2008.
Meanwhile, his cousin and once-close associate Anthony ‘Noddy’ McCarthy is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of crime boss Kieran Keane.
Off-duty Garda foils attempted armed robbery as two men arrested in Dublin.. free adult image hosting. Two people have been arrested after an attempted armed robbery yesterday evening.
Two men, with their faces covered, entered a shop on Lower Mount Pleasant Avenue in Ranelagh, Dublin at around 6.45pm on Thursday.
They were armed with what appeared to be a firearm, but an off-duty Garda spotted the incident underway and followed the men into the shop.
He confronted them and started to struggle with one of the robbers, but was attacked by the second.
The suspects fled the scene in the direction of Mount Pleasant Square, with the plainclothes Garda in close pursuit.
As the men ran they threw the firearm into some bushes at Mount Pleasant Square, where it was found and removed for a technical examination.
One man was arrested soon afterwards following a struggle and the second escaped.
This man in his 20s is detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act 1939 at Rathmines Garda Station.
Gardai then arrested a second person at 11.30pm in a follow up operation.
A juvenile is being detained at Terenure under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, 1939.
The Garda also received medical attention at St James' Hospital for a hand injury.
Gilligan’s former horse centre has new lease of life.
BY JOYCE FEGAN – 26 MAY 2014 12:00 AM
Convicted drug dealer John Gilligan’s former equestrian centre, Jessbrook, has turned over a new leaf with a new owner and name.
Now named the Emerald International Equestrian Centre its new owner James Buckley was not deterred by the centre’s past.
“It was a bargain. The former history of Jessbrook didn’t put me off. This is the beginning of a new chapter for the place,” said the show-jumper.
The equestrian centre was seized from the Gilligan family by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) after a lengthy legal battle.
cab
CAB sold the Kildare centre, on 55 acres, last spring for approximately €500,000.
“CAB were brilliant to deal with. It’s all systems go,” said Mr Buckley.
And now the equestrian enthusiast plans to turn it into an international competition facility with work already underway in Kildare with a wax floor down in the main indoor arena.
Mr Buckley plans to hold both show-jumping and eventing in the centre and is in talks with various events organisers in the equestrian world with a view to tying down dates and fixtures.
“We are putting in a new wax surface into the main indoor (arena) which is 6,950 sq metres and has two tiered seating catering for over 3,000 people,” Mr Buckley said.
He also explained that there is a stables there big enough to hold 50 horses, as well as an outdoor floodlit arena.
Mr Buckley hopes to open the doors to the Emerald International Equestrian Centre this August to host the first shows.
By next year he aims to add two extra outdoor areas and a grass arena as well as a cross-country gallop.
Mr Buckley’s plans have come into place since a sale agreed sign was first erected at Gilligan’s former family home, last December.
Gilligan, who spent 17 years in prison for drug-trafficking offences, purchased the estate for approximately €445,000 in 1995.
The criminal then spent €1.5m renovating Jessbrook into Ireland’s largest indoor equestrian centre.
It was believed to be worth €5m when it was put on the market last year for only €500,000. After its first three weeks on the market there were no bids on the property.
Earlier this year, Gilligan survived an attempt on his life after being shot in the head and chest while at his brother’s house in Clondalkin.
He is now recuperating in England.
restaurant
But with Jessbrook now officially the Emerald International Equestrian Centre it has a very different future ahead as its new owner also plans to open a restaurant at the Kildare property.
“It’s an exciting time for us and, although this place was fairly raw when we got it, it’s about 70pc there now.
“We are doing clearing and levelling work and pushing forward with it all,” Mr Buckley said in an interview to the Irish Field.
'Fat' Freddie goes to the High Court in a bid to get bail.
A DUBLIN man awaiting trial in connection with a pub row last year has gone to the High Court in a bid to get bail.
Frederick Thompson, 33, from Loreto Road, Maryland, Dublin, had been refused bail last Tuesday after he was charged with committing a violent disorder along with two others, on January 7 last year.
But he has gone to the High Court in a bid to get bail and a judge heard today that the DPP wanted to be furnished with “a financial statement” from the accused.
The 33-year-old, who has not yet entered a plea, made no reply when he was charged with engaging in or threatening the use of violence that would cause another person to fear for their safety.
The incident is alleged to have happened at Morrisey's pub, Cork St, in Dublin 8, on January 7 last year.
The charge is under Section 15 of the Public Order Act which, on conviction, can result in a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
Dressed in a red T-shirt, blue jeans and black runners, the married father-of-one, who had been extradited from Holland, had been denied bail by Judge Michael Walsh when he appeared at Dublin District Court, on May 21.
Gardai had objected to bail on the grounds that he was a flight risk and a decision on whether the 33-year-old man is to be granted free legal aid was also deferred.
He had been served with a book of evidence on May 21 and the DPP had directed that he was to be tried on indictment at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where he will face his next hearing.
Mr Thompson, who did not contest his extradition to Ireland, went before the High Court, in Cloverhill, Dublin, yesterday (MON) in an attempt to get bail granted.
Garrett McCormack BL, for the DPP, told Mr Justice George Birmingham, that an adjournment was being sought. He explained that the DPP was seeking a Section Six statement under the Criminal Justice Act 2007 in relation to a financial statement.
Defence counsel Michael Hourigan asked for the bail hearing to proceed and said that a specific amount set out in an affidavit had been offered but it was now the case that a greater amount was available.
However, Mr McCormack said that that a financial statement was being sought and though the DPP had the right to waive that requirement, it had chosen not to, and was entitled to that documentation.
Mr Justice Birmingham said Mr Thompson would have to provide the “comprehensive statement”. He adjourned the bail application until Thursday but said that it if it is not ready to go ahead it will be put back until June 3.
'FAT' FREDDIE THOMPSON is being held in isolation in a Dublin jail following his extradition from the Netherlands this week.
The Sunday World has learned that the 33-year-old has been placed in the special D wing of Cloverhill remand prison and is not being allowed to mix with any other inmates. Prison officers are concerned that Thompson could be targeted by inmates. D wing houses high-risk prisoners and notorious inmates like Warren Dumbrell and Wayne Dundon have been imprisoned there in the past.
There are only a small number of cells in the area and inmates are made to eat and exercise at different times so they do not encounter each other. It is understood Thompson will remain in the protection wing until a date is set for his trial on a charge of violent disorder. It had been considered transferring him to another prison, such as Mountjoy, but it was decided that Cloverhill was the most suitable facility. Plea He is due to appear in court again next Tuesday and is expected to look for an early trial date and may indicate his willingness to enter a plea. He was flown back to Dublin from Amsterdam on Tuesday afternoon after a European arrest warrant was issued for him.
He had been arrested in the village of Overtoom, near Amsterdam, on May 5 and was in a Dutch prison until two gar-dai travelled to the capital of the Netherlands on Tuesday and completed the necessary paperwork for his extradition. He has been charged with violent dis-order following an alleged brawl at Morrissey's pub in Cork Street, Dublin, in January 2013. He arrived on board a scheduled Aer Lingus flight and was flanked by two gar-dai during the short journey. Other pas-sengers disembarked before Thompson was taken off the flight.
He and his escort were net by detec-tives from Kevin Street garda station and driven directly to Dublin District Court. Garda Seamus O'Donovan dence that he arrested the father-of-one at 3.2Opm on charged him. Thompson made no reply when the charge was read out to him. The charge sheet alleges that Preddit Thompson committed "violent disorder at Morrissey's Pub, Cork Street, in that you with other persons, namely Anthony Harte present together, used or threatened to use unlawful violence and such conduct, taken together, was such as would cause a person of reason. able firmness present at said place to fear for his or another person's safety". Objected The alleged incident occurred follows ing the burial of a man who had been murdered. Gardai objected to bail because of the seriousness of the charge, which allows for a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. He was remanded in custody by judge Michael Walsh and presented With the book of evidence against him.
REPUBLICANS have posed in masks and what appear to be real firearms in Dublin,
We the Dublin brigade of Oglaigh na hEireann have commemorated Doco's anniversary with the flying of the old Dublin Brigade flag." Bomber The UVF were behind the attempted bomb attack. There were around 300 people, includ-ing members of the IRA and Sinn Fein, in the pub. Republicans hold commemora-tions to Martin Doherty every year. Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly, a former IRA bomber, spoke at the commemoration this year.to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of IRA member Martin Soco' Doherty, who was shot dead by the UVF in the capital. Four members of the group, calling themselves the Dublin , brigade of Oglaigh na hEireann, posed with what appear to be rifles at an unknown loca-tion in Dublin.
Challenged The picture, which was sent to the Sunday World offices during the week, marked the 20th anniversary of Doherty's death on Wednesday. He had been working as a door-man on a fundraising night for IRA prisoners in the Widow Scallans pub on Pearse Street on May 21, 1994, when he was killed.
He challenged two men trying to enter the pub with a holdall bag and was shot three times by one of them. Another man was shot in the neck during the inci-dent, but survived the attack. The gunmen fled, but left behind the bag, which was found to con-tain an 1811) bomb. The bomb's det-onator went off, but the explosives failed to detonate, preventing a massacre from occurring. In a statement included with the picture sent into the Sunday World, a spokesman said: "There is no doubt that Martin's courage that night saved countless lives.
Two bodies have been found in the search for two men missing for over a month.
Eoin O'Connor, 32, and Anthony Keegan, 33, both from the Coolock area of north Dublin, had been reported missing by concerned family members back in late April.
It was thought they disappeared after arranging to travel to Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan for a meeting with an associate, with one suggestion they had gone to collect a debt.
The bodies were discovered on the shore of Inchicup island on Lough Sheelin, on the Cavan-Meath side of the lake near to Ross Castle.
A Garda team set up an incident room in Kells, Co Meath following the find.
Various theories were explored over the last few weeks following the men's disappearance with a number of searches taking place including in rural Cavan and also on Lough Owel just outside Mullingar in Co Westmeath.
The car the men had been using, a dark grey Ford Focus, was found in a car park beside the beauty spot just three days after they went missing.
There were no signs of a struggle in the car and among the possibilities investigated by gardai was that the men could have deliberately gone off the radar or that they disappeared after arranging to meet someone.
Garda dive teams had been brought in to carry out detailed searches around Lough Sheelin and also on Lough Owel.
The men were also believed to have been planning to call to a house in the Ballyjamesduff area before they disappeared.
An area on an island on Lough Sheelin was searched today and two bodies discovered near the shoreline.
Garda specialist teams mainly from outside the area had been working on areas in and around the lough and in various parts of Co Cavan at different stages over the last few weeks.
The area on the island where the bodies were found was sealed off to allow staff from the state pathologist's office to examine the scene.
A veteran drug trafficker has been arrested for allegedly biting a lump of flesh off a man’s face in a pub on Tuesday.
Crime figure James Powell is suspected of viciously beating an innocent man during a horror five-minute attack which left his victim looking like ‘the Elephant Man’.
It is believed the local man suffered horrific facial injuries as a result of a number of vicious bites to his forehead and cheeks just after 9.30 last Tuesday.
Gardai regarded mobster Powell (38), as a major figure in Kerry’s criminal underworld and he has previously been convicted for drug-dealing, assault and counterfeit offences.
The career criminal has long-terms links to Limerick’s McCarthy-Dundon gang.
A source has told the Sunday World that when Powell was arrested in Tralee, Co. Kerry, he was found with more than €3,000 in cash in his pockets.
The source said: “The injuries are horrific, Powell was very much the worse for wear when he was arrested.”
He was not charged and a file will now be sent to the DPP.
Last year, Powell was released after serving a four-year sentence for selling counterfeit DVDs, contraband cigarettes and downers and a separate two-and-a-half year sentence for drug offences.
Gardai also believe Powell was behind a massive €500,000 mephedrone shipment seized in June 2011. A total of 10 kilos of mephedrone and 8,000 ecstasy tablets were seized during a raid on a house in Tralee.
Last year, legal secretary Fiona Dineen was given a three-year sentence in Tralee Circuit Court after pleading guilty to charges in connection to the drugs seizure – one of the biggest in the history of Co. Kerry.
Gardai believe Dineen – who has no previous convictions – was used by Powell’s Tralee-based mob to store the drugs because she had no criminal record.
After Dineen was caught red-handed, Powell was arrested by gardai, but refused to answer questions about the drugs.
He was never charged in connection with the drugs seizure.
In May 2012, Powell was jailed for two-and-a-half years after he was caught with €5,000 worth of valium-type tablets. Powell – who was also caught with €8,000 in cash – had been spotted buying the tablets off a member of a notorious West Dublin gang.
It was not the first time he was jailed for his involvement in the drugs trade.
In 2003, he was jailed for four years in connection with a seizure of 30 kilos of cannabis – with an estimated street value of more than €250,000.
Powell – who has 23 previous convictions – is said to be “extremely close” to a notorious Limerick mobster who is the chief suspect for the murder of bouncer Brian Fitzgerald.
In 2012, he was jailed for three years after he was caught with 49,240 contraband cigarettes, pirate DVDs, fake Xbox games and DVD-making equipment, following a garda raid in June 2009.
The cigarettes were estimated to be worth a total of €20,508 and did not contain any revenue stamps. During garda interviews, Powell accepted the cigarettes were his, but claimed he was selling them to pay off a drugs debt.
However, this was not accepted by gardai, who told Tralee Circuit Court that he was using them to fund his lifestyle.
Powell also has convictions for burglary, common assault and threatening and abusive behaviour.
Shane Rossiter A murder trial has heard that the accused told his mother he had nothing to do with the death of Shane Rossiter.
Maurice Power (31) of Dranganbeg, Kilmoyler, Cahir has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Rossiter (29) in Tipperary on October 17 2012.
Mother of the accused, Janet Fullop was giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court today.
Mr Dominic McGinn SC defending confirmed with Janet Fullop that she had told gardai previously about the relationship between her son and Shane Rossiter.
“I told gardai about my son and families relationship with the Rossiter family and how all our children grew up together. When the kids were small we would have been very close.”
Ms Fullop told the court that she had persuaded her son to contact gardai following Shane Rossiters death.
“I rang Maurice and persuaded him to go to the station – I told him it was extremely important.”
Mr McGinn asked Ms Fullop if the accused had told his mother he had nothing to do with the death of Shane Rossiter, to which she replied ‘yes’.
Mr Anthony Sammon SC prosecuting confirmed with Detective Garda Burgan that the accused told gardai that he took a chip from a private security camera.
In an interview which took place on the 14 of December 2012 at 11.04am, the accused was asked if he had called to Sharon O’Donnells house.
The accused told gardai in interview ‘I asked her about the camera and took the chip out of it because it would have shown I had the car after I said I had sold it.’
When asked what he had done with the chip, the accused told gardai ‘I burned it’.
Under cross-examination, Garda Lorraine Hogan rejected the suggestion by Brian O Shea BL that the accused had been threatened off camera.
“I have to put it to you that there was a strategy to talk to Mr Power off camera in garda interview. Mr Powers concerns were that his mother was going to be arrested and secondly that his child would be taken into care.”
The trial continues before a jury of seven women and five men with Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy presiding.
The man is to be sentenced for assaulting two gardai
A Dublin man is to be sentenced for breaking a garda's nose after going on a month-long drink and drugs “bender”.
“I didn't know what planet I was on, I was out of my head,” Andrew O'Keeffe said on his arrest a few months later.
O'Keeffe (25) admitted punching two gardaí after they had come to break up a large, disorderly crowd at Ventry Park in Cabra on May 20, 2013.
The father-of-two pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Garda Michael O'Reilly causing him harm. O'Keeffe, of Drumcliffe Road, Cabra West, Dublin 7, also admitted assaulting Gda Clare McCarthy on the same date.
The court heard that the two gardaí had been trying to disperse a group of 30 people who were drinking cans and shouting obscenities such as “garda scum”. O'Keeffe approached Gda O'Reilly very aggressively and swung his left fist, punching him square on the nose with full power.
Gda O'Reilly felt a ringing in his head and saw lights, then found himself on the ground with blood pumping from his nose.
He got up when he saw O'Keeffe punching his colleague, Gda McCarthy in the back of the head.
Sergeant Patrick McGilloway told Pieter Le Vert BL, prosecuting, that O'Keeffe then fled the scene.
Gda O'Reilly got an x-ray revealing a fractured nasal bone. In a victim impact statement read out in court, he said it had been a “frightening and traumatic” experience. He could not breathe through his nose for five months and his nose remains crooked.
He was off sick for a month and when he did return to work, he found himself approaching routine duties with apprehension.
Gda McCarthy said she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head when she was punched by O'Keeffe and had a severe headache for days. When she went back to work, she doubted her own capacity to perform her duties.
When O'Keeffe was arrested, he admitted the assaults immediately but said he didn't remember very much.
“I have a lot of problems in my personal life so I turned to drink and drugs for a month solid. I lost my temper,” he said.
O'Keeffe has 49 previous convictions, including road traffic offences, drugs, violent disorder, criminal damage and obstruction of a peace officer.
Olan Callinan BL, defending, said O'Keeffe began abusing ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis in his teens and has been in and out of custody since then. He said O'Keeffe is currently working in the bakery of Mountjoy prison and is engaging with Merchants Quay to deal with his drug addiction.
O'Keeffe took to the stand and said he wanted to “get his act together” for once and for all.
“I'm sick of being in jail. I'm a father and I need to look after my family and support them,” he said.
Judge Patricia Ryan remanded O'Keeffe in custody for sentencing on July 18. She asked for reports from the prison governor and probation services.
Liam Coffey died after taking fatal levels of designer drugs MDMA and PMMA
GARDAI fear an explosion of new drugs coming on the scene over the coming months, as they issue warnings about a drug which has claimed at least 10 lives in Ireland.
Authorities were forced to issue a public health warning following a number of deaths after young people took what they thought was ecstasy – but actually contained the much more dangerous substance PMMA.
Gardai have confirmed there is a definite link between five deaths and tablets known as Green Apples or Green Rolex.
They suspect that five other deaths are also linked to the drug.
The news comes a week after gardai and health authorities were forced to issue a warning over a completely different drug, which has the street name N-Bomb which hospitalised a number of students in Dublin.
That drug, which was a former legal high, tries to replicate the effect of LSD and amphetamines. It has been blamed for dozens of deaths around the world.
But gardai warn it is only the tip of the iceberg. A source said: “There were 58 new psychoactive substances appearing in 2012. We had 73 last year, so you can see where the trend is going.
“The serious problem with the new substances is people don’t know what kind of effect it will have on them. These are not tried-and-tested substances, and can lead to all sorts of adverse reactions.”
Typically, ecstasy tablets contain MDMA, but larger numbers are containing PMMA instead, which has a much higher level of toxicity. PMMA also takes longer to have an effect, which has led to people consuming higher amounts which significantly increase the toxicity. Gardai stressed that they are not merely scaremongering and people who take drugs need to be aware of the dangers of PMMA.
The deaths include that of Shane Cotton (16), from New Ross in Co. Wexford. The youngster died in Waterford Regional Hospital on Sunday. Pals said he may have taken six tablets.
Last year, an inquest into the deaths of pals Liam Coffey and Michael Coleman (pictured above) at their rented house in Kinsale, Co. Cork, heard that they had taken fatal levels of MDMA and PMMA.
Jacob Trawoly appears in court with black eyes Romanian was sold into sex ring - pic posed by model
A man who admitted his role in a sex slavery ring turned up in court with two black eyes, after being attacked by what a judge called a “sinister force”.
Jacob Trawoly admitted being involved with Romanian sex traffickers who forced a teenage student to have sex with a string of men in a Sligo hotel, after luring her to Ireland with the promise of a job.
This week he arrived for a sentence hearing at Sligo Circuit Court looking battered and bruised.
Trawoly, with an address at Edgewood Lawns, Blanchardstown, Dublin, told Judge Anthony Hunt he had been beaten up two days earlier.
Trawoly had admitted to organising prostitution in room 4120 at Sligo’s Clarion Hotel.
He told the judge he had suffered facial injuries and injuries to both legs and that he had been getting intimidating phone calls since last October.
The Romanian, who has been in Ireland since 2007, said the messages were still on his phone. They warned him to “think about his family”.
The judge instructed Trawoly to immediately provide gardai with details of the attack on him and to hand over the phone to allow them trace the intimidating calls.
Judge Hunt said: “There is a sinister force behind what happened here. There is no doubt about that. There is at least one Mr Big behind this.”
The trafficked woman, who was 19 at the time, was told she owed money for her travel to Ireland from her native Romania and had to work as a prostitute to pay off the debt.
The woman did not get any of the cash she earned from having sex with men while she stayed at a Sligo hotel, according to her evidence.
She was rescued from sex slavery after hotel staff became suspicious and tipped off gardaí, who arrested Trawoly in June 2011.
Another Romanian national, Ovidiu Pop, who lives in Dublin and had originally collected the woman from Dublin Airport, was acquitted of being involved.
During the hearings at Sligo Circuit Court, it emerged the woman had been advertised as an escort on a well-known website. It is the latest case to link sex-trafficking with the website set up by convicted Irish pimp Peter McCormick.
The woman said during Pop’s trial that she had arrived in Dublin in June 2011 after being offered work as a nightclub dancer in Dublin. “I needed money to pay for school and stuff,” she explained.
She was driven to Sligo by Trawoly, who she said told her “there was much more than dancing to it”.
Judge Hunt praised the work done by the gardai and the Ruhama organisation with the young woman.
He said she had graduated to teach English, was now engaged to be married and was moving to America.
A SMUGGLED consignment of cigarettes worth €516,000 has been seized by Customs officers at Dublin Port.
The huge of haul of 1.1 million cigarettes was packed into boxes marked as 'Leaf Green foil containers.’
“The ‘Benson & Hedges’ branded cigarettes were concealed in a roll-on roll-off container which arrived into Dublin Port from the United Arab Emirates and were falsely declared as ‘foil containers’,” said a spokesperson.
“This seizure is part of Revenue's ongoing investigations into the organised crime gangs involved in the smuggling of illegal cigarettes. Investigations are continuing both nationally and internationally,” it was added.
Court hears Mark O'Reilly was forced to deal heroin because of drug debt
A 30-year-old man caught with over €87,000 worth of heroin in his bathroom has been jailed for two years.
Father of-two Mark O'Reilly, told gardaí he had “no option” but to deal drugs because he was in so much debt.
O’Reilly of Swanhall Apartments, Tallaght pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing heroin for sale or supply at his address on January 15 2013.
Defence counsel, Padraig Dwyer SC, said his client had got into debt for €1,200 from his own cocaine habit and this debt had then risen to €5,000.
O'Reilly told gardaí in interview that he was weighing up cocaine for distribution and had made a mistake and given out more than he should, which caused his debt to rise significantly.
He did not reveal the names of the individuals he owed money to, but said he was afraid of them.
“I owed them money, they were going to kill me,” he said, adding that he got involved in selling heroin because he had “no other option”.
A letter from O'Reilly's girlfriend said he had only two choices, “deal or be dead.”
Detective Garda Michael McGrath told Gráinne O'Neill BL, prosecuting, that he arrived at the flat with a search warrant and spoke to O'Reilly's girlfriend. The couple's young child was also present.
O'Reilly was lying on a bed in a room upstairs and when gardaí entered he pointed to the en-suite bathroom and said “all you want is in there.”
Gardaí found a box above the toilet in the bathroom containing compressed brown powder, a plastic bag containing a brown substance and another container containing cannabis.
The drugs were analysed and comprised over 583 grammes of heroin worth €87,462 and €10 worth of cannabis.
Gardaí also found plastic bags, weighing scales, scissors and other drugs paraphernalia. O'Reilly was arrested and gardaí found €1,550 in cash on his person along with a tick list.
O'Reilly snapped a mobile phone in two when gardaí arrived, and when asked why he had broken the phone, he said, “I would have been in trouble if the phone had rung and you had answered it.”
He has nine previous convictions, including seven for road traffic offences and two for public order offences.
Judge Mary Ellen Ring chastised O'Reilly for bringing a significant amount of drugs into a family home.
She said it was only a matter of time before the child could have found the drugs and ingested them out of curiosity, ending up dead or seriously damaged.
She imposed a five year term and suspended the final three years on strict conditions.
A post-mortem examination has been carried out on the body of 32-year-old Ian Quinn who was found dead in an apartment in Ongar, West Dublin yesterday.
Mr Quinn was found dead at an apartment at Annaly Grove in Ongar at around 4am.
Two women in their early 30s, who were arrested in connection with Mr Quinn's death, remain in custody at Blanchardstown Garda Station.
Gardaí say they are not releasing the results for operational reasons.
However, it is understood that Mr Quinn, who was originally from Tallaght, may have suffocated and was found with a plastic bag over his head.
As reported in today's Sunday World, Mr Quinn,a homeless ex-prisoner was well-known to gardai and had served a number of prison sentences for minor drug related crimes and public order offences.
Just days before his death, he was arrested for an alleged assault on A&E staff while attending Blanchardstown Hospital.
It is believed that he was currently staying in a hostel run by homeless champion Fr Peter McVerry.
Although he had a lengthy criminal record, Quinn was not regarded as a serious or gangland criminal.
A man has been arrested in southeast France in the investigation of a shooting at a Jewish museum in Brussels that left at least three people dead, the Paris prosecutor's office has said.
An official with the prosecutor's office says the suspect has been handed to anti-terrorist investigators and could be held at least through Tuesday under French counterterrorism law. She says the man was arrested Friday during a customs inspection at a train and bus station in the port city of Marseille.
The man was found to have a revolver and an automatic weapon of the same type used in the Brussels shootings May 24. The official said ballistics analyses are under way to determine if it is the same weapon.
The man had arrived in Marseille on a bus from Amsterdam that had stopped in Brussels, she said. She would not provide further information and was not authorized to be publicly named when speaking of ongoing investigations.
The Paris prosecutor was expected to give a news conference Sunday on the matter.
The killings, which came on the eve of European parliament elections in which far right parties had a strong showing, led Belgian officials to raise anti-terror measures.
Video of the attack showed an athletic man with cap walking determinedly into the small Jewish Museum.
The jury at the murder trial of a man accused of shooting Shane Rossiter have been told they can ‘happily convict’ the accused because the evidence is ‘compelling’.
Maurice Power (31) of Dranganbeg, Kilmoyler, Cahir has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Rossiter (29) in Tipperary on October 17 2012.
In his closing speech at the Central Criminal Court this morning, Mr Anthony Sammon SC prosecuting reminded the jury that the case involves both circumstantial and confessional evidence.
Mr Sammon spoke of Mr Powers car being seen ‘burning in a bog’ as being central to evidence. He referenced the evidence of Sharon O Donnell questioning why Mr Power would come to her asking for the chip from her CCTV system.
Counsel went on to say that Mr Power made a very detailed confession in the course of interviewing in which he confirms the items of circumstantial evidence.
The jury were reminded of other matters consistent with guilt such as the disposal of Mr Powers mobile phone as well as his own reference made to gardai about shooting Shane Rossiter twice.
Mr Sammon pointed out that there had been an approach by ‘the other side of the house’ to create suspician in relation to the gardai suggesting there was some form of impropriety.
He told the jury that there was no evidence of a policy being used by gardai and that they must not try this case on any form of speculation.
“What comes from the mouth of a barrister is not evidence even if it is tarted up with the words ‘I am instructed’.”
“Interview seven is where he (the accused) gives a full confession. It is quite apparent that Mr Power is relaxed – that is not a man who has been subjected to any form of coercion.”
Mr Sammon concluded that ‘this is a man who is very relieved’ and ‘no longer has to look over his shoulder because there is no Mr Rossiter’.
“You are not jurors dealing with a case where you have to struggle – you can happily convict Mr Power because the evidence is compelling.”
Mr Dominic McGinn SC defending said that just because the jury saw the seventh interview where Mr Power admitted to shooting Shane Rossiter does not make it reliable.
“The fact that somebody appears relaxed does not mean they are telling the truth or that they have not come to some arrangement with the guards.”
Mr McGinn went on to say that there was a pattern in the process of interview between gardai and the accused.
“There was a pattern where before the interview, the interviewers would take Mr Power into the yard for a chat.”
“You heard the witness say it was a manpower issue. On the 11 of December, Mr Power was supervised on each cigarette break – there was no manpower problem at that stage. In the first two interviews, Mr Power didn’t make any admissions.”
“Then the situation changed on the 12, 13 and 14 and there was a manpower shortage. It was only prior to each of the interviews that interviewing guards were the ones that took him out to the yard.”
“The really worrying thing is that many of the details, things you would expect he would get right, don’t fit with what we do know.”
Mr McGinn went on to say that the details the accused gave to gardai of where Mr Rossiter was shot were not in keeping with the evidence of the state pathologist.
“He (the accused) said the first shot was to Mr Rossiters chest and indicated that he held on to his chest when shot. That doesn’t correspond with being shot in the abdomen a very different place.”
“If he had done the shooting, you would expect him to know. It is not in keeping with expert evidence from professor Cassidy.
Mr McGinn asked the jury why ‘if he is opening his soul’ to gardai, why he seemed unable to help with certain details.
He asked the jury to consider why the gun couldn’t be recovered.
When it came to removing the chip from a security camera, Mr McGinn pointed out that it wasn’t the accused who had first made an inquiry about it.
“Independent evidence is equally consistent with any number of people carrying out the shooting – there is no direct evidence apart from the confession that he did the shooting himself.”
“Mr Power was not clear and because of these mistakes, I suggest that there is no evidence that he was actually there.”
Mr McGinn concluded asking jury members whether based on the confession made against a background of consistent off camera contact (with gardai) that if he (the accused) were your son, father, brother or close friend, that they would be happy to see him convicted.
“Seeing the confession on tape in the absence of any other real evidence, you don’t even have to conclude that Mr Power was there.”
The jury of seven women and five men will return next Tuesday to begin deliberating following the judges charge by Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy presiding.
The prolific armed robber dubbed the Skull Cracker has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 10 years today for offences including armed robbery carried out while on the run from an open prison.
Michael Wheatley, 55, was already serving 13 life sentences at Category D Standford Hill prison on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, for a string of violent robberies when he was granted day release and failed to return on May 3.
Before being recaptured he carried out an armed raid on the Chelsea Building Society in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, on May 7, pointing a handgun at staff and making off with £18,350.
Wheatley, who was recaptured in Tower Hamlets, east London, after the raid, was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court today after pleading guilty to robbery, possession of a firearm or imitation firearm while committing an offence, and being unlawfully at large.
The court heard that he previously robbed the same building society branch 13 years ago and staff had been told to be on their guard following his disappearance.
Appearing via video-link from HMP Belmarsh in south east London, he showed no emotion and sat with his arms folded as Judge Christopher Critchlow passed sentence.
Judge Critchlow said it was a "special case" because of Wheatley's prolific record of violent armed robberies and committing offences after being released from prison sentences.
Passing sentence, the judge told him: "You went to the same branch which you robbed in about 2001.
"You therefore deliberately targeted this branch and planned this raid.
"You knew exactly what you were doing, having committed such crimes so many times."
He added: "It is clear the public must be protected from you for a long time."
The court heard that Wheatley has 23 previous convictions for robbery, two for attempted robbery and 18 for related firearms offences.
He was given his nickname after pistol-whipping innocent bystanders during previous robberies, including a 73-year-old woman.
The court heard that Wheatley has spent a total of 46 years in institutions, starting at the age of six, and has been in prison on and off for most of his adult life.
On May 6 the manager of the building society had warned staff to be on their guard, having seen the media coverage of Wheatley's disappearance.
He entered early the next morning, posing as a man who had spent 20 years in Ireland and wanted to open a new account.
After twice coming in and chatting to deputy manager Christopher Gurdev, he was about to leave when he said "one more thing", prosecutor Dale Sullivan told the court - "At which point the defendant pulled out a handgun from within his jacket and pointed it at Mr Gurdev's head."
The court was played CCTV from the robbery, which showed Wheatley forcing Mr Gurdev at gunpoint to unlock a door, take him into the back of the branch and hand him cash from a safe while shouting "Give me the money".
He also pointed the weapon at a female cashier.
Mr Sullivan said: "The importance of the location of the robbery was that the branch was robbed by the defendant some 13 years ago.
"The manager had briefed her staff the night before about Wheatley, telling them to be aware of him because of the media coverage and his failure to return to Standford Hill."
All but £850 of the money was recovered when Wheatley was arrested later the same day, Mr Sullivan said, but the gun, real or imitation, was never found.
Wheatley was sentenced on the basis that it was an imitation firearm.
Lionel Blackman, defending, said Wheatley went on the run after being refused parole after almost eight years in prison and then again last October.
He told the court Wheatley had been having therapy in prison in between parole attempts and had not applied while getting help.
But the therapy to deal with abuse he suffered as a child was stopped because of funding cuts last July, the court heard.
After his second failed parole attempt he was downgraded and moved to the Category D open prison.
Mr Blackman told the court: "This is a case where a man has spent 46 of his 55 years in one institution or another."
He continued: "He was very much left to his own devices in the open prison.
"Not seeing on the horizon another opportunity to determine his release and disappointed not to achieve a release at seven and a half years or in October, he made the decision not to return to prison at all.
"The plan was to start a new life in Ireland. Regrettably he committed a robbery to fund that new life."
Detective Chief Inspector Chris Raymer, of Surrey Police, said: "Wheatley is a dangerous individual and I welcome the lengthy sentence imposed at today's hearing which reflects the seriousness of his crimes.
"This was clearly an extremely distressing incident for the members of staff in the building society who were threatened by Wheatley and I hope the sentence helps them to move forward.
"Officers were at the scene within minutes of the emergency call and we worked closely with Metropolitan and Kent Police colleagues, resulting in Wheatley being arrested within hours of the offence."
The trial of two Limerick men charged with murdering businessman Roy Collins has heard and watched evidence in a trial within the trial, which will determine the admissibility of the evidence.
Gardai gave evidence and a video was shown today in the Special Criminal Court trial of Nathan Killeen (24) of Hyde Road, Prospect and Wayne Dundon (36), of Lenihan Avenue, Prospect.
The two men have pleaded not guilty to the murder of 35-year-old Roy Collins at Coin Castle Amusements, Roxboro Road Shopping Centre on April 9, 2009.
The non-jury court has heard that Mr Collins was at work around noon that day when a gunman entered his amusement arcade and discharged a single shot, hitting him in the chest. He was conscious for a time, but his life could not be saved.
It’s the prosecution case that Wayne Dundon directed the murder from prison, Nathan Killeen was the getaway driver and another man, James Dillon, was the gunman.
On Wednesday, the trial moved in to a voir dire on evidence of the detention of Mr Killeen at Roxboro Road Garda station. A voir dire is a trial within a trial to determine the admissibility of evidence adduced.
The trial continues before three judges with Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley presiding.
A 15-YEAR-OLD Dublin boy led 10 patrol cars and a Garda helicopter on a high-speed pursuit for 35 minutes, a court has heard.
The youngster, who cannot be named because he is a minor, is to be sentenced in July after he pleaded guilty to motor theft, resisting arrest and a litany of dangerous driving charges.
The Dublin Children's Court heard that at one point during the pursuit the repeat teen offender drove on the wrong side of a dual carriage-way.
Judge John O'Connor heard that the boy was spotted driving a stolen 4X4 with no lights on in the early hours of January 13 last.
The boy was detected on Balbutcher Lane, Ballymun in north Dublin at about 4.30am when gardai signalled him to stop but he did not pull over resulting in a lengthy chase.
Garda Ross Brierley told Judge O'Connor the “pursuit involved up to 10 Garda cars and the Garda helicopter” and went on for 35 minutes.
The teenager sped towards Dublin Airport, Gda Brierley said, adding, “the manner of driving was extremely dangerous on a number of occasions”.
The court heard that there were six incidents of dangerous driving and at first he headed towards Finglas.
During the drive he was “weaving in and out of both lanes”; the teen ignored speed ramps and continued towards the Ballymun Road where he broke a red light.
Gardai in patrol cars “tried to box him in” but the teenager “took evasive action”.
Outside Charlestown Shopping Centre, on St Margaret's Road, Dublin 11, the boy drove the stolen Mitsubishi Pajero onto a filter lane on “the wrong side and drove up a dual carriage-way the wrong way”.
He nearly collided with a set of traffic lights and took off in the direction of the airport.
Later, at Cardiffsbridge Road, in Finglas, the teenager again drove on the wrong side and was “weaving in and out over speed ramps, at speed”.
The teenager, showed no remorse in court as evidence was given. The judge was told he was arrested “absconding from the vehicle” and “kicked out at gardai”. “At all times, the accused was driving the jeep in a public place in a dangerous manner,” Gda Brierley said.
The court was told that the boy already had 19 criminal convictions, including one for motor theft for which he was given a four-month sentence in February.
The teenager, who has since been released, also had public order, assault, criminal damage and theft offences on his record as well as a charge for violent behaviour in a Garda station.
Judge O'Connor said the teenager, who was accompanied to his hearing by his mother and lawyer, had committed a serious offence and a custodial sentence would have to be considered. But a probation report was required and the case was adjourned until a date in July.
The judge told the boy that if this behaviour continues he will “end up a career criminal” to which the 15-year-old replied, “No I'm not, those games are over”.
The case was adjourned for six weeks and the teenager said “nice one judge yeah” as he was remanded on continuing bail.
upload a picture The man arrested in connection with the hit-and-run killing of 40-year-old Caroline Watkins in Dublin before the weekend is believed to be a notorious Dublin gangster.
Ms Watkins was fatally injured when she was struck by a car on Davitt Road at 10.30 pm on Friday. She was crossing the road at Golden Bridge Luas stop at the time she was struck by the car that failed to stop at the scene.
Gardai arrested the well-known Drimnagh criminal yesterday, and believe he may have been fleeing from a rival thug when the incident occurred.
It is understood he was previously the target of an assassination attempt/ He is being detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act at Sundrive Road Garda Station.
Gardaí are still trying to locate the car. It is described as dark-coloured, possibly a Ford Focus and either ’08 or ’09 registration, and are appealing to the public to help them in their efforts. The car left in the direction of Naas Road. The car would have damage to the front and to the windscreen, gardaí say.
There have been reported sightings of the car in the Fonthill Road, Newlands Cross, Nangor Road and Firhouse areas.
post img Gardai have seized a firearm and a stash of ammunition, and arrested two people following a planned search in Tallaght yesterday.
At approximately 4pm yesterday Gardai carried out a search of a house in Rossfield Park, and during the search a shotgun and ammunition were discovered.
A woman in her 30s was arrested at the scene. She was detained under the provisions of Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act at Tallaght Garda Station and was released without charge late last night.
A file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Gardai arrested a second person, a male in his 30s, last night in the Tallaght area and he is currently detained at Tallaght Garda Station.
Don did the English ever find all the guys that blew up lord mountbattans boat?
If so how many were there? I remember one of them he was in his twenties was helped out of the country and they say turned up in the US. The Westies took him in. Supposedly he got an apartment in the rockaways an Irish area here. They had a connection with another gang here. One of the gang owned some taxi cabs and put him to work on one.
He said he hated the English because an english soldier killed his younger brother. He got hit in the head with a rubber bullet.
Mountbatten usually holidayed at his summer home, Classiebawn Castle, in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, a small seaside village between Bundoran, County Donegal, and Sligo town on the northwest coast of Ireland. The village was only 12 miles away from the border with Northern Ireland and near an area known to be used as a cross-border refuge by IRA members.[77][78]
Despite security advice and warnings from the Garda Síochána, on 27 August 1979 Mountbatten went lobster-potting and tuna fishing in a thirty-foot (10 m) wooden boat, the Shadow V, which had been moored in the harbour at Mullaghmore. IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped onto the unguarded boat that night and attached a radio-controlled fifty-pound (23 kg) bomb. When Mountbatten was aboard en route to Donegal Bay, just a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb was detonated.
The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast, and Mountbatten's legs were almost blown off. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen, but died from his injuries before being brought to the shore.[78][79][80] Others killed by the blast were Nicholas Knatchbull, the 14-year-old son of his elder daughter Lady Brabourne; and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old from County Fermanagh who was a crew member.[81] The Dowager Lady Brabourne, his elder daughter's 83-year-old mother-in-law, was seriously injured in the explosion and died from her injuries the following day.[82] Lord and Lady Brabourne, Nicholas Knatchbull's mother and father, along with his twin brother Timothy, survived the explosion but were seriously injured.[83]
The IRA issued a statement afterward, saying:
The IRA claimed responsibility for the death of Lord Louis Mountbatten. This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country.[77]
Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams said of Mountbatten's death:
The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furor created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the IRA achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.[84]
On the day of the bombing, the IRA also ambushed and killed eighteen British Army soldiers, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment at Warrenpoint, County Down, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush.[78] Thomas McMahon, who had been arrested two hours before the bomb detonated at a Garda checkpoint between Longford and Granard on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle, was tried for the assassinations in the Republic of Ireland, and convicted by forensic evidence supplied by Dr. James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes.[85]
Thomas McMahon (born 1948) is a former volunteer in the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and was one of the IRA's most experienced bomb-makers.[2]
McMahon was convicted of the assassination of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma and three others (including two children and an elderly lady) at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in the west of Ireland.[3]
He planted a bomb in Shadow V, a 27 ft fishing boat belonging to Mountbatten at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, near Donegal Bay. Lord Mountbatten was killed in the bomb blast along with three other people; The Dowager Baroness Brabourne, Mountbatten's elder daughter's mother-in-law; his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull; and a 15 year old crewmember Paul Maxwell.
The IRA claimed responsibility for the act in a statement released immediately afterwards. In the statement from the organisation they said: "This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country."[4]
McMahon was arrested by the Garda (the Republic of Ireland's police force) two hours before the bomb detonated, having been initially stopped on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle.[4]
He was tried for the assassinations in the Republic of Ireland, and convicted by forensic evidence supplied by Dr James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes.[2] He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder on 23 November 1979, but was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.[5]
After his release, Toby Harnden in Bandit Country reported that McMahon was holding a tricolour in the first rank of the IRA colour party at a 1998 IRA meeting in Cullyhanna.[6] However according to a BBC report, McMahon has said that he had left the IRA in 1990.[3]
He has twice refused to meet Paul Maxwell's father, John, who has sought him out to explain the reasons for his son's death. In a May 2011 interview for The Telegraph, Maxwell stated that he had "made two approaches to McMahon, the first through a priest, who warned me in advance that he thought there wouldn't be any positive response. And there wasn't. I have some reservations about meeting him, obviously – it might work out in such a way that I would regret having made the contact. On the other hand, if we met and I could even begin to understand his motivation. If we could meet on some kind of a human level, a man to man level, it could help me come to terms with it. But that might be very optimistic. McMahon knows the door is open at this end.".
He likewise refused requests from Knatchbull's twin brother, who lost an eye in the same explosion. The latter, however, has forgiven McMahon and other members of the IRA who committed the act.
His wife has stated "Tommy never talks about Mountbatten, only the boys who died. He does have genuine remorse. Oh God yes.” [7]
McMahon lives with his wife Rose in a hillside bungalow in Lisanisk, Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. He has two grown sons. He helped with Martin McGuinness's presidential campaign in 2011, erecting posters for McGuinness around Carrickmacross.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 06/03/1411:07 AM
how to do a screen shot A Disgraced ex-Garda jailed last month for drug dealing has been left battered in prison despite being on a protection wing.
Rogue cop Stephen Cooper fell victim to a well-prepared jail attack after crossing paths with one the country’s most notorious inmates, Warren Dumbrell.
The Tallaght man, who once worked as a garda at Sundrive Road in Dublin, was hit with a makeshift weapon, according to Sunday World sources.
His attacker is thought to have stuffed socks with batteries or a pool ball which were then swung at his head.
The 29-year-old needed 20 stitches after the short but vicious attack on the C1 landing at the Midlands Prison, the source added.
Cooper was jailed last month for three years after pleading guilty to dealing cocaine, attempting to frame someone for car theft and insurance fraud. He ended up being detained on the same landing where dangerous prisoners and those thought to be under threat are kept.
However, it is believed Dumbrell and Tipperary man Gerard Browne took offence to Cooper after a run-in over the use of the jail’s official phones.
Normally Cooper’s cell is separated from Dumbrell’s by two sets of gates and inmates on the landing don’t have access to each other. Cooper’s assailant took his chance when the gates were temporarily opened to allow access to the gym.
Dumbrell is a regular gym partner of Browne’s, who was jailed in 2012 for holding pharmacy staff hostage during a robbery. Dumbrell also has a history of hostage taking from when he was a ring-leader of the infamous Mountjoy siege in 1997 in which four prison staff were held hostage.
Such was Dumbrell’s notoriety that for years he was kept on a special ‘barrier’ regime by prison officers who always wore riot gear when escorting him. The harsh regime continued until it was successfully challenged in the courts.
Dumbrell, originally from Inchicore, was later released, killed a man and is now back serving life. He is an avid gym user and even gets to spar with training partners, according to Sunday World sources.
Prison newbie Cooper would have had little chance to defend himself against such hardened jail birds. He has since been transferred to Cloverhill where he is on 24-hour protection as he recovers from the brutal assault, sources say.
Cooper was a member of the force when he allowed a friend to take the blame after gardai seized LSD during a search at the Electric Picnic music festival in 2009.
Cooper pleaded guilty to attempting to get a woman to make a false statement implicating a man in the theft of a car and making a false report to claim insurance for the canopy of his jeep which blew off. He also admitted possession of cocaine worth €700 for sale or supply at Ormond Quay on January 31, 2011.
Before passing sentence, Judge Mary Ellen Ring described Cooper’s actions as a fundamental breach of the role of the gardaí and said that Cooper threatened a completely innocent member of the public into making false claims.
“This does a serious disservice to the public and to Mr Cooper’s then colleagues who seek to conduct themselves within the letter of the law,” the judge commented.
After sentence was imposed, Cooper’s defence counsel asked that he be allowed to serve his time in the pre-release section of jail, as has been the case with previous gardaí serving prison terms.
Judge Ring replied that those were cases where there was an early guilty plea, which was not the case with Cooper.
Evidence was heard how Cooper had shown remorse and worked hard as a volunteer for charity as well as caring for his seriously ill wife.
It was added that that he had successfully overcome his addiction to cocaine which began when he was just 15.
SICK messages laughing about the killing of Garda Jerry McCabe have been posted on Facebook after one of his killers was cleared of a weapons offence on Wednesday.
Convicted killer Michael O’Neill (63), had been accused of producing a wheel brace in a public place during a dispute in Ennis, Co. Clare.
O’Neill – who served an 11-year jail term for Garda McCabe’s manslaughter – can be seen smiling joyfully on Facebook outside court, while he is embraced by two tracksuit clad men.
Underneath the photograph, one Moyross native has written: “Well done. Jerry mcabe haha..thuglife son.”
O’Neill was one of four people convicted of the June 1996 manslaughter of Det Garda McCabe, shot dead by members of an IRA gang at Adare, Co. Limerick.
This week, Ennis District Court was told that O’Neill, from Abbeyville, Ennis, Co. Clare, was charged with producing a wheel brace in the course of a dispute capable of inflicting serious injury in a public place and engaging in threatening, abusive words with intent to provoke a breach of the peace last January 21.
Sergeant Mark Murphy said O’Neill “took the law into his own hands” and was “the main aggressor”.
Solicitor Tara Godfrey said O’Neill produced the wheel brace to repel five men away from his property after believing one of the men damaged his car.
Ms Godfrey made an application to have the case dismissed, saying: “The charge is predicated on O’Neill doing something in a public place. Sgt Murphy confirmed in evidence that O’Neill wasn’t in a public place – that he was in the driveway.”
Guerin suspect. says: Wife ended when Veronica died....it was John Gilligan who f** ked it
THE Sunday World yesterday tracked down NW Ireland's most wanted fugitive, John 'the Coach' Traynor. We door-stepped the 65-year-old who fled Ireland the night journalist Veronica Guerin was murdered in June 1996 at his new hideaway in the UK. -;Gardai believe Traynor set Veronica up to be j killed by John Gilligan's drug gang. In an extraordinary interview, the veteran crook broke a 17-year silence and claimed his own life ended the day the journalist was shot.
"When John Gilligan organised that murder he f**ked everything up for us all. The minute it happened I knew my life was over," he said. "I didn't even stay a night in Ireland after that hap-pened because I knew the gardai would want to round us all up."
Mountbatten usually holidayed at his summer home, Classiebawn Castle, in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, a small seaside village between Bundoran, County Donegal, and Sligo town on the northwest coast of Ireland. The village was only 12 miles away from the border with Northern Ireland and near an area known to be used as a cross-border refuge by IRA members.[77][
Despite security advice and warnings from the Garda Síochána, on 27 August 1979 Mountbatten went lobster-potting and tuna fishing in a thirty-foot (10 m) wooden boat, the Shadow V, which had been moored in the harbour at Mullaghmore. IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped onto the unguarded boat that night and attached a radio-controlled fifty-pound (23 kg) bomb. When Mountbatten was aboard en route to Donegal Bay, just a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb was detonated.
The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast, and Mountbatten's legs were almost blown off. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen, but died from his injuries before being brought to the shore.[78][79][80] Others killed by the blast were Nicholas Knatchbull, the 14-year-old son of his elder daughter Lady Brabourne; and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old from County Fermanagh who was a crew member.[81] The Dowager Lady Brabourne, his elder daughter's 83-year-old mother-in-law, was seriously injured in the explosion and died from her injuries the following day.[82] Lord and Lady Brabourne, Nicholas Knatchbull's mother and father, along with his twin brother Timothy, survived the explosion but were seriously injured.[83]
The IRA issued a statement afterward, saying:
The IRA claimed responsibility for the death of Lord Louis Mountbatten. This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country.[77]
Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams said of Mountbatten's death:
The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furor created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the IRA achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.[84]
On the day of the bombing, the IRA also ambushed and killed eighteen British Army soldiers, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment at Warrenpoint, County Down, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush.[78] Thomas McMahon, who had been arrested two hours before the bomb detonated at a Garda checkpoint between Longford and Granard on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle, was tried for the assassinations in the Republic of Ireland, and convicted by forensic evidence supplied by Dr. James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes.[85]
Thomas McMahon (born 1948) is a former volunteer in the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and was one of the IRA's most experienced bomb-makers.[2]
McMahon was convicted of the assassination of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma and three others (including two children and an elderly lady) at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in the west of Ireland.[3]
He planted a bomb in Shadow V, a 27 ft fishing boat belonging to Mountbatten at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, near Donegal Bay. Lord Mountbatten was killed in the bomb blast along with three other people; The Dowager Baroness Brabourne, Mountbatten's elder daughter's mother-in-law; his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull; and a 15 year old crewmember Paul Maxwell.
The IRA claimed responsibility for the act in a statement released immediately afterwards. In the statement from the organisation they said: "This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country."[4]
McMahon was arrested by the Garda (the Republic of Ireland's police force) two hours before the bomb detonated, having been initially stopped on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle.[4]
He was tried for the assassinations in the Republic of Ireland, and convicted by forensic evidence supplied by Dr James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes.[2] He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder on 23 November 1979, but was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.[5]
After his release, Toby Harnden in Bandit Country reported that McMahon was holding a tricolour in the first rank of the IRA colour party at a 1998 IRA meeting in Cullyhanna.[6] However according to a BBC report, McMahon has said that he had left the IRA in 1990.[3]
He has twice refused to meet Paul Maxwell's father, John, who has sought him out to explain the reasons for his son's death. In a May 2011 interview for The Telegraph, Maxwell stated that he had "made two approaches to McMahon, the first through a priest, who warned me in advance that he thought there wouldn't be any positive response. And there wasn't. I have some reservations about meeting him, obviously – it might work out in such a way that I would regret having made the contact. On the other hand, if we met and I could even begin to understand his motivation. If we could meet on some kind of a human level, a man to man level, it could help me come to terms with it. But that might be very optimistic. McMahon knows the door is open at this end.".
He likewise refused requests from Knatchbull's twin brother, who lost an eye in the same explosion. The latter, however, has forgiven McMahon and other members of the IRA who committed the act.
His wife has stated "Tommy never talks about Mountbatten, only the boys who died. He does have genuine remorse. Oh God yes.” [7]
McMahon lives with his wife Rose in a hillside bungalow in Lisanisk, Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. He has two grown sons. He helped with Martin McGuinness's presidential campaign in 2011, erecting posters for McGuinness around Carrickmacross.
So that was the only guy they blame for it. No one else?
Murdered crime figures dad returns after gang threat is lifted.
The father of the murdered Corbally brothers has returned home from the U.S. after receiving “assurances” his life is not in danger, a source has revealed.
Paddy Corbally (58), was forced to flee Ireland in 2011 after learning his life was under threat from the same gang who killed his sons Paul and Kenneth.
The pair were gunned down by a three-man hit squad as they sat in a car on the Neilstown Road, Clondalkin, west Dublin, at around 8pm on June 28, 2010.
It is believed their murder was ordered by associates of Derek ‘Dee Dee’ O’Driscoll, as part of a tit-for-tat feud between rival drug gangs.
Following the clinical hit, gardai believe convicted criminal Paddy also came “under active threat” from his son’s killers, who feared he would seek revenge for the double murder.
The veteran gangster was forced to leave Ireland and relocated to Florida, where he lived for the last three years.
However, a source has told the Sunday World that the notorious gun criminal has now returned to the family home in Clondalkin.
“He has been back for the last few months and is living in the family home, he obviously feels safe again,” our source said.
“His son’s killers had threatened Paddy because they were afraid of him, but he never tried to do anything. Apparently, he has received assurances that his life is not in danger from one of O’Driscoll’s gang.”
Paddy Corbally is extremely well known to gardai and his most serious criminal conviction dates from 1999, when he was jailed for seven years for possessing a sub-machine gun used in a shooting.
Corbally, of Drumfinn Avenue, Ballyfermot, was convicted after a nine-day trial of having a copy of an Ingram submachine gun and ammunition with intent to endanger life.
The court heard that Corbally snr had refused to hand over cash to a man after he called to collect money on May 11, 1997.
The incident all centred around a car that Corbally apparently sold.
Seamus Behan, from Edenmore Park, Coolock, was shot seven times with the replica Ingrams when he arrived at Drumfinn Avenue, Ballyfermot, demanding money back for the faulty car he had bought from Paddy.
Corbally refused to hand it over before Mr Behan stepped forward and threatened him.
Paddy called on both his sons, who were upstairs, to come to his aid.
They came down and Kenneth opened fire on Mr Behan, shooting him seven times. Miraculously, he survived.
His other son Paul joined the attack using an iron bar.
The brothers fled the country to evade arrest.
Arriving in Manchester, they teamed up with the mobster Seanie Comerford’s crime gang, graduating into big-time heroin dealing.
Back home, the judge in their father’s case said he took the words “with intent to endanger life” as tantamount to saying “with the intention to kill”.
Mr Behan ran off when the gun was produced and was followed by Kenny.
A witness saw them struggle before Mr Behan fell to the ground. He heard Corbally tell Kenny “to give him another one”.
The court was told that, despite being unemployed, Corbally snr had an affluent lifestyle.
Like his two sons he was on the dole, but they had two new pick-up trucks and a new car at their house.
Drug dealers Paul (35) and Kenneth Corbally (32), were shot dead in their Lexus car as a result of a series of rows between them and a Dublin gangland figure from Ballyfermot, west Dublin.
Gardai believe the contract was placed on their heads after the non-fatal stabbing and beating of an associate of the gangster. The brothers were also linked to a pub row in September last year, resulting in the death of Jason Martin.
THE innocent six-year-old boy who was shot and injured in Dublin last night is today recovering in hospital.
And gardai have appealed for those involved in the horrific attack to come forward.
Officers today said that they are following a ‘definite line of inquiry’ in relation to the shooting incident — and the scene was today technically examined.
A suspect has been identified and detectives called for all involved to turn themselves in.
shot VICTIM: The boy is recovering at Crumlin Hospital The six-year-old boy is now in a stable condition in hospital after being shot in the neck.
The child was standing in the hallway of a house last night when gunmen approached the front door, which was already ajar, and pushed it fully open.
They fired shots into the hallway and the boy was hit in the neck, either directly or by a ricochet.
A relative of the child was also in the house at the time, approximately 10.15pm in the Croftwood area of Ballyfermot.
The emergency services rushed to the scene to treat the child before bringing him to hospital where doctors performed surgery to remove the bullet from his neck.
The boy is in a stable condition today in Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin.
A date has been set for the inquest of murder crime boss Eamon ‘The Don’ Dunne.
Dublin Coroner’s Court today heard that that the investigation into Dunne’s death remains open but gardaí are in a position to go ahead with the inquest.
Dunne was gunned down while at a birthday party at the Fassaugh House Pub in Cabra on April 23, 2010.
Two men entered the pub and singled Dunne out before shooting him several times in the head.
Dunne was a major crime figure having taken over the Finglas-based drugs operation previously led by Martin ‘Marlo’ Hyland.
He is suspected of ordering more than a dozen gangland killings.
At the time of his death, Dunne was on bail and due to face trial on a charge of conspiring to rob €1 million from a transit van outside a Tesco in Celbridge, Kildare in November 2007.
The inquest has been set for a full hearing on October 15.
FORMER Anglo executive Willie McAteer has been charged with taking part in an alleged conspiracy to transfer €7.2bn in a bid to mislead the bank's investors about the true value of deposit books.
The defunct bank's ex-finance director is to stand trial after he became the fourth person to be accused of fraud by inflating deposits at Anglo.
Following his arrest today he was brought to appear before a district judge at the Criminal Courts of Justice (CCJ) in Dublin and was remanded on bail pending trial.
His co-defendants are: John Bowe, who had been head of capital markets at Anglo Irish Bank; Denis Casey, 54, from Raheny, Dublin, chief executive of Irish Life and Permanent (IL&P) until 2009; the third defendant is 61-year-old Peter Fitzpatrick, from Malahide, Dublin, who had been IL&P's former director of finance.
The three bankers had already been charged earlier and appeared again at Dublin District Court, in the CCJ, today where Judge Michael Walsh heard there were two fresh charges, for a fourth defendant, Mr McAteer, who has an address at Greenrath, Tipperary Town, Co. Tipperary.
Det Inspector Gerard Walsh of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation told Judge Walsh that Mr McAteer, 63, was arrested at 9am this morning outside the Bridewell Garda station in Dublin city-centre.
“In reply he said 'No' to both charges”, Det Inspector Walsh said.
Earlier the court had heard that Mr Bowe, Mr Casey and Mr Fitzpatrick had made the same reply when they were charged.
There was no objection to bail and Mr McAteer's wife Maria was approved to act as an independent surety in the sum of €10,000.
Together Mr McAteer and his co-defendants are accused of conspiring to mislead Anglo investors in relation to €7.2bn transactions between Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Plc, Irish Life & Permanent Plc and Irish Life Assurance, from March to September 2008.
It is alleged that this was to give the impression that Anglo's deposits were larger than they really were.
Mr Bowe, 50, from Glasnevin, in Dublin, and Mr McAteer also face one additional charge each that they allegedly falsified accounts contrary to Section 10 of the Theft and Fraud Act.
The DPP consented to them being returned for trial on indictment, state solicitor Padraig Mawe told Judge Walsh today.
This means their trial will go before a judge and jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Books of evidence, each made up of two thick ring binders folders, were served on the defendants by Det Inspector Walsh. The two-volume books of evidence also contained CD-ROMs; Mr Mawe explained that there was an “electronic format” as well as hard copy.
None of the four men have yet indicated how they will plead and Judge Walsh gave them the standard warning that if they intended to rely on alibis in their defence they must inform the prosecution within 14 days.
After some minor amendments were made to the charges, the judge then ordered that the four men were being returned for trial to the higher court.
He also agreed to make a “section 56 order” for the State to furnish copies of videotapes and memos of interviews to the defence solicitors: Michael Hanahoe, Dara Robinson and Michael Hennessy. Their clients briefly addressed the court to indicate they understood the bail terms and the alibi warning.
They then signed their bonds and took up bail pending their next hearing which will take place at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, on July 11.
As a condition of bail they must sign on once per month at their local garda stations, they were warned by Judge Walsh.
After the judge finalised his order he warned the news media that nothing should be published “that might be prejudicial or adverse to the interests of the court”.
SHOOTING victim Brian O’Reilly’s pal Derek McLoughlin kept a vigil outside Dublin hospital on Friday as he awaited news on the criminal’s condition.
O’Reilly (45), was shot in the chest and arm as he sat in a car outside Platinum Gym in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, shortly after 11am on Friday.
A lone gunman armed with a 9mm pistol fled the scene in what is believed to be a white Nissan 200 SX or white Toyota Supra. He was not wearing a mask and was described as having dark hair. The scene of the shooting was just yards from a crèche.
O’Reilly, who was a close associate of Eamon ‘the Don’ Dunne, was injured, but will survive the attack. He survived another gun attack in Bettystown, Co. Meath, four years ago when a Real IRA hitman targeted him in his local pub.
McLoughlin, who has himself survived an assassination attempt, arrived to the scene of Friday’s shooting after hearing what had happened. He lives around the corner from the scene of the attempted hit. He also followed his pal to Beaumont Hospital.
O’Reilly was sitting up and talking when he arrived in hospital.
Our exclusive picture shows McLoughlin waiting outside the hospital.
Gardai are probing a number of theories as to the motive of the shooting.
O’Reilly had been involved in a row with a gang based in Dublin’s north inner city over a cash dispute. The gang are based in the Sheriff Street area of Dublin and is centred around a family.
There had also been tensions between associates of O’Reilly and members of a Coolock drugs gang over drugs which went missing. The same gang were behind a shooting incident in Donaghmede two weeks ago.
A gunman fired a shot at the house on St Donagh’s Road. The shooting was intended to intimidate a man who was not in the house at the time. It is understood the gang knew the man was not in the house, but his mother was present at the time.
It is believed they were trying to exert pressure on the man to pay them protection money.
“This gang are causing a fair bit of trouble and are throwing their weight around,” said a source.
The same gang were also blamed for stealing a shipment of cannabis herb in Co. Meath in April. The drugs were believed to belong to associates of O’Reilly.
“This gang may have thought they would be targeted by O’Reilly’s associates over this so they struck first,” said a source.
A third theory is that a criminal gang from O’Reilly’s home area of Ballymun on the city’s northside were involved.
While not ruling it out, gardai do not at this stage suspect that the Real IRA were behind the shooting.
O’Reilly had been living in the Bettystown area for a number of years, but is understood to have moved to Balbriggan recently.
It is understood he was aware of threats to his life.
McLoughlin and O’Reilly are close associates. Both men carried the coffin at gang boss Eamon ‘the Don’ Dunne’s funeral in April 2010.
Four months after his buddy was murdered, O’Reilly himself was the target of hitmen and was shot twice in a pub near his home. O’Reilly was enjoying a pint in
McDonough’s pub in Bettystown when two gunmen singled him out.
Eight shots were fired, but he was lucky and only suffered bullet wounds to the chin and arm.
It is believed that the Real IRA, headed by Alan Ryan, organised for O’Reilly to be shot because he refused to pay them protection money.
Months after the killing he went to the High Court to claim senior gardai are in collusion with crime reporters to set him up to be murdered.
O’Reilly, in an affidavit, said that since Dunne had been shot, he had become the target of considerable media speculation that he had taken control of the drugs and crime organisation left vacant by Dunne’s death. He was unsuccessful in the case.
McLoughlin, like O’Reilly, survived a hit attempt while he was sitting in a car outside a gym in May last year.
He was in a car park at the Castle Shopping Centre in Swords when a gunman walked up to him, but the hitman’s gun jammed.
McLoughlin, who was hit with a €600,000 CAB bill in 2010, was one of six people convicted over a violent assault on a man at Ballymun Tower Centre the same year. He was given a suspended four-year sentence.
Gardai are confident that the prime suspect in the shooting of six-year-old Sean Scully is still in the Ballyfermot area despite fleeing his home.
The prime suspect in the horror shooting last Friday night has left his home but investigators believe he is staying with pals in the Ballyfermot area and are confident of tracking him down.
The man was involved in a confrontation with a man who was known to six year-old Sean Scully last Friday night and came back on a bike with a gun and opened fire.
However he missed his intended target and the .22 round passed through innocent Sean's neck. He is in a stable condition in hospital but gardai say he is lucky to be alive. The man the bullet was meant for was arrested for witholding information but has been released without charge.
Detectives raided the prime suspect's home on Sunday but there was nobody there and it had been cleared of all personal possessions. Officers believe he might want them to think he has left Ireland.
However they are convinced he is still in the local area and have urged anybody who sees him to contact them. His identity is well-known locally and he does not live far from where Sean Scully was shot at Croftwood Grove.
Gardai fear that if the suspected shooter does emerge then his life might be in danger because there is such revulsion locally that he could produce a gun when children were out on the street.
Man alleged to be involved in killing of Celtic star's IRA pal dodges extradition due to court blunder.
A MAN alleged to have been involved in the murder of a friend of Celtic star Anthony Stokes won’t be extradited back to Ireland following a court blunder.
Robert Carroll, 27, fled Dublin last year after being charged in connection with the killing of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan.
Ryan, a convicted terrorist known as “The Model”, was said to have been friends for many years with Stokes through his association with the Players Lounge Bar in Fairview, Dublin, which is owned by Stokes’s dad, John.
The 32-year-old was the leader of the Dublin brigade of the Real IRA - one of the breakaway groups opposed to Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Carroll, of County Meath, was arrested by Irish police in October 2012 and suspected of withholding information that would lead to one of Ryan’s killers.
He was released on bail and was due to appear in Dublin District Court last April, but failed to turn up for his hearing.
A warrant was issued for his arrest and he was seized in Wales in November.
He was then held in a high security Midlands prison while awaiting extradition, but following a bungle by investigating officers he was allowed to walk free from Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Celtic FC Anthony Stokes at a memorial party for murdered IRA boss Alan Ryan. Celtic FC Anthony Stokes at a memorial party for murdered IRA boss Alan Ryan.
District judge Howard Riddle told Carroll he would not be extradited back to Ireland as the offence on the warrant, withholding information from the police in relation to Ryan’s murder, does not relate to terrorism.
Judge Riddle said: “The offence in Ireland is not an offence in this jurisdiction and, therefore, not an extraditable offence so I must discharge him. He is free to go.”
Carroll initially contested the extradition on the grounds he feared he would be murdered by IRA operatives on his return.
However, his defence lawyer Malcolm Hawke told the court Carroll had decided not to contest the extradition, adding he wanted to return to Ireland to “sort things out”.
Parkhead and Ireland striker Stokes faced the wrath of manager Neil Lennon in November 2012 after he was snapped at a memorial party for Ryan, who was blasted in the head as he walked down a Dublin street in September 2012.
Lennon said Stokes, 25, had “damaged the reputation of the club” by attending the event, and revealed he had been disciplined over the issue.
A YOUNG man who has been involved in a bitter personal dispute with close associates of one of the most feared gangsters in the State has been officially warned by gardai of an active threat against his life.
Officers are operating extra patrols in north Dublin as tensions continue to escalate between close associates of exiled crimelord Paschal Kelly and a minor-league criminal who is rowing with the gangsters over a woman.
Kelly's rival has already had his face slashed and cars owned by him destroyed as the row spirals out of control.
advice
A source told the Herald: "Gardai from Coolock called to the younger man's home last week and warned him that his life was in danger, as well as giving him security advice.
"He is in serious danger because of this feud and has been the victim of a number of violent incidents since this feud first kicked off in January."
Kelly's rival has links to a Coolock criminal who has been charged in relation to a 2011 drug-linked killing in Dublin's north inner city.
However, he has not been able to get the backing of the senior criminal in the bitter row because his mate is locked up in jail.
Sources say that this has left him in an "extremely vulnerable" position and cars linked to him have been badly vandalised on at least three occasions in the past number of weeks.
The violence has been happening mainly in Raheny, north Dublin and pals of the under- threat man have also been targeted, with Kelly's mob hell-bent on revenge.
One of the most serious incidents in the long-standing row occurred in May when the younger criminal was set-up and slashed in the face while he sat in a car.
He required extensive hospital treatment and needed dozens of stiches after the shocking incident which is believed to be linked to Kelly's close associates but he refused to make a complaint to gardai about it.
Sources say that his best option may now be to flee his northside home.
bother
A source said: "He is in serious bother over this - he is now the victim of a serious campaign of intimidation and violence. The criminals that he is fighting with have connections to one of the most dangerous gangs in the State and Paschal Kelly is a central figure in this crew."
On-the-run Kelly (48) is a key member of the gang gardai believe killed Real IRA chief Alan Ryan.
In February, his Cavan home was seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).
He bought the bungalow in 2004 for €190,000 but it is now estimated to be worth between €250,000 and €275,000. Kelly is on the run abroad and has been described in court as playing a leading role in an organised criminal gang.
Jordan's plan to avoid €800k CABtax bill backfires.
BY CONOR FEEHAN – 07 JULY 2014 12:00 AM
A criminal who filed for bankruptcy in the UK in the hope of escaping an €800,000 bill from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has seen his plan backfire spectacularly.
Troy Jordan (44), from Kildare, is the number-one target on a hitlist of criminals compiled by dissident republicans.
He has also fallen foul of major Dublin gangland figures, including Brian Rattigan and Karl Breen.
His business connections over the years have included Martin 'The Viper' Foley and Geraldine Gilligan, the wife of convicted drug dealer John Gilligan, who is currently hiding in the UK after a second attempt on his life last March.
annulled
Along with Foley, Jordan helped to found Viper Debt Recovery and Repossession Services in 2005. He resigned as a director in June 2010.
During her legal battle with CAB over the Jessbrook Equestrian Centre in Kildare, Geraldine Gilligan told the High Court in 2008 that her only income was €5,000 a year she received from Jordan "for grass".
Despite having a lengthy criminal pedigree, Jordan has managed to avoid incurring any major convictions to date.
He is currently challenging the €800,000 bill handed to him by CAB and is taking his dispute to the Supreme Court.
But in an effort to thwart the authorities' efforts to extract the money from him, he filed for bankruptcy in the UK in May last year.
However, he recently withdrew that application after learning he "didn't have a hope or a prayer of success", according to sources.
Jordan filed the bankruptcy petition in Blackpool County Court on May 31 last year, hoping that after a year his debts would be discharged and he would escape having to pay the massive tax bill here on the basis that he would be technically broke.
But he was unable to meet the criteria laid down in England as regards his businesses there. More crucially, the Insolvency Court contacted authorities here to establish Jordan's bona fides and were told about his outstanding tax deb.
A UK source confirmed to the Herald that Jordan's bankruptcy order was annulled by his own petition last April 24 with "all debts paid in full".
That means Jordan paid whatever debts he had in the UK, but his tax bill here remains.
"For you to present your own petition to annul a bankruptcy would be very unusual, but this is what happened in this case," said the source.
Jordan used his full name of Troy Byron Jordan on his bankruptcy petition, giving an address in Fleetwood, Lancashire, as well as another in Allenwood, Co Kildare.
After he withdrew the petition, the Insolvency Court recorded the reason as "ought not to have been made".
threat
Gardai believe Jordan is one of the most serious players in the drug-trafficking world and is under threat from a number of criminals here.
After the murder of Dublin Real IRA leader Alan Ryan in September 2012, Jordan was reportedly one of a dozen gangsters summoned to meetings with the dissident group, who demanded protection money to allow him to continue his drug-dealing racket.
However, he refused to hand over any cash.
He was twice arrested by officers investigating the shooting murder of Latvian woman Baiba Saulite in 2006
Former RUC man still 'holds key' in Sgt Joe Campbell murder.
The old man pictured here is still the No.1 suspect in the mysterious Sergeant Joe Campbell murder case, the Sunday World has been told.
He is Charlie McCormick – a former RUC Special Branch officer – who once stood trial for the shocking killing of the popular police officer.
McCormick was acquitted of the crime but re-arrested and quizzed in connection with the murder five years ago.
After studying a file on the matter for four years, the DPP decided not to proceed with a case against McCormick.
Yesterday, a former RUC officer who served in Co. Antrim alongside both Campbell and McCormick, told the Sunday World: “Charlie McCormick holds the key to the unsolved murder of Sgt. Joe Campbell.
“He is still the main suspect in the case and I’ll never understand why a decision was taken not to proceed with a second trial.”
He added: “If Charlie McCormick doesn’t appear in court for this, then no-one else will. He is still the No.1 suspect.” On Friday, the Police Ombudsman’s Office published its report into Sgt. Campbell’s murder. It was 12 years in preparation and it was heavily criticised by the murdered man’s widow Rosemary who insisted it fell short “because it does not contain the full account of the murder which I had hoped for.”
Charlie McCormick wasn’t named in the Ombudsman’s report, although there are clear references to him standing trial for the murder.
UVF serial killer Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson was named, as were McCormick’s RUC colleagues, John Weir and Billy McCaughey, both later convicted in connection with the murder of Ahoghill shopkeeper William Strathearn.
However, the document stops short of naming anyone as the gunman who pulled the trigger when Joe Campbell was shot.
A 49-year-old father of eight, Joe Campbell was well known and liked in the Glens of Antrim where he had served for many years.
He was hit by a rifle shot to the head as he locked up Cushendall RUC Station on February 25 1977.
Joe Campbell had told senior officers that he suspected McCormick and one of his republican informants were involved in serious crime including armed robbery.
In his report Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire said Sgt. Campbell’s death was ‘preventable’.
He said there was “sufficient reliable evidence” that the then head of Special Branch and probably the Chief Constable “were aware of concerns which had been documented about the threat to his life and had failed to act on them”
Although he was acquitted of Sgt. Campbell’s murder, Charlie McCormick was given a 20 year sentence in 1982 for armed robberies, hijackings, possession of explosives and a rifle used in a bank heist.
It was alleged in court, that McCormick had carried out the lengthy catalogue of crime alongside IRA man Tony O’Doherty.
The IRA man told the court that McCormick said to him: “Campbell is on to us, he has to go.”
McCormick became O’Doherty’s police handler after persuading the Portglenone republican to work for him as a police ‘tout’ and Special Branch double agent inside the IRA.
Sgt. Joe Campbell
Even though he was already serving an 18 year sentence for terrorist crime, Tony O’Doherty became the chief Crown witness against McCormick.
Two years later, McCormick had his convictions for armed robbery and other charges quashed when the case was referred to the Court of Appeal.
And although he walked from court a free man, he was later dismissed from his job as an RUC Special Branch detective.
In 2009, a full 32 years after the murder, McCormick then 72 and in ill health, was re-arrested and questioned once more about the Campbell killing.
The move against the former Special Branch man came shortly after the law on double jeopardy was changed to allow the authorities to pursue for a second time a suspect already acquitted of murder.
Shortly before he was detained the Sunday World revealed the bungalow McCormick shared with his second wife Roberta in Gracehill, Co. Antrim, had been the the focus of a sophisticated listening system based in Scotland.
Before marrying McCormick in 1995, Roberta Gray, a local school teacher, had been romantically linked with McCormick for many years.
During his trial for the murder of Sgt. Campbell, Roberta Gray gave alibi evidence to the court on McCormick’s behalf.
When the Sunday World caught up with McCormick in the garden of his Gracehill home we asked him if he expected to be re-arrested in connection with his former police colleague’s murder.
The ex-Special Branch officer replied: “ I’m not saying anything. I could say plenty, but I’m not going to at the moment.
When pressed to reveal whether he believed Robin Jackson was Campbell’s killer, McCormick replied: “Go and ask Joe’s family. Everyone knows that – they knew that 25 years ago.
“I could tell you things that would make the hair on your head stand up.”
McCormick continued: “Joe Campbell was a decent man. Thanks be to God, the Campbells sat with me in my front room and I told them that.”
He added: “Joe Campbell shouldn’t have been killed in the way he was.”
Shortly after the Sunday World confronted Charlie McCormick he was arrested and taken in for questioning.
For the second time a file on McCormick’s alleged involvement in the Campbell murder was prepared and forwarded to the Public Prosecution Service which considered the matter for four years, before deciding not to pursue the case.
Willie O'Brien (32) was hit in the chest, shoulder and hand when a gunman opened fire on him at Beechfield Rise in Ongar, west Dublin, at around 10am last Tuesday.
O'Brien is expected to survive as a major investigation into the attempted assassination continues at Blanchardstown Garda Station.
It has now emerged that a ruthless mob based in Cabra and the capital's north inner city are being investigated for the shooting, which sources say is "definitely linked to the drugs trade in the city centre".
A main player in the mob is a 30-year-old criminal who was formerly close to the gang which was led by slain crime lord Eamon 'The Don' Dunne, who was shot dead in a Cabra pub in April, 2010.
An older relative of the 30-year-old mobster is suspected of setting up Dunne who was murdered on the orders of the Christy Kinahan's international crime syndicate.
Sources say that the Cabra crew is one of the best-organised in the capital and launder their drugs cash through a number of Dublin motor trade businesses.
"They have great contacts across the entire spectrum of the organised crime scene 
and they have plenty of 
fellas to do their bidding.
"Associates of Willie O'Brien are very active in the city centre and have come into conflict with them for whatever reason and he is very lucky to be still alive after last week's shooting," a source pointed out.
ATTACK
O'Brien has only recently returned to Dublin after spending a number of months in Spain. The chief suspects in the attack are believed to have become aware that he was home and decided to attempt to murder him.
It is believed that a 9mm handgun was used in the shooting and that O'Brien opened the door to the gunman and shut it when he realised his life was in danger.
The gunman fired through the door before fleeing, with O'Brien getting shot in front of his partner and three-year-old son
After the shooting, the gunman escaped in a silver Ford Galaxy car that was later found burned-out in the nearby Phibblestown Woods estate. Investigators believe the gang switched to another car in this quiet cul de sac.
O'Brien, who is originally from Lombard Court in Dublin's south inner city, was freed from jail last October after serving three years for growing 655 cannabis plants worth more than €325,000.
His car was also previously destroyed when it was parked outside a friend's house in East Wall in June 2010.
Prisoners left like 'zombies' after drone drugs drop.
BY KEN FOY – 04 JULY 2014 12:00 AM
DOZENS of prisoners have been left like "zombies" after consuming narcotics from a drone that crash-landed in Wheatfield Prison.
The Herald has learned that the majority of drugs which were on the €2,000 drone - known as a quadcopter - made it into the jail after it crashed into an exercise yard.
A package containing suspected drugs was attached by a rope to the four-bladed device as it hovered over the yard at the west Dublin prison.
While it was initially believed that prison officers had seized all the contraband, it has now emerged that a "sizeable amount" of drugs got into the jail.
Sources say that the highly sophisticated plot was organised by three different Dublin gangs in the prison who then distributed and took the drugs.
"Despite the main ring leader being put into solitary confinement for almost a week after this happened, a lot of the drugs got into the jail and the effects of it were fairly obvious.
"You had fellas going around the place like complete zombies for over a week - it was mostly prescription tablets but there was also a little bit of cannabis resin and heroin that got in," a source explained.
"At first, the authorities had thought that none of the drugs got in but in reality it is estimated that hundreds of euro worth of the stuff made its way into the jail," the source added.
The drama unfolded when the drone got caught on anti-helicopter wires - in place to prevent any airborne escape attempts - and crash-landed into the complex on Tuesday of last week at around 11am.
A number of prison staff noticed the commotion as the device crash landed and attempted to intercept the operation.
It is understood the group of inmates huddled around one prisoner - the suspected ringleader who is serving an eight-year sentence for robbery - and it was believed that he hid the package by pushing it inside himself.
He was put in solitary confinement under 24-hour watch for the contraband to be retrieved, but this did not happen after around five days.
BRAZEN
The drone was seized and has been handed over to the Gardaí who are carrying out their own investigation.
Sources say that it is "possible" that the ringleader of the brazen plot - a 33-year-old career criminal from Tallaght - will face charges in relation to the incident, which made international headlines.
The thug, who is a violent drug addict, was jailed for eight years in 2011 for a post office robbery during which a 
customer had a knife held to her neck while raiders demanded cash.
He was previously given a 10-year jail sentence for a bank robbery and has convictions for offences such as car theft, larceny and drug possession.
The murder of teenager Marioara Rostas was a precise execution and not a crime of passion or temper, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
Seán Gillane SC was giving the closing speech for the State in the trial of the 35-year-old Dublin man charged with her murder.
Alan Wilson of New Street Gardens has pleaded not guilty to 18-year-old's murder at a house on Brabazon Street, The Coombe, Dublin between January 7 and January 8, 2008.
Mr Gillane reminded the jury that the Romanian teenager had been begging with her brother at a junction in Dublin City around 2pm on January 6th 2008. A car stopped, there was a conversation with the driver, she got in, her brother was given €10 and the car drove off.
"Marioara is never seen again by anyone that cared for her," he said.
He noted that she had phoned her brother in Romania the following day, 'distressed, frightened and asking for her Daddy to come get her' before the phone was cut off.
He said that by September 2008, the car had been identified as being owned by the accused. The house on Brabazon Street that Alan Wilson's sister shared with her partner, Fergus O'Hanlon, had been identified as an address of significance.
The house had been the subject of arson in February 2008 but the significance of the fire hadn't been appreciated then. When it was forensically examined, bullets were recovered from a wall.
"The calibre of bullet used was entirely consistent with the fragments recovered from the head of Marioara Rostas," he said.
Alan Wilson was arrested in October 2008 on suspicion of murder and Fergus O'Hanlon on suspicion of withholding information.
"An informal parade was held with Fergus O'Hanlon. No-one was picked out," he said.
He asked the jury to jump forward to January 2012 when O'Hanlon helped gardai locate the victim's body, where he said he had helped Mr Wilson bury it.
O'Hanlon has since told the trial that on January 8th 2008 he arrived home to find a girl dead in his house and Mr Wilson with a gun in his hand.
Mr Gillane said that the question was whether it was possible to marry the evidence in terms of the DPP's case against Alan Wilson.
"That's done through the evidence of Fergus O'Hanlon," he said of the convicted criminal, who has been granted immunity from prosecution.
"I make no bones about that. He is the case," he said.
He said that the jury's job was to tie the facts of the case.
"That involves a journey through the heart of darkness," he said. "He (O'Hanlon) was involved in the burial of a young girl, who was savagely killed."
He noted that the witness had also kept quiet about the crime for four years.
"That speaks to an almost unimaginable withering of his own humanity," he said. "But, the prosecution says that a core humanity won out at the end of the day."
"The evidence on which the prosecution relies was never going to be from an altar boy or choir boy," he added.
He said that O'Hanlon had already gotten away with his crime of assisting a killer when he decided to help gardai in late 2011. His solicitor warned him that he didn't have to co-operate and that he could be charged if he did so.
"But, standing on the side of that mountain in January 2012, with the words of his solicitor ringing in his ear, he helped the guards find Marioara Rostas," he said.
He said that much had been made of O'Hanlon's crimes and temper, with his life being referred to as a train wreck in court.
"How was Marioara Rostas killed?" he asked. "She was executed in a manner that was cold, calculated and precise."
"Her remains were stripped..., covered up with exactitude with items purchased for that very effect," he continued. "She was buried in a place not randomly selected for its isolation, where existed a well-made, pre-prepared grave."
"Thereafter, Ms Rostas's personal effects and almost every last scrap of evidence ... was meticulously destroyed," he said. "This was no crime of passion, of temper or loss of control. It was the exact opposite."
He asked the jury to conclude that Alan Wilson was guilty of murder.
However, Michael O'Higgins SC, defending, said that he wasn't asking for an altar boy or choir boy in what he described as 'a one-witness case'.
"I will take the commonest street thug if he gets into that witness box and tells the truth," he said.
He said that the first and last things out of O'Hanlon's mouth during his days in court were lies.
"All you heard from him were lies and contrived lies," he said.
He asked the jury to consider the photofit prepared from the victim's brother's description of the man who drove his sister away.
"It's a very strong likeness to him," he said of O'Hanlon.
He also reminded the jury that O'Hanlon had refused to take part in a formal identification parade.
He noted that Ms Rostas had called out letters from a street sign she could see during her phone call to her brother on January 7th. He said these letters could be found in the sign directly across the street from O'Hanlon's home.
"That means she was in Brabazon Street .. prior to the 8th when she was murdered," he said. "It's Fergus O'Hanlon who lived in Brabazon Street. It's a connection to him, like the photofit."
Mr O'Higgins will conclude his closing speech on Tuesday morning. Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy will then charge the jury of 10 men and two women.
Michael Frazier's abandoned car after the first attempt on his life
Gardai averted a double assassination of a father and son during a bizarre chase across the city involving push bikes, squad cars and the garda helicopter.
The incident kicked off on Friday afternoon in Rathmines in Dublin when a row broke out between the duo and members of a Crumlin family over a woman.
It is understood that the father and son claim they were told they were going to be killed and fled on bicycles in terror, with two cars in hot pursuit.
Both made 999 calls and told the emergency services they were being followed by men with a shotgun and a handgun – and believed they were about to be killed in broad daylight.
The garda helicopter was deployed as the chase headed across the city and out as far as Ballyfermot where the duo finally stopped.
It is understood in the early hours of yesterday morning a pipe bomb exploded and destroyed a car in the area. Officers believe that the incidents are connected but that the wrong car was targeted. An investigation was launched after a well known family in Crumlin were identified as having the firearms.
A spokesman said that Ballyfermot gardai were investigating the incident that occurred around 2pm which involved several teams of officers and the garda helicopter.
“Two males on pedal cycles alleged they were approached by a number of armed males and fled. They appear to have gone in different directions but both were pursued. They rang 999 for help and the garda Helicopter was involved from the sky,” said the spokesman.
Detectives are hoping to get to the bottom of the incident but believe it was sparked by a row between two women.
Meanwhile, a former pal of ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson is this weekend being described as the luckiest man in Ireland after miraculously escaping a second murder attempt in less than six months.
Michael Frazier (pictured above) was lured to a meeting in the car park of a pub in Firhouse, Tallaght at 6.50pm on Friday night when a masked gunman walked up to his car and tried to open fire from less than two feet away.
He pressed the trigger of a handgun three times but the weapon jammed and the astonished Frazier put the car into gear and rushed to nearby Tallaght garda station to report the incident.
However, the 34 year-old would not say who had lured him to the meeting and would not offer any information to help the investigation.
A few minutes later several people in the Allenton estate in Tallaght dialled 999 to report that two men, who were wearing balaclavas, were attempting to hijack cars.
They had abandoned the car that was used in the botched hit and set it on fire. By the time the gardai arrived they were gone and it is still unclear if they hijacked an innocent motorist to flee the area.
A semi-automatic pistol was found in the partially burnt-out car and it is hoped that gardai may be able to retrieve forensic evidence from it.
Frazier has now gone to ground and, despite surviving two bothced attempts on his life, now knows that he can trust nobody because it is the second time this year that his own friends tried to set him up to be murdered.
He was lured to a meeting in a church car park in Clondalkin on March 26 and a masked gunman then approached and fired three shots at him, hitting him in the back and legs.
However, he was able to drive his Mini Cooper onto the kerb and managed to drive himself to Clondalkin garda station. At the scene it looked like he might not survive but he made a miraculous recovery and was out of hospital in just three days.
He was set up and ambushed by the ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson mob after being accused of having an affair with the wife of a major criminal.
After initially refusing to believe that the Thompson gang had been responsible Frazier realised that his own friends were behind the incident.
He put on a brave face in public and was even dancing on pub tables showing off his scars and boasting about how he was invincible. However he knew that his falling out with the mob was permanent and they would try to come back and finish the job.
In June he was arrested in connection with a fatal hit and run. Frazier was detained for questioning about the death of Caroline Watkins who was killed while crossing the road at the Luas stop on Davitt Road in Inchicore. Frazier has denied involvement.
GARDAI are investigating the gangland-style execution of a man in Co Meath.
It is believed the victim, named locally as Paul Gallagher, who was in his mid 20s and originally from Donaghmede in Dublin, had gunshot wounds to the chest.
His body was found by a farmer in a field at Ballymacan, between Collon and Slane in Co Meath, at 5pm yesterday.
He is believed to have been a suspect in a number of shootings including that of Real IRA leader Alan Ryan.
He was reported missing from his home in Drogheda by concerned family members after he went with another man to meet a number of other people.
Examination
Gardai sealed off the scene while detectives began a forensic examination and State pathologist Marie Cassidy conducted an examination — a post mortem is due to take place today.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/13/1401:51 AM
22-year-old Celyn Eadon killed his mother by stabbing her 19 times while he was drunk and on drugs should have been in custody at the time, a report by the Inspector of Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly, has found.
A number of gardai now face internal disciplinary proceedings for not remanding Eadon in custody after it was ordered by a court, reports the Irish Independent.
Eadon was jailed for life last February after a jury found him guilty of murder.
Less than a month after he should have been in custody he brutally murdered his mother.
The judge’s report said Eadon, who was facing road traffic charges, was remanded in custody with consent to bail.
But even though he was unable to pay, the would be killer walked out of Castlebar District Court on the 16th of February and was free until being arrested in connection with the murder of his mother on the 11th of March 2011.
The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission is currently examining garda practice, policy and procedure in relation to dealing with people who are committed to custody on remand by a court
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/13/1401:54 AM
Gardai have been investigating complaint for nearly three years (file photo)
Gardai have launched an investigation after a respected officer's Toyota Corolla was burnt-out as he played a football game in Ashford, Co Wicklow.
The attack on the car took place on the recent back holiday weekend and is being linked to a grudge attack by gangland thugs.
Sources suggest a local crime boss who goes by the name of 'The Businessman' has something to do with the attack, after he was rattled by recent increased scrutiny of his activities.
The gang associated with 'The Businessman' have been using the car burning attacks on a regular basis in recent years.
No one was injured in the incident, but insiders suggested the attack on the car is being viewed as a "declaration of war" against gardai by the gang.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/13/1402:02 AM
Edward McGrath (32), of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield, Tallaght, Dean Evans (22), of Grange Park Rise, Raheny, and Sharif Kelly (43) of Pinewood Green Road, Balbriggan are charged with the murder of Peter Butterly (35), who was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn at Gormanston, Co Meath, on March 6th, 2013.
The three men were due to stand trial earlier this month but the matter was adjourned after both the prosecution and the defence said the case was not ready to proceed.
The non-jury court has heard that the Director of Public Prosecution wishes to call the men’s former co-accused David Cullen (30) to give evidence against the three other men in an “unprecedented” move.
Earlier this month Cullen was jailed for three-and-a-half years, having pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a 9mm calibre Beretta model 9000s semi-automatic pistol at the Huntsman Inn on March 6th, 2013.
His plea was accepted by the DPP and a nolle prosequi – a decision not to proceed - was entered on the count of murder.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler today (Tuesday) fixed September 30 for the trial, which is expected to last five weeks.
Mr Evans, Mr Kelly and Mr McGrath are charged with the murder of Peter Butterly at the Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath, on March 6th, 2013.
Mr Evans and Mr McGrath are charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm calibre Beretta model 9000s semi-automatic pistol and seven rounds of 9mm parabellum calibre ammunition at the same address on the same date.
They have also charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm calibre Beretta model 9000s semi-automatic pistol and seven rounds of ammunition with intent to endanger life at the car park of The Huntsman Inn on the same date.
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested over the stabbing of another teenager in Enniskillen.
The 14-year-old victim was stabbed twice in the body police have said.
According to police the injured boy was with another teenager in the Round O quay area of the town when he suffered non-life threatening injuries when he was approached by an individual shortly before midnight last night.
It is understood the teenager suffered two stab wounds and he was treated in hospital.
Police have appealed for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward.
A detective sergeant said: “Shortly before midnight, it was reported that two youths were approached by an unknown male in the area. It is believed the male stabbed one of the youths twice in the abdomen. The youth was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment to his injuries that are not believed to be life threatening.
“The male, who was arrested in the Enniskillen area this afternoon, remains in police custody.”
The three Dundon brothers convicted of murder are costing taxpayers €300,000 a year.
Figures from the Irish Prison Service revealed it costs €94,575 to keep each inmate locked up in the maximum security Portlaoise Prison.
Lowlife Limerick brother Wayne, John and Dessie Dundon are all serving life in the prison so are costing the taxpayer €283,725 every year.
By the time they finish their sentences they will have cost the taxpayer millions.
The trio are housed on the A5 unit of the prison.
Wayne (36) was convicted of the murder of innocent businessman Roy Collins (35) in July. The tubby thug organised the murder from his prison cell.
John (32) is serving life for the murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan (28) who was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity in November 2008.
Dessie (30) is serving life for the 2002 murder of rival criminal Kieran Keane.
Gardai believe that associates of a Dublin man who survived two recent assassination attempts have taken out a €30,000 contract on the mobster they blame for the latest botched hit.
The Sunday World can reveal that the contract has been taken out on the life of a senior member of the Christy Kinahan mob, who they believe helped lure Michael Frazier to a pub car park to be murdered.
The man, who is a well-known player in Dublin gangland, fled to Spain after learning about the bounty on his head.
Frazier has told pals that the man, who is in his 40s, was the one who phoned and arranged a meeting in the car park of a pub in Firhouse.
When Frazier arrived at the meting point, a masked hitman came out of the shadows and pointed a gun at his head and pressed the trigger three times only for it not to fire.
The incident was caught on CCTV and the gun only failed to fire because the dim-witted shooter had forgot to put a bullet in the chamber, allowing Frazier to make his escape to nearby Tallaght garda station and report the attempted murder.
The Sunday World exclusively revealed last week that Frazier has surrounded himself with members of the Brian Rattigan gang, because he suspects that his old friends in the Freddie Thompson gang want him dead.
And now Frazier has hit back and has been offering the money to known hitmen in a bid to have the criminal whacked.
He is one of the Kinahan gang’s right-hand men in Dublin and has also links to the Thompson mob.
However, it is understood that the murder of Frazier was sanctioned by Kinahan after the Thompson crew sought permission for him to be taken out.
In order to get the job done, Kinahan told his man to phone Frazier and tell him he wanted to broker a peace deal but to betray him – but the plan did not come off.
This has left Kinahan furious because he is now involved in a dispute he is not really a part off and wanted nothing to do with.
It was the second time since March that Frazier has cheated death and he knows he is a dead man walking because he was accused of bedding the partner of a senior Thompson gangster.
Frazier realises he is extremely vulnerable after the order came from behind bars that he was to be murdered at all costs and he has been cozying up to former Rattigan associates who were involved in the infamous Crumlin/Drimnagh feud that claimed 16 lives.
Gardai now fear that the feud could reignite because of Frazier’s newfound friends.
Frazier started out in the early 2000s as being sympathetic to the Rattigan mob but moved into the Thompson camp and suffered several attacks as a result.
The Rattigan gang has effectively been defeated with most of the younger generation moving away from the feud. However, there are still a small band of loyalists led by Rattigan’s cousin Aaron Rattigan.
Gardai fear that if the increasingly desperate Frazier teams up with the remnants of the Rattigan gang then there is the potential for carnage to break out and the feud to kick-off again.
Frazier own friends turned on him on March 26 when he turned up to a pre-arranged meeting in a church car park in Clondalkin.
A masked gunman then approached from the shadows and fired three shots at him hitting him in the back and legs.
However, he was able to drive his Mini Cooper onto the kerb and managed to drive himself to Clondalkin garda station. He made a miraculous recovery and was out of hospital in just three days.
After initially refusing to believe that the Thompson gang had been responsible, Frazier realised that his own friends were behind the incident.
He put on a brave face in public and was even dancing on pub tables showing off his scars and boasting about how he was invincible.
However he knew that his falling out with the mob was permanent and they would try to come back and finish the job and has now linked up with Rattigan loyalists to save his skin.
Although he is well-known to gardai, Michael Frazier has very little in the way of criminal convictions.
GUNNED DOWN: Dean Johnson was viciously killed last August IRELAND’S murder rate has soared — despite an overall drop in most types of crime across the country, official figures show.
Some 60 people were murdered in the 12 months to the end of March this year — up more than 36 per cent, from 44, on the same period the previous year.
The most shocking murders during that period included the vicious killing of small-time criminal Dean Johnson (21), who was shot multiple times in the face near his home in Clondalkin last August.
Two months previously, mum Jolanta Lubiene and her eight-year-old daughter Enrika were stabbed to death at their home in Killorglin, Co Kerry.
Lithuanian man Aurimas Andruska (26) has been charged with Jolanta’s murder and the unlawful killing of Enrika.
This year then started violently when Dale Creighton (20) was beaten to death on a pedestrian bridge in Tallaght at about 4am on New Year’s Day.
Six men and one woman have been charged with his murder.
And republican Declan ‘Fat Deccy’ Smith (32) became another of the 60 murder victims after he was shot dead outside a creche in Donaghmede this March.
Overall, killings — which also include manslaughter and dangerous driving leading to death — increased by more than a fifth (23 per cent).
But most other types of criminal activity have dipped — continuing the trend of recent years.
Drugs
Sex offences, threats, negligence, robbery, burglary, fraud, deception, weapons offences and public order offences have all come down.
But the figures show a 6.3 per cent rise in the number of kidnappings, to 19 in the year — with a 106 per cent increase in abductions of children under 16.
Theft rose by more than two per cent over the same period, while there was also a slight rise in drugs offences.
Overall, 10 of 14 offence groups for which figures were produced were down.
The sharpest decreases were in damage to property and the environment, down almost nine per cent; weapons and explosives offences, down nearly eight per cent; and a six per cent drop in attempts or threats to murder, assault or harass.
Acting Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan said the increase in murders was not down to organised crime but remained a concern for the force.
“I would appeal to everyone to consider the terrible impact this crime has,” she said.
“Not only has someone lost their life, but communities and more importantly families and friends will face years of devastation.
“It is imperative that people think about the potentially devastating consequences of their actions…as lives can be changed in an instant.”
MURDERER: John Dundon had planned to appeal on the basis of the controversial recordings A REVIEW of taped conversations retained by An Garda Siochana and the Irish Prison Service has found there were no recordings made of conversations between mobster John Dundon and his legal team.
Dundon (32), from Hyde Road in Limerick, was sentenced to life in prison last August for the murder of innocent rugby captain Shane Geoghegan (28) in November 2008.
He was to seek a review of his conviction on the basis he believed telephone conversations with his lawyer had been recorded.
But Dundon’s lawyer John Devane yesterday confirmed to The Star that a review of the recordings in the possession of the Irish Prison Service and the Gardai has found no such tapes.
john dundon INNOCENT VICTIM: Shane Geoghegan Mr Devane said: “We made appropriate inquiries with An Garda Siochana and the Irish Prison Service and have been told there are no such tapes in existence between John Dundon and anyone in our offices, or of John Dundon and any legal personnel representing him in any matters.”
Inquiry
In March, the Government established a commission of inquiry into the practice of taping recordings both into and out of more than 20 Garda stations across the country.
The Government has said a potential threat to criminal convictions due to the recording of phone calls at Garda stations was behind its decision to establish the commission of inquiry.
At the time, solicitor Mr Devane said he believed his client John Dundon was one of those whose conversations was recorded and that the practice could result in his conviction being challenged.
However, security sources yesterday dismissed this suggestion.
A source told The Star: “It has never been the case in Limerick that conversations of this nature would be deliberately recorded for some unfair gain to the prosecution.
GARDAI believe they have foiled a hit by eastern European gangsters after they swooped on gun-toting suspects.
Three people, who are all from Lithuania, were arrested after drugs unit officers in plain clothes stopped a car in Adamstown in west Dublin yesterday afternoon and recovered two loaded pistols and silencers.
The stop-and-search operation was carried out by officers from Ronanstown Station on the Newcastle Road at The Grange, close to Adamstown, just after 3pm.
The trio were arrested and were being quizzed at Lucan and Ronanstown Garda stations last night, where they can be held for up to three days without charge.
Rival
Sources last night said officers were trying to establish what the men were planning, but suspect they were on their way to kill a rival eastern European criminal.
And insiders also said they suspected the planned hit may have been connected to the murder of Lithuanian gangster Gintaras Zelvys — who was shot dead just a few kilometres away.
Zelvys (43) was shot dead at the second-hand clothing centre in Rathcoole, west Dublin, at the start of May 2013.
He was the leader of the biggest Lithuanian gang in the country, which has more than 30 members.
Zelvys, a convicted rapist, was heavily involved in extortion and prostitution and it is known that he specialised in terrorising other Lithuanians.
Marius Sarzynski, who was being held at Cloverhill Prison over the killing of Aleksandra Sarzynska last August, was found dead in his cell on Tuesday night
A man accused of murdering his wife has taken his own life in prison, the Irish Mirror has learned.
Marius Sarzynski, who was being held at Dublin's Cloverhill Prison over the killing of Aleksandra Sarzynska last August, was found dead in his cell on Tuesday night.
It’s believed has self-inflicted wounds.
Just last week the 37-year-old broke his hip after he jumped from the second-floor window of a court room.
The Polish native was at Navan Court in connection with a civil case which is unrelated to the criminal proceedings.
He ran and flung himself out the window before landing 25ft down on the ground.
He could be heard screaming in agony as prison officers rushed to his aid.
Aleksandra Sarzynska His 31-year-old wife Aleksandra died at an apartment in Co Meath last August.
After his fall Sarzynski was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, where he underwent surgery.
He was then brought back to Cloverhill Prison to recover from his operation.
A prison source last night told the Irish Mirror the accused was found slumped in his cell late on Tuesday night.
The source said: "Sarzynski was only back in the prison after undergoing an operation on a broken hip after jumping the 25ft from the court room window last week.
"He had been recuperating in his cell following the surgery when he took his own life.
“Officers found him slumped over in his cell. They ran to his aid but sadly it was too late.”
The death of Ms Sarzynska, who is originally from Wroclaw, stunned the Polish community in Navan last year.
Gardai were forced to kick in the bedroom door when they realised her young children had been locked inside.
Victim has given detailed description of her attackers and detectives have a list of suspects they are planning to quiz
5 Shares Share Tweet +1 Email Cabra Park near Phibsborough, scene of the horrific gang rape Gardai are closing in on violent thugs who allegedly held down and raped a young woman on her way to work.
Yesterday the Irish Mirror revealed how the 20-year-old woman claimed she was dragged down an alleyway by three men and horrifically sexually assaulted.
Now this paper has learned that gardai are examining a number of possible suspects.
And officers are also preparing to issue photofits of two of the suspects behind the horror attack.
A senior source said: “The investigation has been given priority and a number of names have been nominated.
“Gardai are confident that they will be able to compile photofits of two of the suspects and these will be distributed among officers in a bid to identify the suspects.”
Gardai last night issued detailed descriptions of two of the suspects involved.
The main culprit involved is described as being 5’9”, skinny build, shaved blonde hair with a light facial stubble. He is also described as having facial scaring.
He was wearing grey cotton trousers with a white stripe down the side, a grey jumper with a hood and black runners.
The second man is described as being 6’, thin face with dark eyes and wearing a dark grey sweatshirt with a hood, he has what is described as a distinctive scar on his left hand.
No description is available for the third man.
The Brazilian woman has told gardai she was on her way to work in a Dublin city centre takeaway on Sunday evening at 7.45pm when she was approached by three men in Cabra Park, Phibsboro.
She claimed that the men tried to engage her in conversation but she ignored them.
Moments later she claimed that she was grabbed from behind and taken down an alleyway where the shocking attack took place.
An alleyway beside Cabra Park in Dublin 7 where the woman was viciously raped The victim has told officers that one man held her down while a second man raped her.
A third man watched on but he later panicked and fled the scene.
The two others, who were not masked, also fled a short time later.
The victim contacted gardai and was later brought to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit (SATU) at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin.
A Garda spokesman confirmed that officers in Mountjoy station are investigating the alleged sexual assault of a young woman at 7.45pm on Sunday.
“The attack took place in an open area. The woman was taken to the sexual assault unit in the Rotunda for tests.
“No arrests have been made.”
Cabra Park in Dublin 7 where brutal attack took place The Irish Mirror has learned that the suspected attackers have been described as being aged in their 20s and all are believed to be Irish nationals.
The victim has been able to give gardai a good description of the alleged rapist.
He is described as being around 5’10” with “crooked teeth and red cheeks”.
Gardai have examined CCTV in the area and have gone house to house in a bid to establish further details about the incident.
Cabra Park in Dublin 7 The estate is just over a kilometre from Croke Park where the drawn All Ireland semi-final between Mayo and Kerry took place on Sunday.
Fans who may have parked in the area and witnessed anything suspicious have been asked to contact gardai.
Officers have appealed for witnesses to this incident to contact the incident room at Mountjoy Garda Station on 01 6668600, TheGarda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.
Anyone affected by this report can contact the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre on the National 24 hour Helpline 1 800 77 88 88 where you will get support and guidance from a trained person.
RSU in Limerick are the first to respond to all firearms incidents
These are the highly-trained and heavily-armed gardai who are keeping Limerick’s streets safe from notorious gangland thugs.
The Regional Support Unit was set up just over five years ago but since then the brave officers have patrolled the city.
And in an exclusive piece the Irish Mirror was given a behind-the-scenes look at the unit.
Chief Supt David Sheahan explained the important role the team plays in bringing the Treaty city from the brink of anarchy to one of Ireland’s safest cities.
He said: “One of the major factors in dealing with the peak of 2007 was bringing on board the Emergency Response Unit to patrol some of the streets of Limerick.
“We would have had great assistance from our colleagues in Dublin, both in respect of surveillance and the ERU.
“In 2008 to 2009 a decision was made to put the Regional Support Unit in certain areas in the city.
“Really since that date their ability to be able to respond to armed incidents has had a significant impact within the city and how we deal with matters thereafter.
“The RSU was set up to be first responders. If there were incidents of shooting the gardai are unarmed.
“They are highly trained, they have the equipment and they provided a lot of security for the city. From that point in time their presence has had a huge effect.”
The RSU in Limerick are the first to respond to all firearms incidents and because of the unique way they are set up the skilled officers do not spend hours filling out paperwork or sitting in court rooms.
Their arsenal includes Sig Sauer P226 handguns, Heckler & Koch MP7 sub-machine guns, Benelli shotguns and stun grenades.
Other weapons at their disposal are the X-26 Taser gun and large pepper spray canister.
Press 22Chief Supt Dave Sheehan with members of the ERU Unit They also have door breachers and a “ferret” gun which enables officers to smash windows and fire pepper powder into rooms.
Other gear includes bulletproof helmets and shields.
Over the past five years the unit have tackled gang members from both the McCarthy/Dundon and the Keane/Collopy gangs.
The RSU – who use XC 70 Volvos – have also been at the forefront of the war against dissidents in Limerick city and county.
Also in the unit’s sights are tiger kidnappers, drugs gangs and violent bank robbers. Garda Barry O’Brien has been stationed with the RSU in Henry Street station for over five years and he explained how the officers had to go through a gruelling training programme before being accepted into the unit.
He said: “You have to fulfill a certain minimum number of criteria before you can apply for it.
“And then you could have 10 people in the station that would go for it and it would be up to the superintendent to recommend three or so to put forward to it.”
Garda O’Brien explained successful applicants go through a selection course before completing an intensive 13-weeks of training.
He said: “You would have three weeks’ driving, three weeks of shooting and five weeks’ between tactical training and negotiation.
“You would have a one-week first-aid course at the end of it.
“It is an intensive course and you would be zonked at the end of it.
“Because we were first to do it they gave us everything. They have tapered it down since.”
Garda O’Brien explained that they have both non-lethal and lethal options when dealing with armed incidents.
And the preference is always to use non-lethal force first.
The some of the equipment of ERU Unit of Henry Street Garda Station Limerick..Picture Credit Brian Gavin Press 22 Prior to January 2014 the five RSU teams around the country were not armed full-time.
The uniformed members would patrol unarmed with their weapons locked in the boots of their cars.
But they were converted into an armed unit if called on to respond to an incident where there was a threat to life or the possibility of an armed confrontation. Today they are fully armed all the time and that means they do not lose crucial minutes in dealing with a tense situation.
The landmark move was sanctioned by former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and it has already made a difference in the day-to-day running of the force.
Chief Supt Sheehan explained that the RSU units across the country work together and there is an option to call for support when needed.
Thankfully, he revealed, that hasn’t been necessary in recent years.
But he added: “If we come under pressure at times we can call on our colleagues below in Cork to provide us with back-up.
“Fortunately, as a result of the introduction of the RSU, in my time here we can say that now with some certainty [we haven’t needed] that since 2010.
“In early 2010 we had an incident where we brought on board the national units but since then we haven’t had the need to bring them on board here.”
Chief Superintendent David Sheahan reveals how he cleaned up the city which hasn't had a gangland murder in over three years
The top garda who helped nail some of the country’s most dangerous gangsters has warned there can be no complacency about crime.
Chief Supt David Sheahan has overseen the transformation of Limerick from a city on the brink of anarchy to one of the safest places in the country.
In an exclusive interview, he revealed there hasn’t been a gangland murder there in over three-and-a-half years while gun crime has fallen by more than 90%.
Increased resources and new legislation has seen some of the most notorious mobsters in the country’s history jailed for lengthy terms.
And this has allowed communities in Limerick to rebuild without the fear of intimidation or violence.
But Chief Supt Sheahan has warned they cannot rest on their laurels and called on the Government and Garda bosses to continue to support the drive.
The tough-talking officer, who is based at Henry Street station in the city, said: “One thing about Limerick in particular – you cannot take your finger off the pulse.
“The day anyone thinks everything has gone away, that we can fold up the tent and go away, that day is not going to happen.
“Now is the time we really need to make sure the resources are made available to continue doing what we have been doing. Certainly trends are going the right way but we have to keep the trends going in the right direction.
“I will need all the support I can get both from the Government and our own organisation to make sure we do not reverse and go back down the road we had been on in the past number of years.”
Picture Credit Brian Gavin Press 22Garda Chief Supt Dave Sheehan of Henry Street Garda Station Limerick Chief Supt Sheahan, who is originally from Co Wexford, was first stationed in Limerick in 2005 when he took up the post of superintendent at Roxboro station in the south side. He said that at the time the city was in the grip of a gangland war.
Just months earlier mob boss Wayne Dundon had threatened to kill innocent barman Ryan Lee for not serving his 14-year-old sister.
The Dundons were also at the centre of one of the bloodiest feuds in gangland history with the so-called Keane-Collopy gang.
Such was the level of violence local officers were forced to call in the armed Emergency Response Unit to patrol flashpoints in the city.
Chief Supt Sheahan added: “We were in difficult space, I will put that to you.
“The very fact that we had to bring on board the ERU and literally patrol the streets of Limerick – I don’t think you could come to any other conclusion but that we were bordering on anarchy or certainly that we were in a bad space.
“Those were drastic measures that were required to deal with a city that was really gone a small bit out of control.
"That’s through no fault of anybody, that was just basically the space we found ourselves in and the turf war that was going on between criminal gangs at the time.”
He said the consequence of this heavy focus on gangland activity was that gardai were not able to devote as much time to other offences.
Chief Supt Sheahan added: “Such were our efforts at that stage that other matters of policing didn’t get the same level of attention because of the amount of resources required to investigate such serious crime.
“Other aspects of policing can actually suffer. I’m including the likes of unauthorised taking of cars, theft from cars and related issues. Burglaries would have suffered as a result of it then.”
In 2005 there were 84 weapons fired in Limerick and this jumped to 102 in 2007.
Chief Supt Sheahan said that at the time Limerick city was accounting for more than 50% of all shootings in the country.
A number of crucial measures were taken at that point to try and stem the cycle of violence.
The Limerick Garda division received an extra 100 officers between 2007 and 2009 at the request of John Fitzgerald, who was appointed by the Government to overhaul deprived estates.
Just over a year later the gun murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan in a case of mistaken identity near his home in Dooradoyle shocked the city and country.
His death was followed six months later by the savage killing of innocent businessman Roy Collins.
Mr Collins’ cousin Ryan Lee and dad Steve Collins gave evidence against Wayne Dundon over a 2004 incident and the 35-year-old was killed in revenge.
Wayne Dundon - Limerick Gang boss Mr Sheahan, who had moved out of the city on transfer, returned in 2010 as a Chief Supt to spearhead a renewed challenge to the gangs.
He said: “I would say society itself became very uncomfortable with the murders of Brian Fitzgerald, Shane Geoghegan and Roy Collins.
“Those investigations were watersheds – I think the people of Limerick decided at that stage we need to take appropriate action.
“As a result there was legislative change to include tackling gangland violence. Bail conditions were further enhanced and we were then able to make applications to the Director of Public Prosecutions to take prosecutions in the Special Criminal Court.”
Since then there has been a marked decrease in gun crime. From the high of 102 in 2007 the figures fell dramatically to just seven shootings in 2012, 11 in 2013 and four to date this year.
Running parallel to that, the murder rate has also dropped. There were six in 2006 and seven in 2007 but just one in both 2012 and 2013 and neither was gang-related.
The last mob-linked murder in the city was the gun killing of father-of-three Des Kelly, 23, and 28-year-old mother-of-three Breda Waters at Mr Kelly’s home in O’Malley Park, Southill, on January 9, 2011. Two people were convicted for these murders.
Numerous gang members have been caged due to the success of Operation Redwing against the McCarthy-Dundons and surveillance investigations on the northern side of the city have led to drug lords like “Fat John” McCarthy, 41, receiving jail sentences.
More than 60 Limerick gangland criminals have been locked up for a variety of crimes.
Last month Wayne Dundon, 36, and Nathan Killeen, 24, were found guilty at the Special Criminal Court of murdering of Mr Collins.
Roy Collins who was murdered in Limerick Wayne joins his brothers John, 31, who is serving life for ordering the murder of Shane Geoghegan, and 30-year-old Dessie, who is also serving life for the murder of rival crime boss Kieran Keane, behind bars.
Brothers Brian, Kieran and Damien Collopy were sentenced for threatening Willie Moran. The older brothers are still in jail.
Liam Keane, 29, once pictured giving two fingers to a photographer when the murder trial of Eric Leamy collapsed, is serving 10-and-half years in Portlaoise for the unlawful possession of a gun.
Chief Supt Sheahan said the convictions “allowed communities a bit of breathing space to build up resilience”.
He added: “To be able to say, ‘I don’t need to do this anymore, we don’t need to do this any more’.
“They were building up that resilience, building up that confidence with the gardai and their ability to be able to come forward and provide us with intelligence and information that was able to move investigations forward that had otherwise become stagnant.”
It has also allowed gardai to focus on other areas of crime and road deaths fell from 23 in 2009 to seven last year.
Burglaries in the period between 2010 and 2013 reduced by 24%. The unauthorised taking of cars fell by 60% while theft from the person reduced by 24%.
Chief Supt Sheahan said: “In each of the years thereafter, as a result of being able to focus our resources on other matters that were affecting communities, we were certainly able to have a serious impact on other crime, not just the serious crime.”
The jailing of high-level criminals has created a power vacuum at the top of gangs and Chief Supt Sheahan said gardai will do everything in their power to stop new mobsters taking over.
He added: “The challenge for the police service here has always been and will continue to be to make sure that vacuum is never filled to the same level.”
Gardai from Kevin Street Drug Unit and Kilmainham station made the discovery during the planned search of two flats in the South Circular Road/Rialto area of Dublin, yesterday afternoon
4 Shares Share Tweet +1 Email
Three men and a woman have been arrested after Gardai seized guns and drugs in Dublin.
Gardai from Kevin Street Drug Unit and Kilmainham station seized heroin and cannabis with a worth €15,000.
Gardai also uncovered a 9mm handgun, sawn-off shotgun and ammunition during the planned operation.
The raid took place at two flats in the South Circular Road/Rialto area of Dublin, yesterday afternoon.
The three men, aged in the mid-30s and a 29-year-old woman were arrested at the scene.
Two men are being held under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996 at Kevin Street Garda Station.
The third man and woman being held under at Kilmainham and Irishtown Garda Stations.
The 35-year-old, who was cleared of killing Marioara Rostas, fears someone is trying to kill him
Alan Wilson and Mountjoy Prison The man cleared of killing Marioara Rostas fears someone is trying to poison him in prison.
Alan Wilson, currently serving a seven-year sentence for a brutal meat cleaver attack, will only eat salad and non-processed food.
It’s because the thug is convinced any meal he is given has been laced with killer substances.
The 35-year-old believes someone is trying to kill him by giving him a small dose of poison in his food over a prolonged period of time.
A prison source last night revealed: “Wilson has become extremely paranoid recently and will only eat plain food while locked up at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison.
“Wilson only really eats salads which he knows can’t be tampered with. He won’t go near meats or dairy.
“He knows that there are a lot of people out for him and therefore is taking things to extremes in protecting himself.
“However, he has become a bit too cautious and paranoid in his attempts.”
The source added that Wilson is very quiet in jail and tends not to interact much with other inmates.
He also prides himself on his appearance and meticulously washes and dresses every day.
The source said: “While he was on trial for the murder of Marioara Rostas he had a new shirt prepared and ironed and placed in a plastic bag for every day he was in court.
“He would even remove his shirt in the holding cell for fear it would get dirty.”
PAMarioara Rostas Last month, Wilson was cleared over the murder of teen Marioara.
The 18-year-old died of four gunshot wounds to her head and was buried in a shallow grave, where she was found four years later.
Father-of-four Wilson, of New Street Gardens in Dublin City, denied murdering Marioara between January 7 and January 8, 2008.
The five-week trial at the Central Criminal Court heard the victim was an ethnic Roma who moved to Ireland in 2007 and began begging with her parents and younger brother.
Just 18 days after her arrival, the family was begging at the junction of Lombard Street and Pearse Street behind Trinity College.
Her younger brother Dumitru, then aged 13, told the court he saw her talking to a man in a car who told him he was taking Marioara to McDonald’s and would return in 10 minutes.
But the family never saw her alive again. However, a frightened Marioara rang her brother in Romania the following day and cried for her “Daddy to come get her”.
Alexandru Rostas said his sister told him she was out of town and read a street sign, but the line was cut off. Months later the investigation led to a house on Brabazon Street, the home of Wilson’s sister Maxine and her partner Fergus O’Hanlon.
Wilson and O’Hanlon, a convicted criminal, were arrested in October 2008 and quizzed about the murder but no progress was made until late 2011 when O’Hanlon told gardai he had helped Wilson bury Marioara in the Wicklow Mountains.
A gang boss who was lucky to survive after he was shot in the face outside a north-Dublin pub is so paranoid that he has almost become a recluse in his fortified south inner city home.
Lynch was shot in the head last October, after a gunman opened fire on a crowd attending a 21st birthday party in Hanlon's pub on North Circular Road, but survived - albeit with horrific facial injuries.
shaken
A source explained: "Lynch is still very much shaken after this incident and you do not see him walking the streets or even really being driven around anymore.
"He is very much keeping his head down and has never had such a low profile. But gardai are under no illusion that he is still up to his neck in organised crime. He is clearly very paranoid."
As Lynch continues to recuperate from his injuries, detectives are still investigating whether the first gangland murder of the year was carried out in revenge for last October's reckless gun attack in which three innocent women also received gunshot injuries to their legs.
Detectives believe Ballymun criminal Michael 'Mad Mickey' Devoy (42) was lured and shot dead as revenge for the attempted murder of Lynch.
Devoy was shot three times in the head before his body was dumped on the side of the road at Fox Hill Lane, Tallaght, in January.
Intelligence received by detectives indicated that Devoy was the bungling hitman who shot Greg Lynch.
In the aftermath of the attempted hit, the gunman, who wore a balaclava, ran towards a waiting BMW and continued firing back towards the pub, hitting the three women. The car was found burnt out in Walkinstown.
Lynch is a key member of a drugs gang that also includes Paul Rice and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh - a mob with close links to the international crime syndicate controlled by godfather Christy Kinahan.
Originally from the Oliver Bond flats complex, Lynch has been a long-term target for gardai and rival gangsters including the 'Mr Big' drugs organisation.
target
Senior sources say Lynch is among the top 10 heroin and crack cocaine importers here.
In a major operation codenamed 'Wireless' in September, 2011, in which 18 suspected gangsters were arrested after officers carried out 50 raids, Lynch's crew were the target.
Officers from various national and regional units swooped on the suspects in a co-ordinated series of raids. Three of Lynch's closest associates were picked up in the raids.
Lynch was aged just 19 when he was jailed for six years in 2004 after he was caught handing over €400,000 of heroin.
THE country's latest gangland shooting victim will be buried today in a gold-plated coffin.
There was a large garda presence last night at the removal of 'Fat' Andy Connors (45) at the parish church in Saggart, west Dublin.
The remains of the well-known burglary gang boss were brought from his home in nearby Blessington Road to the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the ceremony which began shortly after 7pm.
Connors' body was brought to the church by his family in a gold-plated coffin worth €28,000, which was imported from England.
Photographs of Connors were held by some mourners in the procession to the church.
His funeral mass will take place at the Saggart church at noon today and his body will then be brought to St Michael's Cemetery in Gorey, Co Wexford, where he will be buried this evening.
Earlier this week, the family of Connors told the Herald that that they do not want any revenge for his savage slaying.
A niece of 'Fat' Andy said: "We do not want any revenge for what happened - none of our family wants revenge.
"Andy has six brothers and none of them wants anything only peace now. The family will not be avenging Andy's death.
"The family is in a lot of fear now."
fearful
It is understood that funeral arrangements for 'Fat' Andy were delayed until yesterday evening because his family were fearful that gangsters would target them. A large number of the burglary gang boss's relations travelled to England following the murder.
His niece, who asked not to be named, said that she had been authorised to contact the Herald by her family after death threats had been made to other members of the Connors family in the Tallaght area over the past week. She said that the threats happened in phone calls and have not been reported to gardai because "the family will not talk to gardai".
"We don't want to co-operate with gardai, we just want to live in peace. Family members have got calls threatening them to leave their homes," the woman said.
Gardai are exploring a number of theories in relation to the gun murder of the father-of-six who was shot dead in front of some of his children last week.
Officers are probing whether he was killed by the INLA after he refused to pay up to their extortion demands and are also investigating a dispute he was involved in with a high-profile south Dublin businessman.
Connors was a senior figure in a burglary gang that robbed from homes across the country.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/30/1410:41 AM
I know im not in Ireland but my folks were and lived in Belfast and were catholic.when they came here my daa and granddad moved to hells kitchen.he joined the marine corps and was shipped off to the Korean war and I followed but joining the marine corps and going to beruit abd panama but we hold dearly our irish blood and values.we supported the IRA and followed bobby sands was he passed from his hunger strike,. my granddad being in hells kitchen with my dad and I were regular patrons of the rise and fall of the WESTIES,they always treated my granddad,father and myself with care and respect.i want you to know my entire famile did and would support the IRA and believed in the vision to get the orange out of northern Ireland
Annabell and Ger Dundon For the first time one woman lifts the lid on life inside the Dundon crime gang.
She reveals the reign of terror inside the clan known as Murder Inc, the fall of their evil empire, and how the last of the gang are regrouping abroad.
Gardai have arrested a man who fraudulently claimed €450,000 worth of social welfare payments using seven different identities.
The Sunday World can reveal that a 39-year-old man from Dublin city has been charged with a string of offences following a joint Garda and social welfare probe.
He was arrested after state-of-the-art facial recognition software alerted social welfare staff to the fact that he had already claimed job seekers allowance using a different name.
Welfare’s special investigation unit launched a probe into the man and observed him over several months going into various offices and claiming the jobseeker’s allowance using seven separate identities.
They also sent through CCTV cameras and gathered evidence of previous fraudulent claims he had made.
Three of the names he used were people from the same family, while the others were from individuals who he did not know but whose identities he assumed.
It has been calculated that his alleged fraud cost the taxpayer close to half a million euro and when he was arrested and taken to Tallaght Garda station, he immediately admitted the offence.
He appeared before Dublin District Court, will be sent forward to the Circuit Court for trial and is facing a jail sentence if convicted.
When gardai carried out an investigation into his background, they determined he had been refused entry to Thailand in 2010 and that several pages of his passport were missing.
He has no criminal convictions and had not come to Garda attention prior to this investigation.
The facial recognition system was introduced last year in a bid to clamp down on welfare fraud which is costing hundreds of millions of euro a year.
Anyone claiming welfare has to stand in front of a camera and their image is recorded and printed onto the newly introduced public services card.
Every time a person goes in to claim payments, another picture is taken and cross referenced with the card to make sure the person is who they say they are.
There has been a massive clampdown on social welfare fraud in recent years with a special fraud tip-off line receiving nearly 25,000 calls last year from members of the public.
Last year, 674 cases were taken against individuals fraudulently making claims and more than one million payments were reviewed by the department. An estimated €632m was clawed back in benefits payments following these various investigations.
The courts are also taking a tough stance on welfare fraud and people are now being jailed for offences.
Earlier this year, the Sunday World highlighted the case of 33-year-old Martin Maughan, who was jailed for three years for a series of welfare swindles. He was pulling in so much money from dodgy claims that he was enjoying a €100,000-a-year lifestyle.
A former garda at the centre of an investigation for leaking information to dissident republicans has been charged with assault following a pub brawl, the Sunday World can reveal.
The garda resigned from the force when the PSNI contacted Gardai to say the officer had been caught by an MI5 phone monitor providing information to a well-known terrorist.
The ex-cop is accused of giving information about two dissident republicans who had been arrested and held at a Garda station near the border.
It is not believed that the officer had access to details about what the pair said while they were in custody but was able to give the names and addresses of the arrested men as well as how long they had been in custody.
The fact there is an allegation that there was a tipping off of dissident republicans about the arrests, regardless of the quality of information provided, caused considerable disquiet among senior gardai.
The garda was approached and is understood to have resigned from the force when the allegations were made. The officer was also investigated after an ugly pub row and has been charged with assault along with a female companion.
The suspect had under ten years’ service and had frequently come to the associating with certain people outside of work.
One of these associates was arrested in relation to the Omagh bomb in 1998 in which 29 people were murdered.
The former cop has also been linked to a Continuity IRA member who has served sentences for bomb making.
Justice minister Frances Fitzgerald has ordered a report into the incident.
Paul McCarthy denied that Banners Broker was a pyramid scheme
THE website of suspected pyramid scheme Banners Broker was down yesterday as investigators received a court order to go after assets linked to the firm in Canada.
Around 12,000 Irish people invested in the scheme and collectively handed over millions of euro.
Cork man Paul McCarthy was the Irish face of Banners Broker and continuously denied it was a pyramid scheme when quizzed by the Sunday World – but the firm cut all ties with him last year.
The company, which claimed it could make people rich though online advertising, suffered a major blow earlier this year after liquidators were appointed to Banners Broker International Ltd (BBIL), which was based in the Isle of Man.
This week the liquidators obtained a court order to take control of anything owned by BBIL and to compel its Canadian based operators to reveal the whereabouts of the company’s assets.
Court papers reveal the growth of the company, how it moved its assets and the efforts by investors to recover their funds.
Affidavits filed with the court said: “An online cloud-based business, BBIL’s operations were international in scope and its physical presence in any one jurisdiction was negligible.”
Irish people were among the first to be duped by the scam. Banners Broker Ireland Ltd was set up in December 2011.
Under an agreement the Irish operation was entitled to 5 per cent of all sales here and 7 per cent if it hit a turnover of more than $100,000 a month. The rest went to BBIL.
The majority of Irish people who lost money in the scheme may never get any of it back.
Maxine Wilson has been charged with drunkenness and threatening behaviour
THE sister of gun criminal Alan Wilson has been charged with public drunkenness and threatening and abusive behaviour.
Thug Alan (35) was cleared of the murder of teenager Marioara Rostas on July 31 in the Central Criminal Court.
During his trial, the court heard evidence about how bullets were recovered from the wall of the home of Wilson’s sister, Maxine.
Maxine’s partner, convicted criminal Fergus O’Hanlon, turned State witness and gave evidence in court claiming that Alan murdered the Romanian teen.
But this week, it was Maxine’s turn to come before the judge after she was charged with public order offences.
It is claimed the alleged offences took place at Camden Street, Dublin 2, on August 10 last.
Defence solicitor Matthew de Courcy told Dublin District Court that he was looking for the disclosure of the evidence against Ms Wilson, of New Street Gardens in Dublin 8, as well as any CCTV footage if it is available.
The court heard that Ms Wilson is unemployed and on social welfare.
She has not yet indicated to the court how she will be pleading to the charges but she is expected to enter a plea at the next sitting.
In July, Maxine’s previous home on Brabazon Street in Dublin’s inner city was the centre of a day of crucial evidence given during her brother’s murder trial.
The court heard how she shared the house with her partner, Fergus O’Hanlon, who was a close associate of Alan (pictured above) at the time.
The house had been set on fire weeks after Marioara went missing but two rounds of ammunition and a number of bullet holes were still found in a wall there.
Both Wilson and O’Hanlon were arrested in October 2008 and questioned about the murder, but no more progress was made in the investigation until late 2011.
Then, while being questioned about threats to Sunday World reporter Mick McCaffrey, O’Hanlon offered gardai information on the case and in January 2012 led them to
Kippure, a mountainous area on the Wicklow border. Gardai found the teenager’s body in the shallow grave.
O’Hanlon was then admitted into the witness protection programme, was later granted immunity from prosecution and became the State’s main witness in the trial.
He testified that on January 8, 2008, Alan Wilson showed him a dead girl. O’Hanlon said that they drove up the mountains to Kippure, and the two of them then dug the shallow grave and buried her.
However, O’Hanlon’s evidence regarding Ms Rostas was not accepted in court and on July 31 Alan Wilson was found not guilty of murder.
Covered: Graffiti read 'Alan Ryan rot in hell' (Facebook)
A message scrawled on church walls in north Dublin which read 'Alan Ryan rot in hell' has been covered over.
The hateful message - sprayed in red ink - was spotted on the walls of the Holy Trinity Church in Donaghmede yesterday.
The church wall was defaced with a message that will undoubtedly raise tensions in a gang war that has already seen a number of people murdered on our streets.
Alan Ryan himself was gunned down in Donaghmede in September 2012 amid a major dispute with Dublin drug gangs.
His right-hand man Deccy Smith was shot in the face in March moments after he dropped off his son off to a creche in the north Dublin suburb.
Gardai have today issued a fresh appeal for anybody with information about the murder of Dublin schoolgirl Raonaid Murray to come forward on the 15th anniversary of her death.
Gardai are seeking help from anybody who knows who was responsible for the savage murder of the 17 year-old in Glenageary on 4 September 1999.
The schoolgirl was returning home from a night out when she was stabbed to death at Silchester Crescent just yards from her home.
Investigators said today that they have not given up hope on solving the case and have appealed for witnesses to come forward.
A spokesman said: "Extensive lines of enquiries have been and continue to be pursued by the investigation team. Gardai are again renewing their appeal for any information which may assist in their continued investigation. If any person has any information which could assist in identifying a motive for the murder of Raonaid and or if any person has any doubts about the veracity of an alibi provided, we would appeal for your immediate assistance"
Gardai had several suspects in the case but were never able to bring charges. They suspect that several people may have given false alibis to protect the killer and hope that they will come forward and admit their statements were false.
Gardaí found heroin with a street vale of €150k. Library image
Gardaí have arrested a woman after heroin with a street value of €150,000 was seized in west Dublin.
The woman was arrested after officers investigating the sale and supply of drugs searched a house in Ballyfermot, on Wednesday evening and seized the drugs.
The woman, who is in her 50s, was arrested at the scene and is currently being held at Clondalkin Garda Station.
She can be detained for up to seven days.
According to gardaí, the operation used "advanced analytical and intelligence methods" to disrupt criminal drug networks.
A 15-year-old boy has pleaded not guilty to assaulting a school principal when it is alleged she tried to protect one of her pupils from a suspected knife attack.
It is claimed the incident took place after the then 14-year-old defendant, from south Dublin, stole his own father's high powered car.
Defence solicitor Aonghus McCarthy told Judge John O'Connor at the Dublin Children's Court that his client was pleading not guilty. The teenager is charged with assaulting the school principal, attempted burglary with intent to attack another boy with a knife, criminal damage as well as car theft and related motoring offences.
Judge O'Connor remanded the boy, who was accompanied to court by a parent, on continuing bail pending his trial which will take place at the juvenile court later this month.
The court also heard that social services are trying to assist the teenager and are addressing educational issues.
Earlier Garda Shirley McCabe had said it would be alleged that at about 9.10am on a date in January this year, the accused teen entered “by breaking a window on a side door of a classroom”.
“He entered the classroom to get into a communal hall,” Gda McCabe had told the court. She had said it was alleged the school's principal “tried to stop him” and a “physical altercation” broke out between her and the young boy.
It was alleged the boy had gone to the school looking for another pupil he had a falling out with previously. He then used abusive language to members of staff and exited via the window he had earlier broken to gain entry.
Members of staff had to hide the youngster that the defendant “was going after” and brought him to a kitchen in the school. However, its alleged the accused then “ran to the front of the school” and made his way to the kitchen window “so he could see in”.
“It is alleged he broke a window of the kitchen and its alleged he waved an implement possibly a knife through the window,” Gda McCabe said, adding that it was also alleged the accused was shouting at the slightly younger boy.
It is also alleged the then 14-year-old had stolen his father's high-powered car and he drove it to the school on the morning of the attack. Afterwards, he allegedly crashed it into another car before he drove home.
As a condition of bail the boy must obey a curfew, has been barred from certain districts. Dublin and he has been warned that he would be held in custody if he broke these terms.
Gardai believe the same thugs who murdered Real IRA terror chief Alan Ryan arranged for sinister graffiti to be daubed on the roof of his local church on the second anniversary of his murder.
ALSO IN THIS SECTION
The Holy Trinity Church in Donaghmede was defaced with two slogans which threatened Alan's younger brother Vinny (24) while blood red graffiti which read 'Alan Ryan rot in hell' was sprayed on a wall within the church grounds.
The vandalism incidents are understood to have been carried out in the early hours of yesterday morning as tensions increase in north Dublin ahead of a planned commemoration for Ryan which is due to take place in Balgriffin graveyard on Saturday afternoon.
Bouquets
Yesterday afternoon, a group of around 20 of Ryan's family members - including Vinny-and friends went to his grave in that cemetery and laid three fresh bouquets at his grave along with a card.
Alan Ryan was shot dead by the drugs gang led by "Mr Big" on the afternoon of September 3, 2012, after a massive cash row between the two mobs which had been ongoing for over a year.
He was shot dead as he walked with friends at Grange Lodge Avenue in Clongriffin.
There have been a number of arrests in the case including a north Dublin woman based in northern Ireland who is aged in her late 20s.
The woman was picked up by detectives last month on suspicion of withholding information about Ryan's murder and a separate double killing carried out by the same gang who killed the RIRA terror chief.
Yesterday morning's vandalism is just the latest incident organised by the gangsters who had Ryan murdered.
They are suspected of destroying a car owned by his innocent brother Eoin outside the family's home in Donaghmede in April as well as desecrating Alan's grave last September ahead of a memorial march and ceremony to mark the first anniversary of his death.
Threat
And many of Alan Ryan's closest pals have been warned by gardai that their lives are under threat from the mob and one of Ryan's closest pals was even directly threatened with a handgun by 'Mr Big' in a bizarre incident in the south inner city earlier this year.
His brother Vinny Ryan is now understood to be living in Co Kildare. He was cleared last October at the Special Criminal Court of charges of charges of possession of an assault rifle and a handgun in September, 2011.
When contacted by The Herald last night, a parish worker told us that no priest was available to comment on the vandalism incident which occurred where Ryan's highly controversial paramilitary funeral took place almost two years ago.
This is the second time that gangland criminals have defaced a church in recent years. A similar incident happened ahead of the funeral of crime figure Pierce Reid at Clondalkin in August 2009.
›› Have we come to simply accept these gangland gun attacks?
Last Saturday night two men wearing balaclavas burst through the doors of Oil Can Harrys pub on Dublin's Lower Mount Street.
ALSO IN THIS SECTION
Have we come to simply accept these gangland gun attacks? Anyone for the first of the election promises?
The bar was packed with customers, including many American visitors who had attended a major college football game earlier in Croke Park.
There was also a Christening party in full swing in a private room there.
In a case of mistaken identity one of the men, armed with a handgun, shot two innocent young men.
Mercifully the two victims, Niall Augusta (19) and Lee Ryan (20) escaped with their lives.
But this takes nothing away from what was a terrifying and utterly reckless attack.
It was a miracle that nobody was killed.
The shooting must also have been a shocking experience for the many American visitors enjoying the after-match celebrations.
They could never have imagined that they would witness such a terrifying and distressing scenario in the literary city of Joyce and Wilde.
reckless
Of course, it was also another example of the threat that reckless and psychopathic gangsters pose to our society.
Despite the best efforts of the gardai, gun crime and gangland murders have unfortunately become endemic in Dublin, a city whose criminal culture is now dominated by organised crime.
Over the last decade we have seen an inexorable rise in such killings as gangs battle for drug turf.
There have, of course, already been innocent victims of gangland gunmen.
Who can forget the murder of innocent young plumber Anthony Campbell?
And who was not shocked by the shooting, last June, of Sean Scully, an innocent schoolboy shot in the neck outside his home in Ballyfermot?
Little Sean suffered catastrophic injuries in the attack.
As organised gangland violence and drug related killings continue to spiral out of control it seems, sadly, that we have as a society almost subconsciously resigned ourselves to accepting this grim situation.
menace
During that Troubles, Margaret infamously said that there could be an "acceptable level" of IRA violence. Are we now accepting a similar sentiment when it comes to gangland violence in Dublin?
The attitude of successive Governments over the past ten years to gangland violence would seem to reflect that view.
How many more innocent people, like Niall Augusta and Lee Ryan, will be shot before the Government faces up this menace?
The father-in-law of gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson was left with extremely serious head injuries after a thug attacked him with a scooter.
The shocking incident unfolded in the capital's south inner city on Sunday night when a 33-year-old criminal from Cabra attacked Noel 'Jack' Dempsey (58) shortly after 10.30pm.
Sources told the Herald that gardai are investigating whether the incident is connected to a personal dispute between the suspect and 'Jack' who is the father of Freddie Thompson's wife Vicky Dempsey.
argument
It is understood that the Cabra man picked up the scooter and threw it at 'Jack' in the Robert Emmet Walk area of the city after an argument got out of hand.
Mr Dempsey managed to flee the scene and it is believed that he collapsed on a footpath in Cork Street, near the Coombe Hospital, before emergency services were notified at around 12.20am yesterday.
The grandfather was later rushed to St James' Hospital by ambulance where he remained last night in a stable condition.
'Jack', who is from Stanaway Road in Crumlin, south Dublin, had bleeding on his brain when he was first admitted to the hospital which is located close to where he was attacked.
His condition was first classified as critical.
Gardai have interviewed but not arrested the younger Cabra man who is alleged to have carried out the brutal assault and are not looking for anyone else in relation to the attack.
The scooter used in the attack has been seized by gardai and has been forensically examined by garda specialists.
A source explained: "It is highly unusual for someone to use a scooter to inflict serious head injuries on another person - it is almost unprecedented but that is what happened here."
Residents on Robert Emmet Walk reported hearing screaming and shouting on Sunday night as well as bottles being smashed.
"There was an assault. All I know is that there was some person assaulted. There were sirens and that," a woman told the Herald.
"It was about half 11 last night. I heard screaming," she added.
A young woman said her little brother was walking to school yesterday morning and saw forensic gardai carrying out an examination of the scene.
"I heard screaming but I don't know what went on," she added, saying she also heard "bottles being smashed. It kept stopping and starting again," she said.
Her brother said it happened on the stairs leading to another apartment and "there was lots of blood".
It is not believed that the savage assault is linked to any gangland criminality.
Gardai are investigating if gangsters based in Bray, Co Wicklow, were involved in the attempted murder of two young men in a packed Dublin pub at the weekend.
Innocent victims Niall Augusta (19), from Lombard Court, and Lee Ryan (20), from the Townsend Street area, are expected to make a full recovery after they were targeted in Oil Can Harry's pub in Lower Mount Street on Saturday night.
Gardai believe the two pals were the victims of mistaken identity and that the target was a man, known to them, who had been drinking in the pub earlier in the evening.
punishment
Sources say that this drug dealer who is considered a "heavy" is now based in Bray and may have had some involvement in a punishment shooting that happened in the seaside town last Thursday.
The intended target also has strong links to Dublin gangs including those linked to notorious criminals 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and Mark 'Guinea Pig' Desmond.
Sources say detectives are examining if he was involved in a feud with a veteran Clondalkin-based gangster who is palling around with a young man whose late father was a henchman in Martin 'The General' Cahill's mob.
A source said: "The criminal activities of the intended target in Bray are being looked at very strongly in this investigation.
"However, he has built up a number of serious criminal enemies, particularly in the Crumlin/Drimnagh area."
Neither Mr Augusta nor Mr Ryan have any involvement in these kinds of activities and neither of the young men has any previous convictions.
However, they could well have been murdered in the city centre gun attack had their would-be assassins not been so "amateurish" in the botched hit that was witnessed by American tourists.
Two men wearing balaclavas and tracksuits burst through the doors, one armed with an automatic pistol.
They ran around the pub causing mayhem as people dived for cover.
One of the pair shot the two innocent young men who had been attending the christening party.
The gunmen then made their escape in a dark-coloured hatchback car which was driven by a third person in the direction of Ballsbridge.
Mr Ryan was hit in the abdomen with a shot from the handgun, while Mr Augusta was hit in his side. Both are still being treated in hospital for non life-threatening injuries.
It is believed a low-velocity handgun was used in the double shooting, and if the weapon had been of a higher grade both men could have been killed.
robbery
The highly-respected Oil Can Harry's is currently shortlisted for Pub of the Year in two categories.
Its owner Tim O'Connor said he first feared he was going to be the target of a robbery.
"I was sure they were coming for us, but they went running around the bar looking for somebody," he said. "They didn't seem to know where they were going. It felt like it went on for two hours, but they were actually there for two minutes."
Savage thugs who shot and badly injured a six-year-old boy are the chief suspects for shooting his uncle's horse dead.
The Herald can reveal that the sickening incident unfolded shortly after midnight yesterday at the family home of Keith Lyons in Croftwood Gardens, Ballyfermot, Dublin.
Two thugs jumped a wall and used a shotgun to kill the 38-year-old's beloved horse, Annie.
Mr Lyons is the uncle of little Sean Scully (6) who was lucky to survive after he was the victim of a reckless gun attack while playing with friends on a green near his house in Ballyfermot on June 13.
stables
Sources say that gardai are now working on the theory that the criminals who shot the boy were also involved in yesterday morning's shocking incident.
The horse was fatally shot in the chest when the criminals broke into stables at the back of the Croftwood Gardens property.
The incident unfolded as Keith's brother Glen was sleeping in the house and was awoken by a loud bang at around 12.10am.
He jumped up and ran to the back of the property and saw two men, who were wearing grey hoodies, jump over the back wall.
The two men are both described as being around five foot 10 tall. They fled the scene on foot.
Gardai were then notified after Glen saw that the horse had suffered catastrophic injuries and officers rushed to the scene.
It is understood that the carcass of Annie was still at the scene yesterday.
No arrests have been made but sources say that gardai are investigating if the horse killers are the same gangsters who almost murdered little Sean earlier this year in a botched gun attack.
Sources say Keith Lyons was "very angry and emotional" over the killing of his horse because he raised her from a foal.
A car belonging to Mr Lyons was also vandalised outside his home last week. Tensions remain extremely high in the Cherry Orchard area of Ballyfermot.
Mr Lyons was previously arrested by gardai investigating the shooting of his nephew but is not a suspect in the case. It is understood that he was quizzed about withholding information.
Separately, earlier this month armed detectives arrested a suspect who they believe was actually involved in shooting Sean, but he was later released without charge.
Officers are still looking to arrest another suspect who they believe was "directly involved" in the reckless shooting.
That suspect is a Ballyfermot thug who is well known for involvement in serious crime.
Playing
Sean Scully was shot while playing with friends on a green near his house in Croftwood Gardens.
The gunman, who was attempting to shoot someone else in the vicinity, went on the run following the shooting.
The little boy's mother Gillian Scully has revealed how Sean suffered spinal injuries following the shooting, but was lucky that his spinal chord was only bruised by the bullet and not severed.
Previously, the senior garda leading the probe into the shooting made a plea for residents to break the wall of silence that hampers many investigations.
ALLEGATIONS: Gardai were tipped off about the officer’s ‘disturbing’ behaviour by the PSNI
A ROGUE garda officer has resigned from the force after being accused of passing on key information to a senior IRA figure.
Garda bosses were alerted to the female officer’s activities by the North’s PSNI, which was tipped off by Britain’s MI5.
PSNI cops had been using the British intelligence agency to monitor calls and texts to and from the senior IRA man’s phone.
It was found that a rogue garda officer had texted the IRA figure details about two dissident Republican suspects who were being questioned by gardai.
It is understood that the information involved the names of the suspects and how long they were being questioned for by detectives.
Crimes
Garda headquarters were notified of the incident, prompting the resignation of the garda who is the subject of other investigations into separate crimes.
It has since emerged that the garda has close ties to a man arrested in relation to the 1998 Omagh bombing.
A source said: “This garda’s behaviour has caused a huge amount of shock to their colleagues.
“What was happening is highly unusual and is in no way any reflection on the people who were stationed with the gardai.”
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald last night described the case as “disturbing”.
A Department spokeswoman added: “The minister has asked the interim Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan for a full report on this matter.”
Cute: Rising number of abandoned huskies being attributed to Game of Thrones
A leading animal charity has said the hit TV show Game of Thrones could be behind a sudden rise in the number of unwanted huskies it has to rehome.
The Blue Cross charity said it has seen a 700% increase in the number of husky-type dogs being given up or abandoned.
For the first time the breed and similar types of dog have made it onto the top 10 of their dogs that need rehoming.
The popular fantasy show Game of Thrones features beautiful, white dogs known as direwolves, which are brave and intelligent.
People might think the puppies look adorable, but huskies are working dogs and need plenty of mental and physical exercise.
A litter of huskies needs rehoming at the Blue Cross centre at Thirsk, North Yorkshire.
Its deputy manager Caroline Thompson said: "Huskies and other similar breeds are working dogs and they need lots of mental and physical stimulation.
"Ideally they need a good couple of hours exercise every day and experienced owners who have plenty of time to spend with them.
"Sadly, the reason we're now seeing so many of these breeds being given up is because so many people get them without doing enough research into the kind of care they need."
The family of tragic nine-year-old twin boys killed by their brother yesterday said they will never be forgotten.
The bodies of Patrick and Tommy O’Driscoll were found at their home in Charleville, Co Cork on Thursday evening.
The boys’ parents, Tom and Ellen, were shopping in nearby Kilmallock, Limerick, at the time.
It is believed that two other younger brothers, aged three and four, raised the alarm.
Their brother Jonathan (22) was seen fleeing the house by locals before his body was found an hour later at a river bank in Buttevant, 15km away. It is believed he took his own life.
A HSE Air Corps air ambulance was dispatched to the family home to take the Patrick and Tommy to hospital, however it was quickly stood down when it became clear the twins were already dead.
Last night an aunt of the two boys said: “We want to say a very sad goodbye to two lovely little boys.
“We love them so much from the bottom of our hearts. They will never be forgotten.”
Local parish priest Fr Tom Naughton said last night: "I went down to the family and tried to comfort them as best I could.
"They're [the family] broken-hearted but they are people who have a deep faith and I reassured them that all the community there are with them to support them they are in prayers."
Post-mortem examinations are due to be carried out later today at Cork University on the bodies of the boys and their older brother.
Gardai confirmed in a statement last night: “Officers in Charleville, Co Cork are investigating all the circumstances following the discovery of the bodies of two young boys in a house in Deerpark, Charleville shortly before 5pm on September 4.
“They were pronounced dead at the scene. The bodies remain at the scene and the area has been sealed off for technical examination, diversions are in place.
“The office of the State Pathologist has been notified and post mortems are expected to be carried out.
Caustic comic Joan Rivers has died aged 81. Here are 10 of her sharpest one-liners:
:: "I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was 'The man goes on top and the woman underneath'. For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds."
:: "I don't exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor."
:: "People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made."
:: "I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die, they will donate my body to Tupperware."
:: "I am definitely going to watch the Emmys this year! My make-up team is nominated for best special effects."'
:: "When a man has a birthday, he takes a day off. When a woman has a birthday, she takes at least three years off."
:: "You know why I feel older? I went to buy sexy underwear and they automatically gift wrapped it."
:: "At my age, an affair of the heart is a bypass."
:: "Boy George is all England needs - another queen who can't dress."
:: "My daughter and I are very close, we speak every single day and I call her every day and I say the same thing, 'Pick up, I know you're there'."
Nicola Tallant investigates the unsolved murder of Raonaid Murray 15 years on
Unsolved: Raonaid Murray's murderer remains at large On a Friday night in September of 1999, 17-year-old Raonaid Murray was stabbed to death at Silchester Crescent in Glenageary just yards from her home.
Fifteen years on from the schoolgirl's murder and the case remains unsolved.
Murray was returning home from a night out in Dublin when she was attacked. She received a number of stab wounds and was found dead a short time later by her sister.
Before her murder, the teen was heard arguing with somebody. She was heard telling somebody to "leave me alone" and "go away".
She was neither sexually assaulted nor were her possessions taken, which led investigators to the belief she knew her killer.
Not one person was convicted in relation to the killing, in what was to be one of the largest murder investigations the State has ever seen.
Investigators yesterday said that they have not given up hope on solving the case and have appealed for witnesses to come forward. This week they reiterated an appeal for anybody who may have information on the teen's murder to come forward.
A spokesman said: "Extensive lines of enquiries have been and continue to be pursued by the investigation team. Gardai are again renewing their appeal for any information which may assist in their continued investigation.
"If any person has any information which could assist in identifying a motive for the murder of Raonaid and or if any person has any doubts about the veracity of an alibi provided, we would appeal for your immediate assistance."
Gardai had several suspects in the case but were never able to bring charges. They suspect that several people may have given false alibis to protect the killer and hope that they will come forward and admit their statements were false.
This weekend read our cold case investigation by Nicola Tallant into the unsolved murder of Raonaid Murray.
Orange is the new black depicts fictional life in a female prison
An inmate in Mountjoy women's prison
Warder checks for drugs inside Mountjoy women's prison
Warder checks on inmates inside Mountjoy women's prison
LIFE on the inside is better for many of Ireland's women prisoners that it is on the outside.
A lucky few even get to enjoy the luxurious surroundings of The Willows, a unit within The Dóchas Centre women's jail.
The comfy suites, TV and homely comforts are a far cry from the bare cells on the female wing in Limerick Prison where inmates can spend most of the day locked up.
A documentary Women on the Inside due to air Monday night on RTE gives a glimpse behind the bars.
One prisoner who knows the difference between the harsh realities of Limerick prison and the luxury of The Willows is convicted killer Una Geaney.
In candid interviews she admits that the work it took to get into the comfortable unit was worth it for the bed alone.
"If you mess up here you're straight back down to the small yard, you're back to square one," she said
"You wouldn't want to mess up here, it's lovely, proper bed. After two years I couldn't believe it, that was the main reason I wanted to come up here," she added.
She explained she had little news for family members when talking to them while serving time in Limerick, "smoking fags, drinking coffee and getting fat."
"Up here I have things to tell them that I'm doing. Being up in this prison makes me feel like I will get out. When you're down in Limerick you just give up, you are not going any where, ever," she said.
The Cork native and mother-of-four is serving time for the manslaughter of Gary Bull (37), an English man who was living in a west Cork hippy commune.
He was battered to death and dumped in a septic tank on her land.
The most infamous female prisoners, including Catherine Nevin and the Scissor Sisters, Charlotte and Linda Mulhall, don't feature in the documentary.
There are over 130 women in the jail designed for 105. Many are homeless addicts in a relentless cycle of re-offending, serving short sentences.
"I want my fucking methadone. I'm sick," shouted one prisoner, running through the prison yard.
The shocking reality is that for many women life in prison is better than their lives on the streets or in homeless hostels.
One 25-year-old admits on rainy day she's is better off behind bars
"I've often asked the judge to lock me up. If you have nothing out there you can have things in here - shower, the telly, your mates," said Christina.
Homeless since her teens and using drugs since she was 13-years-old, she is serving time for robbery.
At one point in the programme the troubled woman shows the deep self-inflicted cuts to her arms that needed 45 stitches.
"It relieves pain from in here. It puts it on the outside of my body," she explained.
Veteran jail bird Jenny (37) who is serving two years admits she has hundreds of convictions for petty offence. Homeless, with no family she is an alcoholic.
"Jail can be a comical place sometimes and then it can be a very sad and lonely place all in the one day. It sounds mad, a prison full of people and you still feel sad and lonely," she admitted.
The cameras followed her on her release from jail and within minutes she buys a bottle of whiskey which she drinks mixed with coffee.
"That was long waited for," she laughs.
"I'll be honest with you when I'm on temporary release now I shouldn't be drinking. But when you are locked up there for two, two and half years you are bound to do something. I don't drink pints, I like my Jameson whiskey, coffee, three sugars. I'm a posh alcoholic," she added.
In another prison unit, Phoenix House, prisoners with babies under one are allowed to nurse their infant children.
One woman is featured shortly after giving birth in The Rotunda being driven back to the mother and baby unit.
A mother of four other older children, she is wracked with guilt at the idea of bringing a new-born into a prison.
"He won't remember he's too small, but I'll remember," she admits.
"I feel so bad, I feel so sorry for him. I feel like the worst person in the world," she says.
The Midas Productions team spent almost a year building up the trust between themselves, the prisoners and jail staff.
"Initially you can feel as if you're in college residences but soon you notice the nets over the yards, the barbed wire and the reinforced doors, slowly but surely the prison air invades you and you know this is not a 'usual' place," said director Traolach Ó Buachalla.
A Garda at the scene of murder at Waterford psychiatric hospital A man is expected to appear in court tomorrow in connection with the murder of a psychiatric patient who was stabbed to death on Friday night.
55 year-old Maria O'Brien was stabbed to death by a fellow patient at St. Otteran's Hospital in Waterford city at 7pm on Friday night.
It is understood there was a row and that the 35 year-old man returned with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed his victim.
She tried to run away and collapsed on the grounds of the hospital and died on the way to hospital.
A staff member desperately tried to intervene and suffered slash wounds to the face. He was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
A second patient also tried to pull the man off Ms O’Brien and was stabbed. He is still in hospital. The incident started in a hallway and the knife is believed to have been taken from a kitchen area.
The suspect in the case is a long-term psychiatric patient who has resided at St. Otteran's for several years. He has an address in Waterford.
Maria O’Brien was from Waterford city and lived with her brother before being admitted to the hospital
A HSE spokesperson said: “The HSE wishes to offer its sincere condolences to the family of the deceased. We are offering support services to residents, their family members and staff of the unit.”
Tragic brothers were stabbed to death The man who killed his two brothers before taking his own life this week was out on bail for an offence involving a knife.
21 year-old Jonathan O'Driscoll appeared in court two days before he stabbed his twin brothers to death and then taking his own life.
O'Driscoll appeared in court on Tuesday charged with possessing a knife and failing to provide gardai with a breath specimen.
He was bailed to re-appear before the court having been arrested in Mallow, Co. Cork in February.
On Thursday evening he stabbed nine year-old twins Patrick and Thomas O'Driscoll to death at their home in Charleville. His body was later found fifteen kilometres away.
O'Driscoll had no criminal convictions and is said to have doted on the twins. Gardai do not know why he killed his brothers and his devastated family have said they forgive him for his actions.
ThESE are the three women who helped to destroy the infamous McCarthy-Dundon gang enjoying themselves at a gay pride festival.
'Our hearts are broken'
Weevils force recall of Dunnes Stores rice Royals should not be invited to Rising events, says Hanafin Alice Collins was joined by her daughters April and Lisa at the event in Limerick city last weekend, and the three looked like they did not have a care in the world as they happily posed for photos flanked by friends and family.
vengeful
Outside observers would have had no clue that the three smiling women are under constant watch by armed gardai in case they are attacked by vengeful associates of gangster brothers Wayne and John Dundon who are serving life sentences, partly because of the women's evidence.
The Dundon gang imploded in 2011 when Ger Dundon broke up from April Collins while he was serving a sentence after she began a relationship with convicted rapist Thomas O' Neill.
This led Wayne and John Dundon to issue death threats against her.
Fearing she was going to be murdered, she sought protection from the gardai and made a series of statements implicating Wayne and John Dundon in murder. Her decision prompted others, including family members, to do likewise.
Among them were Lisa Collins, April's sister; their brother Gareth; and Dundon's cousins Christopher McCarthy and Anthony McCarthy.
Wayne Dundon and his sidekick Nathan Killeen were convicted in July of the murder of innocent man Roy Collins in 2010.
Lisa Collins gave evidence that on the day of the murder Killeen said he was going up to the Steering Wheel pub to shoot Steve Collins.
After the murder, Lisa saw Killeen running with his accomplice James Dillon behind him while there were "guards all over the place".
The court heard that Killeen jumped over a wall while Dillon ran past her.
Lisa told the Special Criminal Court that the two men later came back to the house and changed their clothes, and she thought she put the clothes in the washing machine.
April's evidence against John Dundon resulted in him being found guilty of the murder of rugby player Shane Geoghegan who was shot dead by Dublin hitman Barry Doyle in November 2009 in a case of mistaken identity.
April was the chief state witness in the trial of John Dundon, during which she admitted witnessing him ordering the hit on the intended target, Dundon rival John McNamara, less than 48 hours before Shane Geoghegan's death.
trapped
Her sister, Lisa, corroborated her evidence. She too had been present during this discussion.
April Collins revealed that both Gerard and John Dundon had beaten her on occasion and that Gerard had once trapped her in Spain for months after taking her passport.
"I dread these people," she told the court at one point.
Lisa and April's mother Alice Collins also played her part in getting Wayne and John Dundon locked up when she told gardai about chilling threats the brothers made against her in 2010.
A CLOSE female associate of gang boss Paschal Kelly has been busted by gardai with €150,000 worth of heroin in a raid in west Dublin.
Weevils force recall of Dunnes Stores rice Royals should not be invited to Rising events, says Hanafin The woman, in her early 50s, was still being detained at Clondalkin Garda Station last night after drugs officers stormed a house in Ballyfermot.
Sources say that the woman has "very close connections" to Kelly, who is believed to be hiding out in Spain where he is on the run from gardai, the PSNI and rival gangsters.
Wednesday night's raid in the Kylemore area happened after a detailed surveillance operation by detectives from the Clondalkin garda drugs unit.
Sources say that another target for gardai is a 24-year-old local man who is well-known to the arrested woman and has a number of previous convictions for offences including assault.
He was not arrested as part of the operation, but like the older woman is said to have close connections to Kelly, the 49-year-old gangster who is considered one the most dangerous criminals in the State.
Kelly is a senior member of the gang that gardai believe killed Real IRA chief Alan Ryan on September 3, 2012, and is believed to be under death threat from the IRA.
Close associates of the gangster were involved in a separate feud in the Edenmore area of Dublin's northside earlier this year.
That dispute led to a young man being viciously attacked and officially warned by gardai about an active threat on his life.
In February, Kelly's Co Cavan home was seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).
He bought the bungalow in 2004 for €190,000 but it is now estimated to worth between €250,000 and €275,000.
Earlier this year, Kelly was described by an officer from the bureau in the High Court as playing a leading role in an organised criminal gang.
criminal
Kelly was not in the High Court to hear that he must also forfeit a 4x4 vehicle, €11,000 from the sale of another car, and around €3,000 in cash seized from the house, Hillview, Cormeen, Castlerahan, Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan.
Kelly was described in court as having links to a tiger kidnapping gang.
The Herald previously revealed that he has been hiding out in rural Spain after getting bail in Northern Ireland last October where he was facing money laundering charges.
Sources say that he ripped off electronic tags that had been placed on him and used a disguise to get out of the country.
The High Court heard evidence from CAB that Kelly had 42 previous convictions, including robbing a travel agents, a crime for which he received ten years imprisonment.
He had links with criminal associates and there was evidence he plays a "leading role in an organised criminal gang", the judge said.
The court also heard Kelly and his associates had access to a large number of vehicles which he drove using a general car dealer's garage insurance policy, even though he has no record of involvement in the motor trade.
A MAJOR garda presence will be in place tomorrow afternoon for a commemoration event to mark t he second anniversary of the murder of Real IRA terror chief Alan Ryan.
Weevils force recall of Dunnes Stores rice Royals should not be invited to Rising events, says Hanafin Associates and pals of Ryan will be watched by members of the Special Detective Unit as well as uniformed gardai when they meet at Ryan's family home in Grange Abbey Drive, Donaghmede, at 3pm.
They are expected to then march to Ryan's grave in Balgriffin Cemetery where well-known Republican Francis Mackey is due to deliver an oration.
tensions
Sources say that tensions remain high in north Dublin after Ryan's local church was defaced with two messages which threatened his younger brother, Vinny. Meanwhile, blood-red graffiti reading "Alan Ryan rot in hell" was sprayed on a wall within the grounds.
The vandalism happened at the Holy Trinity Church in Donaghmede where Ryan's funeral took place followed by a paramiltary-style procession to the cemetery.
It is suspected that the gang who had Ryan murdered carried out the attack on the church. The same mob are suspected of attacking Ryan's grave last year ahead of the first anniversary of his death.
Red spray paint was used to vandalise the grave with the insult "Rat Scum" painted on the headstone. Family keepsakes and small memorials were also defaced.
The grave has not been targeted this week.
Mackey, who will give the main graveside speech tomorrow, is the chairperson of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.
In April of last year, he spoke at a commemoration for Real IRA member Ronan McLoughlin who was shot dead by gardai as he tried to flee a botched raid on a Securicor van near Ashford, Co Wicklow, in 1998.
reckless
On that occasion, he said: "Like any revolutionary struggle the greatest dangers always come from within.
"There are those dangers which the enemy foster and those dangers we foster ourselves through ill-discipline and reckless recruitment.
"This struggle requires those who can contribute to its advancement. It does not need those who would use the struggle for their own ends.
"The entry bar must be set higher, recent events demand it."
Yesterday, some of Ryan's family members took to their Facebook accounts to pay tribute to him, including his brother Eoin who said: "Time goes by but every time I'm stuck in a moment of memory that I carry with me, cherished, inspired, remembered.
Gardai struck a major blow against organised crime in the capital last night after making separate drugs and firearms seizures.
At 6.30pm a 36-year-old Clondalkin man was arrested in a green area at Newlands Road in Lucan.
When searched he was found to have two handguns and a small quantity of cocaine.
The suspect, who is from the St Ronan's estate, was arrested and was being questioned at Ronanstown Garda Station today.
The arrested man does not have much in the way of previous convictions and it is believed that he was working for a gang based in the Clondalkin area.
Sources said that gardai are satisfied that he was not on the way to carry out a shooting at the time of his arrest.
It is instead believed that he was transferring the weapons on behalf of the gang.
It is believed that officers may have received a tip-off before they pounced on the suspect.
Gardai are monitoring a number of separate feuds in the Clondalkin and Ronanstown localities and it is understood that the arrested man is linked to one of the feuding gangs.
The second operation was carried out by the garda's Organised Crime Unit and it involved the seizure of €150,000 worth of cannabis in two busts and the arrests of a woman in her 20s and a man in his 30s.
A garda spokesman said: "Cannabis with an estimated street value of €60,000 was seized when gardaí stopped and searched a car on the N7, Clondalkin, yesterday evening.
"A male aged in his 30s was arrested at the scene and detained at Clondalkin Garda Station.
"Later, during a follow-up operation, cannabis with an estimated street value of €90,000 was seized at a house in Baldoyle. A female aged in her 20s was arrested at the scene and detained at Coolock Garda Station.
"Both remain in Garda custody this morning at Clondalkin and Coolock Garda Stations. They can be detained for up to seven days."
Surveillance
It is understood that the drugs seizure happened after a detailed surveillance operation and investigations were still being carried out today.
Meanwhile, gardai have also disclosed that in Co Donegal, officers from Milford and the Divisional Drug Unit and Crime Unit, based in Letterkenny, discovered 321 cannabis plants with an approximate street value of €128,000 during a search on a house at Maherwarden, Portsalon, yesterday.
A 28-year-old man was arrested and is being detained at Letterkenny Garda Station.
This raid was on one of almost half a dozen grow houses which have been busted by gardai in the past ten days.
Sources have confirmed that there is no link between yesterday's three operations.
Alan Ryan rot in hell': Hateful graffiti daubed on walls of church near home of slain RIRA boss.
A hateful message to slain RIRA boss Alan Ryan has been daubed on the grounds of his local church on the week of the second anniversary of his brutal murder.
The blood-red graffiti, which reads "Alan Ryan rot in hell", was spotted on the side of the Holy Trinity Church in Donaghmede, north Dublin today.
The words could fan the flames of an embittered Dublin gang war that has been waged on Irish streets over the past few years.
It comes just over a month after Paul Gallagher, arrested on suspicion of withholding information about Ryan's killing and suspected of sourcing the car for the assassination, was found shot dead in a field in Co Meath.
In April of this year, Ryan's surviving gang members were placed in protection in prison following the murder of Ryan’s former right hand man Deccy Smith.
Smith, 31, was blasted in the face in March after he had dropped his toddler son off at the Little Rainbow’s Creche at Holywell Avenue in Donaghmede.
Earlier this year it was claimed the slain gangster was gunned down in revenge for setting up the hit on Ryan.
The pair were involved in a major bust up two days before the RIRA boss was slain as part of a dispute with drug dealers on September 5, 2012 as he walked near his home in north Dublin.
At the 32-year-old’s funeral gunshots were fired over his coffin at his home before masked dissidents escorted his remains to the grave, which sparked a public outcry.
17 people including Ryan’s four brothers were arrested days later. Then Justice Minister Alan Shatter described the funeral display as “reprehensible and absolutely unacceptable”.
Hatchet’ Kavanagh’s killers left murder weapons in getaway car.
Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh’s killers left their murder weapons in the getaway car they torched near the scene of the horrific crime.
The gunmen doused their stolen BMW X3 in petrol before setting it alight outside a supermarket a five minute drive from the Costa del Sol pub where they ambushed the Irish gangster on Saturday.
Firefighters were on the scene within minutes but the blaze gutted the vehicle.
Police - bound by a secrecy order imposed on the case by an investigating judge - made no official comment on the find today.
It was not clear if officers had been able to recover any fingerprint evidence from the weapons or what state the firearms were in.
Convicted drug dealer Kavanagh, an enforcer for the Kinahan family, was shot dead as he enjoyed a drink outside Harmons Irish Bar in Elviria near Marbella just before 5pm on Saturday.
His masked killers hit him in the arm, back and head as he tried to run inside the bar to safety - before delivering a final “make-sure” shot to his temple after he collapsed in a pool of blood inside the doorway.
One of the shooters - seen by witnesses before they put masks on - was described as blond and the other as bald and fat.
Detectives are investigating if the horror incident is linked to the shooting last month of retired British boxer Jamie Moore (35) near the Costa del Sol resort of Estepona.
The Sky pundit is thought to have been the victim of mistaken identity.
Kavanagh (44) is said to have been involved in disputes with Russian mafia and a Dutch drugs gang.
Garda sources have also implicated him in a EUROS 1.5 million dispute involving Christie Kinahan and an Irish gangster
Gangland bosses are said to have held ‘crime summits’ in Dublin and Spain in the past 48 hours to plot a revenge attack for Kavanagh’s killing.
Local Spanish politicians are demanding the country’s Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez appears before Spain’s Parliament to explain what the government is doing to tackle the increase in organised crime on the Costa del Sol.
Four men have now been killed this year and two more injured in suspected gangland-linked shootings on the Costa del Sol.
Four of the six shootings, including Kavanagh’s, have occurred in the province of Marbella.
One of the most horrific took place in February when an Algerian-born Frenchman was shot to death on a motorway bridge in Marbella while he drove his three children to school.
A woman flagged down his car before a male accomplice shot him.
The pair fled after seeing his children aged 10, nine and three cowering in the back of the bar with shards of glass over them.
On August 28 a Moroccan man was killed as he left a bar near the home of former England manager Fabio Capello in Benahavis a short drive from Marbella.
NOW READ: Witnesses to ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh’s murder tell of “horrific” blood-soaked scene
Poverty, Sex and crime - Cahill's manic life led HIM to an early grave.
BY LUKE BYRNE AND KEN FOY – 19 AUGUST 2014 02:30 PM
THE General's life followed a trajectory that led from a desperately poor upbringing, to a career of violent crime and an ultimate early grave.
Martin Cahill was born to poverty in 1949, the second child of Agnes and father Patrick who lived in Dublin's inner city.
Patrick worked as a labourer and would frequently come home drunk - behaviour that influenced Cahill to remain alcohol-free for his adult life.
It has been claimed that seeing his father work hard and still struggle to provide for his family influenced Cahill's decision to pursue a life of crime.
The young criminal, known for his outlandish outbursts, married Frances Lawless when she was just 16.
He was also involved in a relationship with her sister Tina, and he fathered nine children with both women - five with Frances and four with her sister. Frances has previously spoken about how the three would share a bed on occasion.
"It is a strange subject. It is just something that we never discuss in front of anyone else. I know they made it out like we shared the bed with Martin all the time. It wasn't like that," she said.
GANGSTER
Frances has spoken about how she and Tina dressed identically and sported the same hairstyles.
In 2007, the gangster's daughter, also named Frances, released a book in which she claimed that he was a strict father who never raised a hand to his children.
She described her parents as a "happy couple" who rarely fought and remembered her dad kissing her goodnight then leaving their house with his gloves and torch to raid the homes of other sleeping families.
In her book, she also claimed that Cahill once prevented the kidnapping of one of Bono's children.
The claim, which was challenged by one garda who investigated Cahill, was that he stopped a plan to kidnap Bono's daughter Jordan and hold her to ransom for €6m.
Cahill's criminal pedigree is still as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. 'The General' was the uncle of notorious criminal Alan Wilson who was cleared last month of the gruesome murder of Marioara Rostas.
Wilson is serving a seven-year sentence imposed for his role in a meat cleaver attack.
Alan's dad John Cahill is the older brother of The General and John was a key member of his brother's armed robbery mob in the 1970s and 1980s.
However it is understood that John has now turned his back on crime.
Three women abducted by armed, masked men from their home in Dublin Thursday 25th September 2014 ● NEWSBy Shuki Byrne 0
5 Gardai fired a number of shots at the scene Gardai fired a number of shots at the scene Three females in north Dublin were last night abducted from their home in Malahide by a gang, gardai have said.
The incident began in the early hours of this morning when the three females, believed to be the postmistresss, her daughter and an Italian student, were abducted from their home in Malahide by masked men.
From there they were driven to the Post Office at Bayside, Sutton, by three armed and masked men. The raiders left the Post Office with an undisclosed sum of money - thought to be in the region of €85,000 - in a dark coloured car.
During the course of the morning, Gardaí became aware of the incident and a comprehensive response team was put in place involving both local and national units.
Members of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) assisted by other Garda units intercepted a car on the Malahide Road. The raiders crashed the vehicle and fled on foot.
It's understood the gang crashed the car near Malahide Park and some of the suspects fled into the grounds of Malahide Castle.
One man in his early 20s was arrested at the scene and an amount of cash recovered from the car. A number of shots were discharged by Gardaí at this scene.
The three females were uninjured but have been through a traumatic experience, gardai said.
They said they are still searching for two men involved in the abduction and robbery.
A man in his late 40s/early 50s, with grey white hair and a chubby build, 5'10 in height and wearing dark leggings and a dark top is being sought.
The other individual, a man in his late 40s/ early 50s, also of a chubby build, with dark grey hair, wearing blue runners with a green stripe top is also being sought.
It is understood one large bag of cash was recovered following the dramatic interception.
Pathologists do not have enough resources to exhume the body of a man killed during a controversial military operation in Northern Ireland over 40 years ago, a coroner's court has heard.
Joseph Murphy was among 10 people gunned down in west Belfast during three days of shootings involving the Parachute Regiment in 1971.
His family have called for the exhumation to ascertain if a bullet was left inside his body after autopsy.
Coroner Jim Kitson told a preliminary hearing in Belfast that resources were limited.
He said: "State pathology told us they do not have the capacity to do that at this stage in time."
The criteria under which a coroner can order an exhumation is more strict in Northern Ireland than in England, the court heard.
Mr Kitson has requested written submissions from legal representatives for the Murphy family before he makes a final decision.
Sean Doran, counsel for the Coroner's Service said: "On receipt of that material the coroner can then proceed to rule on that matter."
Barrister Laura McMahon, acting for the Murphy family, said they had found evidence as a "result of their own investigations" which may influence the coroner's decision.
Mr Murphy survived for 13 days after being shot but his family believe a soldier fired a second bullet through an open gunshot wound while he was in Army custody.
The court heard that the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) which carried out a review of the case; lawyers for Mr Murphy's next of kin and the Coroner's Service had failed to locate medical notes and records detailing his stay at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
Mr Doran added: "The response from the [Belfast] Trust dated August 25 is that there are none.
"That line of inquiry has been exhausted."
A priest and a mother of eight were among the civilians shot dead by the soldiers during the episode, now widely referred to as the Ballymurphy Massacre.
An 11th person who is not covered by the inquest proceedings, died of a heart attack after an alleged violent confrontation involving soldiers.
In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the actions of the paratroopers on Bloody Sunday after a long-running public inquiry by Lord Saville found the shootings had been unjustified, as the victims posed no threat.
But, in 2012 the Government rejected calls for a probe - on a smaller scale - into the events in Ballymurphy, insisting it was not in the public interest.
The coroner's court also heard about delays in handing over sensitive police and military material to the families' legal teams.
Even though there are only 20 short documents, Peter Coll, representing the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Ministry of Defence could not give a definitive timescale for disclosure.
He said:"The sensitive materials in this case are not voluminous. This is not the only inquest that the unit within the PSNI have to deal with. That's not something I say lightly, that's just the reality."
Among the documents deemed relevant to the inquest are 33 folders of evidence resulting from the HET review as well as three lever arch files of non sensitive military material such as contemporaneous logs, records and reports.
Barrister Sean Devine, who is representing the family of victim John Kerr, raised concerns that by not dedicating resources, the UK State was failing to live up to human rights obligations.
Mr Kitson demanded an update on the disclosure process by November 7, at the latest.
He said: "If this particular case is somewhere in a queue I would need to know.
The coroner added: "I am as anxious as anybody else that this case proceeds as expeditiously as possible."
Another preliminary hearing has been scheduled for November 24.
Speaking afterwards, John Teggart whose father Danny was shot 14 times, said they hoped the MoD would not slow down the disclosure of documents.
He said: "The families are happy the way things went today.
"There is steady progress. We hope the MoD will not be dragging their feet with the disclosure of all documents and coroner Jim Kitson will keep them on track of the work ahead."
A pensioner skippered a yacht across the Atlantic Ocean packed with more than €125m worth of cocaine bound for the north of England, it has emerged.
The 70-year-old British suspect was arrested onboard the 60ft Makayabella along with two other men, aged 35 and 28, during an overnight operation by armed Irish Navy teams which took them by surprise.
All three are from West Yorkshire, where police have arrested two other men - aged 45 and 47 - while a sixth man is being hunted on suspicion of involvement in a massive drugs smuggling operation.
The yacht has been tracked by authorities in several countries as it left Venezuela, stopping off in Trinidad, before being stormed by an elite Navy squad 200 nautical miles off Mizen Head - Ireland's most southerly point - in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Another man arrested in connection with the seizure
Security sources said the plot involved landing the consignment on the North Wales coast.
The smugglers are believed to have planned to transfer the cocaine onto a smaller boat at sea before ferrying the illegal cargo to shore, a well used tactic of international drug traffickers known as coopering.
It is understood the seizure, one of the biggest on the seas this year, was so large the suspects were forced to use bales of cocaine as makeshift furniture for the weeks-long transatlantic voyage.
Under armed guard today, the one tonne haul was offloaded from the yacht onto the docks at Haulbowline naval base in Cork harbour, where it was towed to last night.
John O'Mahony, assistant commissioner of the Garda, said the interception would deliver a serious blow to drugs cartels operating in Britain, Europe and South America.
"The cost of putting an operation like this together for the organised crime gangs is significant," he said
"That money has been taken out of circulation, but more importantly the drugs are taken out of circulation."
Initial analysis of a sample of the drugs at the force's forensic laboratory in Dublin confirmed it was cut cocaine, but further tests are needed to establish its purity, which will confirm the street value.
British police have estimated it is worth more than €125million.
During the tense late night sea raid, two Navy teams set off from a major coastal patrol vessel the LE Niamh on smaller inflatable boats, armed with pistols and batons.
They surrounded and illuminated the charter yacht Makayabella, making sure the consignment was not dumped overboard.
"It was a particularly dark night," said Captain David Barry of the Irish Navy.
"We believe they had no idea we were there until we were actually on board."
The crew were said to be in reasonably good condition for being at sea for so long, and were literally sitting on the bales of cocaine when they were intercepted.
They put up no resistance and no arms have been yet found on board.
A third man believed to be involved in the smuggling operation
The yacht was in reasonable condition but the sails had been damaged and it had developed engine problems.
It had to be towed by the naval ship LE Roisin, which was providing support, into Cork harbour in what was described as a challenging operation in decent weather.
The three Britons arrested on board the vessel are being questioned at Bridewell Garda Station in Cork under drug trafficking laws. They can be held for seven days.
The 70-year-old skipper is believed to have been an experienced sailor.
The UK National Crime Agency, French and Venezuelan authorities as well as the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre based in Lisbon were all involved in the international effort.
Security sources in Britain believe the consignment was destined for the north of England.
Details of the naval operation were kept secret for more than a day-and-a-half.
The National Crime Agency confirmed a 43-year-old man had been arrested in the Leeds area.
He was detained in the early hours of yesterday on suspicion of conspiring to import Class A drugs in an operation assisted by officers from West Yorkshire Police. He was subsequently bailed until January.
Earlier, today a 47-year-old man from Leeds was arrested also arrested and is being questioned at a police station in the West Yorkshire area.
Detectives said they are still seeking another individual from the area.
Hank Cole, Head of International Operations for the National Crime Agency, said the investigation is ongoing.
"Thanks to the co-operation between the NCA and our Irish, French and Venezuelan colleagues, we have managed to prevent this cocaine reaching our streets and causing damage to communities," he said.
"I pay tribute to all those involved."
The passage around the south-west coast of Ireland has been well used in recent times by drugs smugglers bringing shipments from South America and Africa into Europe.
Authorities describe it as the western frontier of Europe.
In 2007, a record €440 million of cocaine was seized in Dunlough Bay in west Cork when a UK gang botched an attempt to bring the massive haul ashore on a smaller boat and capsized in rough weather.
Most of the group, including two Englishmen, were arrested in follow-up operations and eventually given lengthy prison sentences.
Just a year later, a €400 million haul was intercepted on the Dances With Waves yacht about 150 miles off Mizen Head.
Three British men on board were later jailed for 10 years each for their part in the plot.
The mastermind, John Alan Brooks, was jailed for 28 years for the plot to bring the massive haul to England from Venezuela.
Gangsters tooled up with automatic handguns or sawed-off shotguns think only of exacting revenge or doing their boss’s bidding.
When the bullets or pellets smash into flesh and bone, causing horrific injuries, the gunmen have no concern for the hospital staff who have to deal with the aftermath, often carrying out emergency procedures to save a life.
A recent survey of gunshot wounds treated at the James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, west Dublin, set about establishing the impact they have on the hospital’s resources.
Taken from 2001 until 2010, they found 65 shooting victims were treated, 15 of whom died or were already dead on arrival.
But what the survey doesn’t say is that the start of the period covered coincided with the heyday of the Westies gang in west Dublin.
Led by Shane Coates and Stephen Suggs, the young hoods created havoc in the early noughties until they themselves were murdered and buried in Spain.
Violent feuding between gangs in Finglas on Dublin’s northside also accounted for several shootings and hospital staff had to treat the injured.
They also had to X-ray bodies for legal and ballistic reasons and to aid the task of retrieving the bullets from a dead victim’s body.
One of those who fell to a gangland assassin was Bernard Suggs, brother of Stephen, who was shot dead in the Brookwood Inn pub in the Corduff area of Blanchardstown, in August 2003.
CCTV footage of the killing showed three men in balaclavas going in to the crowded pub.
Suggs tried to escape by running through the pub towards an exit, with one of his killers pursuing him, firing at him as he fled and hitting him twice in the chest.
Although a minor player, Suggs was executed because of his brother, whose violent criminal career had created a lot of enemies.
Gardai found nine 9mm bullet casings in the pub, a type of ammunition that has been far more lethal than that used by shotguns.
The researchers at James Connolly found that 43 per cent of those shot with high-velocity bullets died, compared to just six per cent of those blasted with shotguns.
Just months after Suggs died, another associate, Jason Tolan, died from a gunshot wound, although in his case he was one of the six people who died from shotgun wounds covered by the study.
He had been shot in the leg by an attacker, later convicted of manslaughter, who had wanted to injure but not to kill him.
However, Tolan bled to death in a field before his body was discovered.
One of the saddest cases that researchers would have examined was the killing of teenage schoolboy Sumbo Owoiya in 2007.
In a subsequent trial, it would emerge the youngster was shot after a girl made false rape allegations against a completely different person.
Unfortunately, a man with criminal connections was drafted in to ‘sort out’ the situation and this resulted in innocent Owoiya being shot in the stomach.
Gang violence also heaped tragedy on another family when two brothers were shot dead within months of each other.
Andrew ‘Madser’ Glennon was shot and killed in April 2005. Later that August his brother Mark also died in a hail of bullets.
They had been linked to a drugs gang that was attempting to establish control of the deadly trade as the replacement to the Westies.
The role played by gangland violence was noted by the researchers, who stated that the shootings have been “widely attributed” to gangs and drug dealing.
Like the Westies, another infamous criminal made a telling contribution to the toll of victims treated at James Connolly Memorial.
Graham McNally died in 2009 on the orders of Eamon ‘the Don’ Dunne, after the infamous criminal became paranoid that people were leaking information to the Gardaí.
Dunne was also behind the shooting of Michael Murray in the same year. Murray (41) was shot dead outside his daughter’s house in Finglas.
In turn, Murray himself had added to the hospital’s list of casualties after being connected with the shooting dead of Ian Tobin in 2007 in a case of mistaken identity.
Although the researchers, whose findings were published in the Irish Medical Journal, said that gangland violence has added to the burden on the hospital, the level of shootings in Ireland is still low compared to other countries.
“Cook County Hospital in Chicago in 1995 showed 476 gunshot wounds over a 10-year period,” the authors wrote. “Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital, Durban, South Africa, examined 78 gunshot injuries in just six months. In both countries, gun ownership is less stringently controlled than in the Republic of Ireland.”
The report concluded: “There has been a sharp increase in the numbers of admissions from gunshot injuries in a West Dublin hospital in the Republic of Ireland in the past decade.
“Despite this, the numbers in Ireland are still low by comparison with other developed countries.”
New drugs hitting Irish streets follows international trends and the fears are very real.
A new cocktail of illicit drugs selling at €2 a stick is being sold on Irish streets and contains five hits in a new deadly threat aimed directly at school kids, gangland sources have told the Sunday World.
The sticks are already on sale on the streets of Limerick and follows the methamphetamine raids last week and the Sunday World expose of the trade with children as young as ten in Dublin last week.
Sources have told the Sunday World that the homemade sticks are have serrated edges and can be broken off into five pieces each promising a hit and which is sold at just €2 a go.
One child who nearly overdosed on one was found to have a range of illicit drugs inside him including traces of cocaine, heroin and prescribed drugs.
The new range of street drugs mimics the history of drug distribution and sale across the globe from Thailand to Australia and the US.
This reporter visited the meth labs in the Golden Triangle and saw swathes of Thai teenagers and young men use pill forms of methamphetamine called Yabba and it is now the main cause of crime in that region.
Made by rouge elements of the Burmese military, these pills came in their millions and were made on an industrial scale.
Pills were sold at little more that the price of a bar of chocolate and caused manic behaviour and sent crime and suicides rates soaring.
School-going children found themselves hospitalized as the pills often contained a range of poisonous substances and often ravaged the brain.
In South Africa, the home made pills and methamphetamine substance is called ‘Tik’and it too, has destroyed communities.
Introduced by Triad gangs who had imported the base drug used for its manufacture – ephedrine ( speed ) and sold Norinco 9mm guns with the shipments.
Local gangs like the Americans and the numbers gangs took up the trade and it has destroyed communities right across South Africa and resulted in a massive bump in the murder rates after a number of years of declining rates.
The appearance of the drug on Irish streets and the involvement of teenagers in its sale and distribution is a disturbing trend and the history of its introduction in Australia, Thailand and South Africa does not bode well.
Initially, the drug hit the gay scene in the UK a decade ago but it failed to take on in a big way but the Garda intervention last week gives at least some hope that it can be caught and curtailed before it spirals out of control.
A father was gunned down in front of his 12-year-old son as they walked home to let off some fireworks together.
Declan O'Reilly (32) from Parnell Road in Crumlin, Dublin 12, was shot dead on the South Circular Road, Dublin 8, on the evening of September 24, 2012.
At the inquest into his death at Dublin Coroner's Court, coroner Dr Brian Farrell said it was a "particularly cruel and really appalling shooting".
Gardai told the jury that O'Reilly, who had previously been acquitted of murdering a fellow inmate in Mountjoy Prison, was not in fear for his life at the time of the shooting.
The inquest heard that when he was shot, O'Reilly was on the phone with Moyra O'Neill, a member of the Rialto Community Drug Team.
He had been released from prison earlier in the year and had contacted her with a view to making a plan to come off drugs.
"He wanted to go to college, to get an education. More so for Stuart. He talked about Stuart all the time," she said.
She was discussing a computer course with him when she heard him curse at someone and the phone became muffled.
"I said 'Declan are you there?' And then I heard him say in a calm voice 'Stuart, get an ambulance'," she said.
Stuart and his father were helped by Caroline O'Neill and Nathan McGibney, flatmates who lived nearby and who went to help when they heard gunshots outside.
While Mr McGibney tried to keep O'Reilly conscious, Ms O'Neill stayed with Stuart. She said she asked Stuart who had shot his father.
"He told me they were in a car, a black car and that they drove off toward town and he pointed toward the city centre. I asked him what type of car, but he shook his head and said he didn't know. I asked Stuart did he know who they were, but he said he didn't," she said.
Stuart's mother, Jackie Dowdall, arrived at the scene shortly afterwards and they were taken to Kevin Street Garda Station. Garda Niall Godfrey told the inquest that when he spoke to Stuart, the boy told him that he and his father were on their way to let off some fireworks and had just passed the National Stadium when the shooting happened.
"Stuart heard two shots behind him, he saw his father fall to the ground. He saw a man wearing all black running to the end of the road and jumping into a black car facing in the direction of Leonard's Corner and then it drove off," he said.
O'Reilly was taken to St James's Hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. The post-mortem was carried out by deputy state pathologist Dr Michael Curtis. He found that O'Reilly had been shot multiple times, with 11 entry and exit wounds in total.
A stolen BMW was found on fire shortly after the incident at Cow Parlour in Dublin 8 and a gun was discovered on the passenger seat. Detective Inspector Sean Campbell confirmed the gun was connected to the shooting and that a gunman and driver were involved in the attack. He said that no file had gone to the DPP in relation to the death, but the investigation is ongoing.
The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing by persons unknown.
. James “Whitey” Bulger's is believed to have hidden money in property in Ireland as FBI continue the hunt for his cash.
FBI forensic investigators are continuing to track Whitey Bulgers cash to Ireland as estimates of his hidden wealth top €100m in property, cash, jewels, safety desposit boxes and covert off-shore accounts.
Security sources close to the FBI investigations claim that the comparatively small sums found in safe deposit boxes in Dublin, London and Boston during his time on the run amounting to little more a couple of hundred thousand dollars is a fraction of his hidden wealth, and have now targeted his property empire which is believed to be extensive and to include many properties across Ireland.
While some of his family were compromised with links to his previous small cash holdings the big prize being chased by investigators are his property empire. Forensic investigators close to the case believe that Whitey used his IRA connections to launder huge sums of his illicit gains.
FBI teams over the last decade have travelled over to Ireland in search of his cash reserves and property empire but the laundering expertise of his IRA comrades have eluded them.
The FBI agents were themselves criticized for bringing their golf clubs over to Ireland in their hunt for Whitey’s money and indeed in the hunt for Whitey while he was on the run for 16 years.
The most infamous mobster who is now serving life imprisonment was captured living the life of a pensioner in Los Angeles with a million dollars in cash hidden in the walls of the apartment.
During his time on the run he was believed to have spent some time in Ireland and some of his key associates were involved in a number of IRA gun running expeditions.
Kevin Cullen, an author of several books on Whitey Bulger told the Sunday World that the gangster who was the inspiration for ‘The Departed”, had allegedly links with Ballybunion and Galway which were followed up extensively over the decades.
“Whitey did have a safety deposit box in a Dublin bank, in Collgee Green area (The Bank of Ireland). The Feds seized stuff from it when he was on the run.
“I wouldn't be surprised if he squirrelled money away in many different places, certainly in the US, but also in Europe. He was in Galway in the late 1980s”, Cullen told the Sunday World.
It is no surprise to Cullen that Ireland could be a home for Whitey's money because while he was active and on the run his connections with Ireland were strong.
“Whitey stashed money in a lot of places because he had to have contingency plans, knowing that his FBI protectors could not protect him forever."
The author of ‘Whitey Bulger’, America’s most wanted gangster and the Manhunt that brought him to Justice’ told the Sunday World that the “FBI went searching for him in Ireland many times, but the leads were specious at best. I know a Garda who had dealings with them and he said some FBI agents
brought their golf clubs over. I guess they thought Whitey might be at Lahinch or Ballybunion”, Cullen said this week.
“The end of Whitey has killed off the Irish mob in Boston and even if his money is still out there. Boston has changed completely in the time that Whitey was on the run. There is no Irish mob left. All dead or in prison or became informants”, Cullen said.
At best Whitey’s money will be reclaimed by the banks as dormant accounts or absorbed into republican coffers by their old money launderers.
What is certain is that Whitey has no intention of telling anyone where is money is now or in the future and he doesn’t have much of that lefT,.
‘Champagne killer’ Karl Breen has been released from prison – and Gardai are preparing for a gangland feud to escalate as a result.
The leader of the notorious D22 gang, based in Clondalkin, posted pictures of himself on social media after he was released two days early – a ploy by prison authorities who feared he may have been assassinated as he left Mountjoy prison on the day he was expected to be freed.
According to reports in The Irish Daily Star Breen was smuggled out in a relative’s car, but Gardai say the gangster’s release could be the beginning of an all-out war between rival drug gangs, and they are on high alert.
Apart from a much-changed gangland scene, Breen can expect to face threats on his life from the many enemies he made while doing his time. Breen has just completed his manslaughter sentence, as well as an additional six months he got for possessing a mobile phone and SIM cards while behind bars in 2008.
The Clondalkin gangster was moved to a protection wing in Limerick Prison earlier this year after he had crossed some of the prison system’s most notorious inmates. He had already been moved to a different wing of the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise after falling out with his own cronies.
But infamous jail hard-man and convicted killer Warren Dumbrell immediately made threats that he would kill Breen, according to sources.
When first banged up in the high-security Portlaoise Prison, Breen also made an enemy of Brian ‘the Tosser’ Meehan and ended up in protective custody. Meehan was enraged after he learned that D22 mobster Breen had been calling him “a rat”, according to sources.
The violent thug had been telling inmates in Ireland’s maximum security jail that a corrupt garda officer had told him Meehan was an informer. After being moved to Mountjoy prison, Breen became friendly with Derek Hutch, who is serving 15 years for drugs, guns and manslaughter. Breen and ‘Del Boy’ Hutch led a riot at the Midlands Prison in November 2011, during which 50 inmates fought pitched battles.
One officer was assaulted when the violence broke out as prisoners refused to leave the exercise yard at around 6pm. Order was restored after 90 minutes when officers in riot gear and dog-handlers took over control of the yard. Breen previously organised to have cars belonging to two prison officers burned out after he was transferred out of Mountjoy, according to sources.
He is also suspected of orchestrating a series of gun and pipe-bomb attacks from his prison cell when he was previously detained in the Midlands Prison.
Specific threats were also made to Garda officers investigating Breen’s criminal operations, sources say.
Breen was jailed after he stabbed Martin McLaughlin to death during a row at the Jury’s Inn Hotel beside Croke Park in 2007.
Ireland’s grisly toll of murder is getting worse – sparking fears the streets are becoming ever more dangerous for innocent citizens.
The latest crime figures, released this week, confirmed people’s worst fears, with the number of homicide victims up to 60 – an increase of 33 per cent on the previous 12 months.
A spate of knife attacks has done nothing to calm fears that crime is becoming uncontrollable on the capital’s streets.
High-profile gangland killings have also added to people’s fears and are difficult cases for gardai to crack.
The victims of organised crime gangs include Eoin O’Connor (32) and Anthony Keegan (33), whose bodies were found last May on an island in Lough Sheelin, Co Meath, after they had been shot. Other murders include the shooting of Christopher ‘Git’ Zambra, who was shot in Drimnagh, Dublin, and Stephen ‘Dougie’ Moran in Lucan, west Dublin.
The latest murder this week saw Benny Whitehouse cut down in a hail of bullets as he went on the school run in Balbriggan, north Co. Dublin.
Another high-profile gangland murder was in August, when ‘Fat’ Andy Connors was shot dead in his Saggart home in Co. Dublin.
The official figures don’t include gangsters who have gone missing and are presumed to have been murdered.
But, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Ireland is still one of the safest countries in the world.
Our murder rate, although up by a third, is 1.5 killings per 100,000 people, compared to the global average of 6.5.
Dublin’s rate is higher than the rest of Ireland at around 2.0, but even that rate pales in comparison with the world’s most dangerous cities.
Basseterre
Top of the list is Basseterre, on the island of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
This tiny Caribbean nation, with a population of just 46,000, is anything but a sun-kissed paradise – 17 murders in just a year gave the island’s capital a murder rate of 132.
In July this year three young men were shot dead in a nightclub attack.
Caracas
There’s no surprise that Caracas, in Venezuela, is considered one of the world’s most dangerous cities.
A murder rate of 122 is thanks to the gang rule in the poor barrios, where police fear to tread and murders are routine.
The government refuses to release its own statistics, but one report estimated 24,000 people were murdered in the city in 2013.
Guatemala City
Central America is the worst global region for murders and within that Guatemala City takes the title with a murder rate of 117. The country is struggling to get to grips with the end of a civil war in 1996 that lasted almost 40 years.
Underpaid and untrained cops have to deal with an average of 100 murders a week in the country.
Belize City
Belize City, capital of the former British colony, is another central American city where the government struggle to deal with rampant gang culture.
The majority of the country’s homicides take place in Belize City, where gang violence is endemic, especially on the south side, earning the city a murder rate of 105.
Tegucigalpa
The capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, has a murder rate of 102 – with 1,175 killings in 2011.
Another city, San Pedro Sula, has an even higher rate, giving Honduras the dubious title of the world’s highest national murder rate of 90.
Maseru
The city of Maseru in Lesotho, southern Africa, in blighted by grinding poverty, massive unemployment and falling wages for mining workers. Gang violence is behind the murder rate of 62.
Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa has a murder rate of 60, but most of the killings occur in just 10 of the city’s 60 police precincts.
Despite a high rate of killings, South Africa has managed to halve its murder rate since the mid-90s.
Panama City
Panama City suffered from a rise in gang culture after the U.S. invasion in the 1980s.
Murders peaked in 2009 when 800 were killed, but have been dropping since.
The city is plagued with rapes, armed robberies, muggings, purse-snatchings and kidnappings. The murder rate is 53.
San Salvador
Another Central American country overwhelmed by criminal gangs is El Salvador.
The capital city, San Salvador, has a murder rate of 52.5, but a truce between two of the largest gangs saw killings drop to just five a day last year.
Kingston
The home town of reggae legend Bob Marley, Kingston, Jamaica, can be a dangerous and chaotic place where ‘Yardie’ street gangs control drugs and territory.
With a murder rate of 50, there were 328 people murdered in Kingston in 2011, a significant drop compared to previous years.
A man from Dublin has been charged with drug smuggling after border force officers at Heathrow's Terminal 1 seized 10kg of cocaine.
Philip Knowles (25), of St Mark's Crescent, Clondalkin, Dublin, was stopped at around 4pm on October 13 after arriving on a flight from Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Following searches, officers recovered cocaine.
The drugs are currently being analysed for purity and are likely to have a final value totalling several hundred thousand euro.
Mr Knowles was arrested by border force and later questioned by investigators from the National Crime Agency's Border Policing Command and charged with attempting to import a class A drug.
He appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on Wednesday and was remanded in custody until his next appearance at Isleworth Crown Court on October 30.
Border force Heathrow director Marc Owen said: "Those who engage in drug smuggling should be in no doubt that they will be targeted and brought to justice.
"Border force officers secure the UK's borders 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We welcome legitimate travellers but are on constant alert to keep illegal drugs and other banned substances out of the UK."
Appearing before Uxbridge Magistrates' Court yesterday, Mr Knowles was remanded in custody. He has been ordered to appear again at Isleworth Crown Court on October 30.
A vicious Waterford gang carried out a petrol bomb attack which has left two children hospitalised tonight.
The sickening attack which was described as a "disgusting act of cowardice" took place in the Ardmore Park estate around 9pm this evening.
A gang who have been responsible for a wave of crime in Waterford and are a major target for gardai are the prime suspects in carrying out the attack.
A one-year-old girl, Lexy Halligan, who was in hospital earlier today for another matter was rushed back to hospital with burn injuries.
An 11-year-old was also injured in the attack.
Other people were also in the house including the children's grandmother Nelly Halligan and a three month old baby.
The attack is part of a campaign of intimidation in the town.
The gang had issued threats to another woman know to the family earlier in the week and just two days ago members of the family told the Sunday World that they were worried they would be attacked,
The same gang were responsible for a petrol bomb attack outside the home of Sinn Fein Councillor John Hearne earlier this year.
Mr Hearne is a friend of the family attacked to night and was warned by gardai earlier this year that there were threats against his life by the gang who were angered when he encouraged local people to go to gardai over crimes committed by the gang.
He told the Sunday World: "People could have been killed tonight. Luckily the grandmother had a fire extinguisher so put out the flame quickly. Sadly two of the children have had to go to hospital. What happened tonight is a disgusting act of cowardice. This gang has repeatedly targeted women and children and need to be tackled."
One man has been arrested in connection with the incident.
Notorious gang boss ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson whined to a court this week saying that he is being victimised by prison bosses, but he conveniently didn’t mention how he was nabbed with a mobile phone behind bars
The Sunday World can reveal that Thompson was caught with an contraband mobile phone by prison staff in Cloverhill on May 29.
He was lying on top of a Nokia handset when staff burst into his shared cell and carried out a search.
He pleaded innocence, even though he was caught red-handed. He was disciplined internally and denied visits, phone calls and recreation activities.
Thompson is said to have offered his cellmate €5,000 to take the blame for the illegal phone, which carries a sentence of up to five years in prison if charges are brought. It is understood a file is currently with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
As well as the incident with the mobile phone, jail bosses were very concerned that Thompson had established a power base at Cloverhill after being extradited from Spain to face a violent disorder charge.
Criminals were trying to impress him and a gang culture quickly began to emerge, with Freddie as the undisputed kingpin. In order to end this, management took the decision to transfer him from Cloverhill to Cork.
This is permitted because although Cloverhill is a remand prison, Thompson pleaded guilty to the violent disorder and was remanded until his sentencing next January.
The guilty plea meant it is up to prison management what jail he can be housed in. But Thompson was furious that he is now so far away from his family and this week went to the High Court to try to get the decision reversed.
He secured leave for a judicial review and his lawyers argued that he was actually the victim in an incident that led to his change of jails. The 33-year-old from Dublin 8, who is a member of the Christy Kinahan drugs mob, wants the decision to be quashed and also wants damages.
He said he was “violently attacked” by three other prisoners on September 13 even though they were ‘separation’ prisoners and should not have been in the visiting area where the alleged incident occurred.
After the “unprovoked assault”, Thompson said he was given a disciplinary hearing and found guilty. This was upheld on appeal.
He said that being segregated from other prisoners and confined to a cell for 22 and a half hours a day was unfair, as was the process, because he was not allowed to bring a witness to the hearing. Freddie was also furious that he only heard about the move in a national newspaper.
He was transferred to Cork on September 30 and remains there.
He says it is difficult for his family to travel down to visit him and he has a court date next month for a full hearing.
Sources say the Irish Prison Service will deny all his allegations and insist the transfer happened for safety reasons because Freddie was simply becoming too big to manage.
The County Sheriff raided the home of criminal turned debt collector Martin 'The Viper' Foley this morning and seized a car, motorbikes and other valuables.
It is understood that the Sheriff accompanied by gardai called to Foley's home in Crumlin early this morning with a warrant to search the premises and seize any valuables.
It is understood that three motorbikes, a car, a quantity of jewelry and an expensive watch were taken as part of the operation.
The raid was carried out on foot of a €916,960 declaration made against the 63 year-old by the Criminal Assets Bureau as revealed earlier this year by the Sunday World.
The judgement was made after an investigation into Foley for the under declaration of income tax. The County Sheriff is entitled to seize Foley's assets to satisfy the bill and even has the power to apply to seize his home.
Foley is a veteran criminal with 45 convictions and has been on the garda's radar for over 40 years.
He runs a successful debt collection business but accounts last year revealed that it lost €7,518 despite gardai getting reports from across the country that Foley was pressurising people into paying debts they could not afford.
Foley's wife and a fellow director of the debt collection company Sonia Doyle is six months pregnant despite the fact he qualifies for a pension soon.
He has infamously survived four assassination attempts and has 18 bullets lodged in his body.
John Dundon Limerick mobster John Dundon has been trying to drum up business from his jail cell where he is serving life for murder.
Dundon has been asking “everyone and anyone” to work for him in a bid to getting the family’s drug dealing operation back up and running, according to sources.
“He’s on the phone the whole time. It doesn’t seem to be a problem for him,” said a source in Limerick. Brothers John, Dessie and Wayne are currently all serving life sentences together at Portlaoise high-security prison.
All three are housed in the A5 unit at Portlaoise where the combined cost of detaining the trio added up to €283,725 per year, according to recently released figures.
But the tight security at the jail has not stopped John from trying to get associates to take part in underworld deals.
The youngest brother, Ger, has also been making sporadic visits back to Limerick from the UK where he lives in Manchester and London .
Ger Dundon was spotted in the city recently and claims have been made he is also trying to re-establish the family business.
His presence was linked to an incident in which the car belonging to a rival gang member was torched.
Exile: John Gilligan will not return home for funeral over "media circus" fears Exiled gangster John Gilligan will not return to Ireland for his brother's funeral this week.
Gilligan's family have said the mobster - who fled Ireland after being gunned down - will not be attending the funeral of Bernard Gilligan (52), who passed away at the weekend following a suspected heart attack.
John Gilligan had apparently been seeking a short-term pass to attend the funeral but sources on social media say he will not attend over fears it would turn the gathering into a media circus.
It was reported Gilligan was organising a trip home to pay his final respects but the decision has been made to forego the funeral.
A statement on the Let's Talk About John Gilligan page on Facebook read: "I would like to offer my sincere condolences to the Gilligan family on the passing of John’s brother Bernard. May he rest in peace", Sam Hall said.
"I would like to remind some people that John was found not guilty of the murder of Mrs Guerin. The newpapers continue to print false accounts of what happened and some people believe them.
"John will not be travelling home to the funeral out of respect for his family and not to turn it into a media circus."
Gilligan was forced to flee the country after being shot a number of times in a gun attack at his brother's home in Clondalkin.
He left the country by ferry under garda escort and has been rehabilitating abroad ever since, reports suggest. His minder Stephen 'Dougie' Moran was shot dead just a day before Gilligan himself was targeted.
Paul Quinn, 21, who was murdered seven years ago. An insider in the killing gang has given a statement to the Gardai implicating up to ten associates in the murder.
An insider in the gang of ex-IRA activists and associates has broken ranks and told the Gardai the identities of the men who organised the brutal murder of Paul Quinn (21) in October 2007 near the border in Co Monaghan, the Sunday World has learned.
The murder by a gang of up to ten, with as many as 20 involved in the set up, has been intractable for the Gardai and the PSNI because of the Omerta that pervades the border areas.
The murder of Paul Quinn was said to have originated from a dispute between Paul Quinn and the son of an IRA leader in the area and he was given a brutal and torturous exit from this world in front of three of his friends - who were held hostage as he was beaten to a pulp at a farm, near Oram - Co. Monaghan seven years ago this week.
He was lured there with a request for assistance and found up to ten men waiting for him.
Some of the men were wearing forensic clothing and the planning and execution of the murder was done to such a high degree that security specialists pointed the blame immediately at the IRA command in the area.
His very public falling out with the son of a major IRA figure placed the IRA and their associates, in the frame for the murder despite the widely discredited interventions by Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Connor Murphy .
Both men claimed that it was criminals and not the IRA that carried out the brutal beating causing Paul’s death.
"It was the IRA criminals who caused the death of my son and now it seems justice will be done”, the dead man’s mother told the Sunday World today.
"We have had a major breakthrough. It seems that one of the gang is telling all. I asked the Gardai if they knew who did it and they said yes. But they said that they would need more evidence than that to convict. Now it seems they have that. I know that phone records all connect the gang to the event and which with the insider’s testimony will make the difference. We at last are very hopeful of arrests”, Brid Quinn, Paul’s mother, told the Sunday World.
"The people I met who I thought killed my son were in fact the same people in the phone circle which acted in unison around the time of my son’s death. I feel happier that at least I know who killed my son and I don’t have to be polite to them when they pass my door many times a day”, a determined Brid Quinn said, in advance of the seventh anniversary of her son’s death this weekend.
"We know who did it. The Gardai know and now Sinn Fein and the IRA will be quaking because one of the gang is speaking. With the arrests, we will see Gerry Adams exposed for lying about the death of my son. It took him thirty years to discover that Mr Brian Stack, the chief officer of Portlaoise Prison, was shot by the IRA in 1983 but within 24 hours Adams and Connor Murphy could say definitely that the IRA were not involved in my son’s death. They act according to their interests and not the truth”, Brid Quinn told the Sunday World.
There was initially little forensic evidence found at the scene after it had been doused with an unusual substance specifically sprayed to damage DNA evidence but with advances coming daily in the science, the Gardai have send the rope used to tie up Paul at the scene, for additional forensic testing.
This case allegedly involving Sinn Fein associates and IRA members in South Armagh, is particularly problematic for Sinn Fein as it occurred in peace time and the party has nearly staked its peacetime position on the innocence of all those in its political family, in relation to Paul Quinn’s death.
The party waded into the controversy last year when in a recorded telephone conversation, it's senior press officer, Mark Mclernon, told the Sunday World that he knew ‘for a fact’ who had killed Paul Quinn, another man and Garda Adrian Donoghue.
McLernon claimed in the phone call that dissident republicans were involved in the death of the three men but McLernon never contacted the Gardai with his evidence and then later claimed it was just gossip.
The Quinn family - father Stephen and Brid Quinn - slammed Sinn Fein for trying to blacken the name of their son and to deflect from the involvement of key republicans in the murder of Paul Quinn.
Martin McGuinness denied all knowledge of his press officer’s actions when confronted earlier this year about Mark McLernon’s refusal to bring his evidence to the Gardai when questioned by the Sunday World.
The Deputy First minister then refused to answer any further questions on the matter.
"Sinn Fein are ducking an diving on this but with an insider talking their lies will soon come out", Brid Quinn said.
The insider who has given the Gardai a statement is believed to be still in the area and both the PSNI and the Gardai are ensuring that he has a security blanket over him without blowing his cover.
A 43-year-old man has been remanded in custody charged in connection with a major explosives haul found on a farm in Northern Ireland.
Barry Francis Petticrew was arrested last Wednesday when police investigating suspected dissident republican activity uncovered the weapons in farm buildings in rural Co Fermanagh near the Irish border.
Petticrew, from Drumbroghas, Swanlinbar just across the border in Co Cavan, spoke only to confirm his name and that he understood the charges against him during the brief hearing at Enniskillen Magistrates Court.
He is charged with possession of explosives and ammunition with intent to endanger life and also of possession of articles likely to be of use to terrorists.
District Judge Nigel Broderick remanded him in custody for four weeks. The defendant did not apply for bail.
Police have said items seized during last week's raid of the farm near the village of Kinawley included about 500kg of fertiliser and a number of packs of home-made explosives; timer units, detonators and fuses; six pipe bombs and component parts for other devices; a suspected firearm and about 100 rounds of ammunition; and forensic suits and gloves.
The suspected arms and bomb making equipment was recovered during a four-day operation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on the farm on the Caldragh Road, Tully near Kinawley.
Wearing a navy jumper, bespectacled Petticrew smiled briefly toward the public gallery of the court as he was brought into the dock this afternoon.
Asked to confirm his name and if he understood the charges facing him, Petticrew replied: "Yes."
When asked by a prosecution lawyer, an investigating police officer told the court he could connect the accused to the charges. Solicitor Peter Corrigan, representing Petticrew, said he had no questions for the officer and said his client did not wish to apply for bail at today's appearance.
Remanding him into custody, Judge Broderick ordered him to appear again on November 10.
Armed police stopped traffic in Enniskillen town centre to allow the custody van carrying the accused to leave the court building.
Thomas McMahon and Noel Noonan Two Limerick men have been jailed for two and a half years each for membership of the IRA last year.
The Special Criminal Court was today shown three rocket launchers seized during the investigation into the offence by 32-year-old Thomas McMahon, a former chef, and his co-accused Noel Noonan (35).
McMahon, of Ros Fearna, Murroe, and Noonan, with an address at St. Patrick’s Hostel, Clare Street, had each pleaded guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation within the State styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on February 7th, 2013.
Detective Superintendent Thomas Maguire testified that gardai followed Noonan’s Peugeot from Limerick to Clonmel on the evening of February 4th, 2013. Three men, including McMahon, were seen getting out of the car at Tivoli Road and walking down onto a railway line.
The Garda National Surveillance Unit later found three launch tubes and two mortar drills for rockets on the rail track.
The Peugeot was seen in the same area three nights later, this time accompanied by McMahon’s Mercedes and McMahon himself was seen behind Noonan’s car.
Three men were later seen walking along a bridge over the railway line, one carrying a heavy bag on his back.
The cars were stopped as they left, and three launch tubes and two mortar rockets were seized.
The three tubes were displayed in the body of the court, each 40 inches in length and almost 10 pounds in weight.
The superintendent said that they were designed for the training of military personnel and were Irish Army issue. He testified that the propellant was absent in each, consistent with them having been used, but he said that they were still lethal.
“This operation was designed by members of the IRA to procure weaponry for the IRA,” he said.
When arrested, both men denied membership of the IRA, denied stopping on the bridge and denied knowledge of the equipment. However, they later pleaded guilty to the single charge of IRA membership.
The court heard that Noonan had previous convictions, including for assault. McMahon also had previous convictions, including for false imprisonment and two threats to kill.
Each man entered the witness box yesterday, took the oath and gave undertakings to dissociate from the IRA.
Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding in the three-judge court, noted that it was unusual to see guilty pleas to IRA membership.
He said the court believed that the appropriate sentence was four years imprisonment.
However the final year and a half of each sentence was adjourned when the men each entered a €500 bond to not commit such offences in the future and not to associate with any member of an unlawful organization or anyone convicted of a scheduled offence in the Special Criminal Court.
Karl Zambra A man caught dealing heroin to undercover gardai posing as drug addicts has avoided jail after receiving a suspended jail term.
Karl Zambra (27) was arrested as part of Operation Marshall, a garda operation targeting the supply of heroin and crack cocaine in the St Teresa Gardens flats.
Zambra of St Teresa’s Gardens, Donore Avenue, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of heroin and cocaine for sale or supply on July 13 and 23 2010.
Gda Sgt Brian Roberts of the Garda National Drugs Unit told Fiona McGowan BL, prosecuting, that undercover gardai had gone to the flats complex and Zambra approached them.
Zambra told them he didn’t know them and asked them what they were doing. The gardai told them they were looking for “one rock”. Zambra called them back and told them to go inside the flat’s stairwell, pick up the drugs on the stairwell and leave money there.
He told them: "That's good stuff, I know you'll be back". The drug was later found to be cocaine on analysis.
On another date Zambra came over and told a group of drug addicts, which included the undercover gardai, that he would give out “the rock” first and then he’d give you “the brown”.
He sold three brown packages containing heroin to the undercover gardai for Eur50 each.
The court heard Zambra has 73 previous convictions including one for drug dealing, four for possession of drugs and a conviction for burglary.
Dominic McGinn SC, defending, said the neighbourhood Zambra lives in is blighted by drugs and that Zambra was involved in that in 2010. He said he has developed a more responsible attitude since then and that he comes from a solid law abiding family.
Murder: The body of the victim is removed from the scene at Killarney Place
Gardai have made an appeal to the public for witnesses to Sunday night's fatal shooting in Dublin city.
Gardaí are investigating the murder of Kieran Farrelly (33) at Killarney Place in the north inner city at the weekend.
The 33-year-old, from Tallaght in south Dublin, was shot in the face at around 11.45pm.
Investigating Gardai arrested a 31-year-old man on Wednesday in connection with the shooting, but he was released without charge.
A woman (20) was also arrested on suspicion of withholding information. She was also released without charge and a file has been sent to the DPP.
As part of their ongoing investigation, Mountjoy Gardaí wish to speak to anyone who may have been in the Killarney Court/Empress Place/Portland Row area of Dublin on the Bank Holiday Sunday, October 26th.
They particularly wish to speak to: anyone who was in the area between 11.15pm and midnight that night anyone who may have seen a group of people anyone who may have heard a disturbance between those times
The cannabis was discovered in a car in Limerick A 54-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman were arrested yesterday after Gardai stopped a car in Limerick and found €100,000 worth of cannabis.
They stopped the vehicle at Davin Gardens in Caherdavin and, upon inspection, discovered the haul.
They are being held at Mayorstone and Roxboro Garda Stations under the Criminal Justice Drug Trafficking Act.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/04/1401:53 AM
Johnathon Gill has made quiet a few appearances in the papers over there going back before Alan Ryan's death. It'll be interesting to see how his situation plays out with the new youngbloods taking over from fat freddie, especially Lynch.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/06/1409:56 AM
Hi Terrence. Young Mr.Gill has been lying low, he is in for a lot of grief soon enough with all the people he is pissing off, his two hitmen "the Taliban Brothers" have gone on the run, probably back to Libya, and funny enough their sister was involved in a modelling contest recently, lots of mentions of her lovely brother but nothing about the murderous scum that are her other two brothers. Michael Frazier seems to be enemy no.1 at the moment, surviving his fourth attack this weekend.
Stabbed: Tiernan Stokes was hospitalised after the attack on Halloween night
A CONVICTED criminal who was shot in the legs in a public park in Bray in August has been stabbed in another horror attack.
Tiernan Stokes (24) suffered wounds to his legs after he was shot in broad daylight in front of children in the People's Park in Bray, Co Wicklow during the summer. Gardai believe that he fell foul of a Bray-based mob who control large portions of the drugs trade in Co Wicklow.
However, Stokes has now narrowly escaped with his life for a second time after he was knifed four times in a park in the Oldcourt Estate in Bray on Halloween Night.
Writing on his Facebook page, Stokes claimed he was, literally, stabbed in the back.
“On the mend. 7 lives left. haha scumbag stabbing me from behind and on crutches an all sad c**t.
“Be home soon.”
He wrote yesterday that he was "out the hospital" and "feelin alri [sic]."
Stokes sustained wounds to his kidneys, lungs and liver in the attack. It is believed that he was involved in a verbal row earlier in the night at a bonfire. He has a number of previous convictions, including at least one for assault, and four thefts.
In August, he was shot in daylight on open ground in the park where families were walking with their children and a local football team were preparing to play.
Speaking to the Sunday World following the incident, Stokes said one of his legs was broken as a result of the attack.
“It happened that fast I didn't have time to get a fright. I thought it was pellet gun. Basically man, [I] went to meet someone then bang, bang.
He added: “I have a broken left leg and the right is clean shot [through].”
Stokes is originally from Oldcourt Avenue in Bray but had been living in Drimnagh in the south city after being released from prison in July after serving a sentence for theft.
However, he rubbished speculation he was targeted by criminals from the south-inner city.
“I've no connections to Drimnagh, I only lived there for few weeks but I knew nobody - so that's b**lix.”
Stokes refused to comment on who he believed was behind the shooting saying: “I've nothing else to say.”
Gardai believe the Bray-based gang which was previously lead by convicted drug trafficker Brendan Kinlan was behind the shooting. Kinlan (42) is currently serving an eight year prison sentence in the UK after he was caught with €2 million worth of amphetamines.
The Bray mob are regarded as extremely dangerous and are believed to have been involved in the murder of Philip 'Philly' O'Toole in January 2013. Gardai believe Stokes was shot as a result of a dispute over a small debt.
Last year, gang boss Kinlan was sentenced to eight years in prison in Leeds Crown Court after he was caught with a €2 million drugs haul.
Bizarrely, the massive stash of designer drugs was only discovered after Kinlan had crashed his van as he swerved to avoid hitting a pheasant which had ran out on the road.
When police came to the crash scene they realised Kinlan wasn't the registered owner of the van and impounded the vehicle. After the van was towed to a garage in West Yorkshire, Kinlan continually called asking staff to return of his property in the back of the van.
During the trial, the court heard that Kinlan's persistence led to garage staff becoming suspicious and discovering the stash.
A multimillion-pound haul of cocaine destined for the UK market has been intercepted by police in an international drugs bust.
Two men from Jersey have been arrested after their yacht was boarded by officers in the Caribbean as it made its way to the UK.
On board, they discovered around 550lb of the Class A drug - estimated to have a street value of up to £40 million (€51m). It followed an investigation involving the Metropolitan Police, their French counterparts and officials from the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Hank Cole, the NCA's head of international operations, said: "Together we have stopped a huge consignment of cocaine close to source.
"We have no doubt that without this intervention the drugs would have ended up on the streets of the UK where, after being cut, they would have had a likely potential value of £30-40 million.
"Our investigation into the organised crime network involved in this attempt continues."
The UK-registered vessel SY Hygeia of Halsa was boarded by French customs off the island of Martinique on Monday as it began a transatlantic crossing.
Two men - aged 57 and 42 - were arrested and now face possible prosecution by the French authorities.
The operation followed an investigation by the Met and NCA into a London-based organised crime group, with connections to the Caribbean, suspected of being involved in the large-scale importation of class A drugs.
Detective Superintendent Neil Thompson said: "It is clear that the drugs recovered would have been distributed throughout the streets of London and beyond, generating further criminality and fuelling gang activity.
"If you deal in drugs in any scale we will find you, we will arrest you, and you will face the consequences of your actions."
This is the second significant seizure of Class A drugs on a sailing vessel destined for the UK in recent weeks.
Two months ago, around a tonne of cocaine was seized by the Irish Naval Service acting on information supplied by the NCA.
No escape: Niall Fitzpatrick was convicted over the botched robbery
A NOTORIOUS criminal who is part of Munster’s most-prolific armed robbery crew has been convicted in connection with a raid on a businessman’s home which was foiled by armed gardai.
Niall ‘Houdini’ Fitzpatrick (47), was found guilty of attempted burglary and attempted aggravated burglary on businessman Pat Glavin’s Glanmire home on August 11 last year. The incident was described as a “meticulously planned raid” in court.
However, the gang were foiled by gardai who were lying in wait at the home for them to strike after receiving intelligence about the raid. As the gang were about to enter the home, gardai threw a stun grenade at their feet, disorientating them with dazzling light and loud bangs.
Fitzpatrick was previously described by gardai as one of the most notorious and dangerous armed robbers in Cork. The well-known criminal, from Mayfield, Cork, was nicknamed Houdini after escaping from custody on three separate occasions.
His associates Trevor O’Sullivan (below) and Vincent Murray were convicted earlier this year as part of the raid.
During the incident, O’Sullivan fell as he tried to run away and was arrested. His accomplice Vincent Murray (38), tried to escape, but was located by the garda helicopter.
Gardai suspect Fitzpatrick and O’Sullivan were part of the crew who escaped with €140,000 following a robbery of a cash-in-transit van in Carriagline in January 2012.
Fitzpatrick was also involved in a raid on a Bank of Ireland in August 2011, and a raid on Farran Post Office in 2001 when a gun was held to the head of an employee.
Two years ago, the Sunday World had linked him to a string of armed robberies which gardai suspected he carried out after his release from prison.
His mother contacted us and demanded that we stopped writing about her son. She claimed he had given up crime and berated us for harassing him. She also gave out about gardai following him around.
However, her belief that her son had gone straight was shattered when he was arrested and charged in connection with the Glanmire incident. Fitapatrick is due to be sentenced later this month. His pals O’Sullivan and Murray are already serving lengthy sentences for their part in the crime.
Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin sentenced O’Sullivan, from Curaheen Drive to 15 years with three years suspended. He sentenced Murray, from Glandore Park, Knocknaheeny, to 10 years with three years suspended.
He said he gave O’Sullivan the longer sentence because of the high degree of planning which he put into the crime. He said it was hard “to imagine the terror and the upset” Mr Glavin and his partner, Esther Delaney and their two daughters, aged 12 and nine, endured when gardai told them they were targets of the gang.
He added: “To expose a citizen to this risk from gangsters should not be tolerated.”
Raid: The premise was raided by members of the Garda National Drug Unit and the Criminal Assets Bureau A major Irish drug dealer was yesterday arrested by Gardai after an investigation into sales on an encrypted layer of the internet known as the Darknet.
As a result of an international drug trafficking investigation into sales on the Darknet, a number of dealers were identified operating out of Dublin city.
Following an extensive investigation by the Garda National Drug Unit, detectives identified a secure premises on the South Circular Road, where it was believed this drug distribution operation was based.
Yesterday afternoon members from the Garda National Drug Unit, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB)and the Computer Crime Investigation Unit (CCIU) raided the premise in Dublin 8.
They discovered ecstasy, LSD and other narcotics worth nearly €200,000.
Two men in their 30s were arrested at the scene. They are being detained at Kevin Street and Kilmainham Garda stations under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996.
Gardai said one of the men arrested is a major figure in the distribution of drugs around Ireland.
Gardai said a crucial part of the raid was the preservation of encrypted data contained on computers. Detectives said a number of computers seized contain extensive information which related to the worldwide distribution of controlled drugs from this premises in Dublin 8.
"With the invaluable assistance of the CAB and CCIU a number of computers were safely retrieved with accessible information immediately at the time of entry on this search," Gardai said.
"At this time analysis is continuing with regard to storage of electro currency (Bitcoin) and CAB have already seized certain currency assets."
In a follow up operation, Gardai seized more drugs and documents that related to offshore bank accounts
"A follow up search in Harolds Cross, Dublin 6 resulted in further small seizure of controlled drugs and documentation in relation to off shore bank accounts in Switzerland, Belize, Poland and a number of other countries.
"The financial investigation in relation to this investigation is continuing with new information still coming to light at this time."
Yesterday's arrest was the result of an international operation codenamed Onymous that involved the FBI and Europol to disrupt the sale of illegal narcotics on the Darknet.
"The fact that such a significant vendor has been arrested in the presence of an encrypted but open computer with address lists for customers all over the world will be of significant interest to many global law enforcement agencies who specialise in Darknet investigations," Gardai said.
Mountjoy prison officers seized a substantial amount of homemade alcohol or hooch, along with various other contraband items.
The jail’s operational support group uncovered the 60 litres of hooch fermenting behind radiators in cells and common areas of C wing yesterday.
Heroin, cannabis and 14 phones were also uncovered in the operation which was directed by intelligence gathered by prison staff.
All cells in C Wing are single occupancy, meaning the prisoners cannot deny owning the contraband items.
Prison officers say that the search got underway at 7am yesterday and that the inmates caught red handed will be internally disciplined within the jail.
As well as the 60 litres of hooch, officers seized: 14 mobile phones, 19.5g of cannabis resin, 19g of herbal cannabis, 6 sim cards, 11 chargers, 21.5 g of heroin and 421 assorted tablets.
Prison hooch is simple to make using fruits or fruit juices, sugar and bread; the concoction is usually brewed in plastic bags or cups.
The haul is the biggest since 30 mobile phones, modems and a number of USB keys were seized in Portlaoise Prison in August.
A gang boss who was lucky to survive after he was shot in the face outside a north-Dublin pub is so paranoid that he has almost become a recluse in his fortified south inner city home.
Lynch was shot in the head last October, after a gunman opened fire on a crowd attending a 21st birthday party in Hanlon's pub on North Circular Road, but survived - albeit with horrific facial injuries.
shaken
A source explained: "Lynch is still very much shaken after this incident and you do not see him walking the streets or even really being driven around anymore.
"He is very much keeping his head down and has never had such a low profile. But gardai are under no illusion that he is still up to his neck in organised crime. He is clearly very paranoid."
As Lynch continues to recuperate from his injuries, detectives are still investigating whether the first gangland murder of the year was carried out in revenge for last October's reckless gun attack in which three innocent women also received gunshot injuries to their legs.
Detectives believe Ballymun criminal Michael 'Mad Mickey' Devoy (42) was lured and shot dead as revenge for the attempted murder of Lynch.
Devoy was shot three times in the head before his body was dumped on the side of the road at Fox Hill Lane, Tallaght, in January.
Intelligence received by detectives indicated that Devoy was the bungling hitman who shot Greg Lynch.
In the aftermath of the attempted hit, the gunman, who wore a balaclava, ran towards a waiting BMW and continued firing back towards the pub, hitting the three women. The car was found burnt out in Walkinstown.
Lynch is a key member of a drugs gang that also includes Paul Rice and Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh - a mob with close links to the international crime syndicate controlled by godfather Christy Kinahan.
Originally from the Oliver Bond flats complex, Lynch has been a long-term target for gardai and rival gangsters including the 'Mr Big' drugs organisation.
target
Senior sources say Lynch is among the top 10 heroin and crack cocaine importers here.
In a major operation codenamed 'Wireless' in September, 2011, in which 18 suspected gangsters were arrested after officers carried out 50 raids, Lynch's crew were the target.
Officers from various national and regional units swooped on the suspects in a co-ordinated series of raids. Three of Lynch's closest associates were picked up in the raids.
Lynch was aged just 19 when he was jailed for six years in 2004 after he was caught handing over €400,000 of heroin.
Great posts Don Omega. With all of the irishmen roaming the streets for each others blood this guy is still somehow alive. I've read that Gerard "Hatchet" Kavanaugh was shot about 2 months back as well. I would have to assume Lynch will be leaving the country soon after taking a bullet to the face and seeing one (of few) of his top enforcers gunned down.
I'm sure this is old news to you but I've been really getting into the gangland news over there. I just can't believe 99% of this stuff doesn't even come close to national coverage based on the murder rate alone. An ever booming cocaine and heroin trade with ecstacy, cannibas, prescription drugs, amphetamine pandering to the masses and all on top of that prostitution and cigarette smuggling for those who want to appear to be above board. There is so much money and so many people looking to get their hands on it. It is going to be bloody new year.
The reports in the paper, have suggested that Greg lynch has taken on the hit on Michael Frazer, as a peace deal with Freddie Thompsons gang. So Lynch hasn't gone away, I wonder how much longer he can dodge the bullets? Also with charges coming up for a few to the top dogs, Thompson, Gill, Paschal Kelly, et all, the fight for the top spots could be a bloody one.
A father-of-one who was jailed in Dubai for drugs possession has been jailed for three years for transporting €21,000 of cocaine at Dublin Airport by swallowing the drugs. internally
Lucky Osaseyi (36) served three years of a ten year sentence for the drugs offence in The United Arab Emirates, but was deported back to Ireland in 2011 because of his serious medical condition.
Osaseyi, of Ashford Place, Dublin 7, told gardai he had swallowed 23 plastic wrapped cocaine pellets because he needed the money. He had been put in touch with a person through a friend and had expected to get €980.
He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing 304g of cocaine worth €21,284 at Terminal 1, Dublin Airport on April 28, 2013. He has 11 previous minor convictions from Ireland and one for from Dubai.
Judge Patricia Ryan suspended the last two years of a five year prison sentence on condition that he keep the peace for three years after his release.
Garda Niall Miller told John Quirke BL, prosecuting, that Osaseyi admitted swallowing the drugs the previous morning before he got on a flight from Cameroon through Paris.
He initially claimed to customs officials his trip to Cameroon had been to purchase African food. He then admitted his offence and said he felt unwell and he had to be taken to hospital.
The garda agreed with Gerardine Small BL, defending, that her client’s early guilty plea and full co-operation had been beneficial as there could have been a legal issue had the case gone to trial.
A GLAMOROUS gangster’s moll who was jailed for transporting a handgun for crime lord Patrick Irwin has set up a new business as a dressmaker and stylist.
Blonde Deirdre Moran (29) has set up the company since her release from prison during the summer and is selling her creations on social media websites.
The pretty mother of one served a five-year sentence in Mountjoy’s female wing for collecting a gun for ex-lover Irwin from an associate of Eamon ‘the Don’ Dunne.
Irwin had a string of lovers in Sligo and Moran was one of his two ‘main girlfriends’.
However, Moran has now put her life of crime behind her, going straight and opening up a thriving business. These images show the pretty ex-jailbird modelling her creations, which are available for sale on Facebook.
The page, called ‘Dee Moran Dressmaking and Styling’, was set up last week and already has hundreds of fans.
It reads: “Dee Moran is a freelance fashion dressmaker both designing my own clothes and personal dressmaking for clients also giving any styling advice.”
The page has been liked by a number of ex-cons who Moran met during her time behind bars – including Michelle Bambrick and Kiera McCormack. Sting
In 2009, heroin addict McCormack (25) was given a suspended sentence for her role in a so-called ‘honey trap’ sting in Cork city.
She lured a man into a city centre car park with the promise of sex so he could be robbed by her bottle-wielding accomplice.
At the time of her conviction, McCormack was already serving a four-year sentence for an unrelated offence of assault causing harm.
In 2010, Michelle Bambrick was jailed for three years for her role in possessing €300,000 of drugs, which she kept under a secret panel in her bedroom press.
Both McCormack and Bambrick became friends with Moran when they shared a ‘house’ in Mountjoy jail.
During her trial, Moran claimed she had travelled 124 miles to Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, Dublin, from Sligo to buy a jumper for her son, as shops in her own town had sold out.
However, gardai told the court that they had “very specific” information about the collection of the gun and that it related to a former partner of Ms Moran, who gardai had significant interest in.
Detective Garda Paul Keane said that a surveillance operation was set up in west Dublin near the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.
He said that after receiving information that Ms Moran, who was driving a black Opel Corsa, had the gun, gardai pulled her over as she drove on the M4.
Det Garda Keane said Ms Moran was observed driving into the Liffey Valley
Shopping Centre car park at around 12.30pm before going into the shopping centre for an hour. She returned to her car and was observed on her telephone appearing to look for another vehicle.
A Toyota Dyna van and Ms Moran drove in convoy to nearby Ballyfermot, where they pulled into a tyre depot.
The driver of the van made contact with Ms Moran and she then turned her vehicle around and drove towards the M4. She was intercepted by gardai in an unmarked car and was pulled over.
A search was conducted on the car and a silver revolver was found in a sock underneath the front passenger seat.
Moran’s ex-lover Patrick Irwin (33) is the head of a Sligo-based drugs gang.
The Continuity IRA and the Real IRA are two of only three non-Islamic terrorist organisations who have been designated as a threat to the United States.
The CIRA were re-confirmed by US Secretary of State John Kerry in recent months as maintaining their threat to US security, while the RIRA were re-entered in 2013.
The paramilitary dissidents are named amid a list largely made up of the most dangerous Islamic terrorists in the world, which includes Boko Haram, the Taliban and branches of Al Qaeda.
In fact, the CIRA and Real IRA are the only Western European groups who have been deemed a threat to US security, except for ETA – a terror group fighting for control of the Basque region in Spain.
Based upon a review of the record of groups which are red alert in the US, the Secretary of
State signed an order last April re-confirming that the CIRA were still a huge threat.
The CIRA were first designated on the US terror list in 2004, and again after the shooting dead of PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll in 2009.
He had responded to a 999 call and was the first police officer to be killed since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
He was killed two days after the Real IRA shooting of two British soldiers outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim.
The Continuity IRA, which rejects the peace process in Northern Ireland, have recently split into two groupings, one in Limerick and the other in Dublin
In 2011, Liam Kenny, was murdered at his Clondalkin home, allegedly by drug dealers, and in retaliation for his death, the Limerick-based Continuity IRA embarked upon a campaign which showed just how fanatical they are.
The brutal murder of an innocent delivery man David Darcy resulted in the trial of Rose Lynch at the Special Criminal Court. She is a daughter of Republican hardliner ‘Tiny’ Joe Lynch.
During her trial, the court heard that Darcy was on a chilling list of six men that Rose Lynch had planned to assassinate in retaliation for Kenny’s murder.
But CIRA intelligence had got it wrong about Darcy, who was in fact a hard-working man who only came to their attention because his delivery route often took him to Limerick.
The Sunday World revealed after she was jailed that Lynch went to jail staunchly refusing to name her former lover Dermot Gannon as her co-assassin. He is serving a sentence on gun charges.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/15/1408:55 AM
Originally Posted By: slumpy
Interesting, "designated as threats to the US". In what way is CIRA or RIRA a threat to the US?
How prevalent was American funding of the Irish Republican Army?
The Discreet Charm of the Terrorist Cause
Since the bombing attacks in London last month, a welter of columnists, writers, talking heads and ordinary people have puzzled over the mystery of British Muslims, one in four of whom recently told pollsters that they sympathize with the July 7 suicide bombers.
The idea that British Muslims, whose parents received asylum, found jobs, and made lives in Britain, could be so deeply affected by the "oppression" of Muslims in countries they have never visited seems incomprehensible. The notion that events in distant deserts should lead the middle-class inhabitants of London or Leeds to admire terrorists seems inexplicable. But why should this phenomenon be so incomprehensible or inexplicable, at least to Americans? We did, after all, once tolerate a similar phenomenon ourselves.
I am talking about the sympathy for the Irish Republican Army that persisted for decades in some Irish American communities and is only now fading away. Like British Muslim support for Muslim extremist terrorism, Irish American support for Irish terrorism came in many forms. There were Irish Americans who waved the Irish flag once a year on St. Patrick's Day and admired the IRA's cause but felt queasy about the methods. There were Irish Americans who collected money for Catholic charities in Northern Ireland without condoning the IRA at all. There were also Irish Americans who, while claiming to be "aiding the families of political prisoners," were in fact helping to arm IRA terrorists. Throughout the 1970s, until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher asked President Ronald Reagan to stop them, they were the IRA's primary source of funding. And even after that they were widely tolerated.
I concede there is one major difference: The Irish terrorists were setting off their bombs across the ocean and not in New York or Boston, which somehow made the whole thing seem less real. But in Britain the explosions were real enough. In 1982 -- the year an IRA bomb killed eight people in Hyde Park -- four IRA men were arrested in New York after trying to buy surface-to-air missiles from an FBI agent. In 1984 -- the year the IRA tried to kill the whole British cabinet in Brighton -- an IRA plot to smuggle seven tons of explosives was foiled, an action that led to the arrests of several Americans. As recently as 1999, long after the IRA had declared its cease-fire, members of an IRA group connected to an American organization, the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid), were arrested for gun-running in Florida.
The range of Americans who were unbothered by this sort of thing was surprisingly wide. Some were members of Congress, such as Republican Rep. Peter King of Long Island, who stayed with IRA supporters on visits to Northern Ireland and drank at a Belfast club called the Felons, whose members were all IRA ex-cons. Some were born in Ireland, such as Michael Flannery, Noraid's founder, who once said that "the more British soldiers sent home from Ulster in coffins, the better," and whose flattering obituary in 1995 described him as a man who "treated everyone he met with gentle respect." Some were Americans of Irish descent, such as Tom McBride, a businessman who is still the chairman of the Hartford chapter of Noraid, and who still refuses to condemn IRA terrorism. "I think they are protecting a segment of the population that needs to be protected," he told me over the phone.
Nor were these opinions irrelevant. The Irish journalist Conor O'Clery, who has followed Irish-American relations for more than a decade, says the IRA has "always looked to the diaspora for moral backing" as well as money. That meant that when, in the 1990s, prominent Irish Americans began to advocate "constitutional nationalism" (meaning the political process) instead of "armed struggle" (meaning terrorism), the views of many in Northern Ireland shifted, too. The IRA's announcement last week that it would finally abandon armed struggle was at least partly the result of a decade of Irish American pressure. Which means, of course, that if Irish American pressure had been applied much earlier, the whole thing might have been over long ago.
My point here isn't really about Northern Irish politics, however, but about the extraordinarily powerful appeal of foreign, "revolutionary," "idealistic" violence to the inhabitants of otherwise peaceful societies. You don't have to be Muslim, or poor, or an extremist, to feel the romantic pull of terrorism. You can be a middle-class American and a lapsed Catholic whose grandmother happened to come from Donegal.
But the appeal of foreign violence can also be destroyed, or at least reduced, if community leaders agree that they want that to happen. If British Muslims deploy every one of their religious, civic and business institutions, they may, over time, be able to eliminate the climate of tolerance that made the London bombings possible, just as Irish Americans -- as well as Rep. King, who has now called on the IRA to disband -- eventually helped eliminate the climate of tolerance around the IRA. And if they don't -- there will always be recruits willing to die for a glamorous foreign cause.
The reports in the paper, have suggested that Greg lynch has taken on the hit on Michael Frazer, as a peace deal with Freddie Thompsons gang. So Lynch hasn't gone away, I wonder how much longer he can dodge the bullets? Also with charges coming up for a few to the top dogs, Thompson, Gill, Paschal Kelly, et all, the fight for the top spots could be a bloody one.
I haven't heard of the peace deal. Great pull Lugs. That is very good question. Even the luckiest ones seem to run out of lives after about 4 or 5 attempts but even the greats get a shot of lead where it counts eventually. I don't see this guy lasting long even with the peace deal, but that's just my thought on it. Quite a few regime changes in prominent areas for these top spots though so I definitely agree on further bloodshed with those individuals being involved.
There was also a substantial seizure of firearms today in the East Wall are of the inner city with 1 man arrested. It is being said that the guns and the suspect are all linked with a paramilitary group in the north inner city of Dublin.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/17/1412:36 AM
Another couple of arrests ion the north side linked with the funds of the last few days. The kinahan a were back in dublin last night for a boxing match, rumours and talk of a meeting with major limerick gang Keane/collopy. It was even said that The Dapper Don himself was here. Daniel and Christy jnr were photographed at the weigh in, but there hasn't been any pics of Christy snr in the press so far. Things are getting interesting, with the Dundons all gone limerick has been very quiet, that could all change soon.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/17/1412:39 AM
Another couple of arrests on the north side linked with the funds of the last few days. The Kinahans were back in dublin last night for a boxing match, rumours and talk of a meeting with major limerick gang Keane/collopy. It was even said that The Dapper Don himself was here. Daniel and Christy jnr were photographed at the weigh in, but there hasn't been any pics of Christy snr in the press so far. Things are getting interesting, with the Dundons all gone limerick has been very quiet, that could all change soon.
Killer Costello throws prison party for friends and family weeks after being caught with mobile phone behind bars.
Scumbag: Killer Christopher Costello murdered gang boss Kieran Keane Scumbag: Killer Christopher Costello murdered gang boss Kieran Keane MURDER Inc killer Christopher ‘Smokey’ Costello enjoyed a jail-house family party, just weeks after being caught red-handed with a mobile phone.
He was joined this week by 14 family members – including adults and children – for the gathering in a visitors’ room reserved for privileged prisoners at the Midlands Prison.
The so-called ‘enhanced’ room was available to Costello even though he is currently serving punishment for possessing a mobile phone, according to sources. Inmates and jailers are furious over what they see as kid-glove treatment for the notorious Limerick mobster, according to one Sunday World source.
It is claimed that the prison tuck-shop was even asked to organise a Black Forest Gateau for the gathering. Sources also claim that some of Costello’s visitors have been previously refused entry, after failing to get past screening procedures.
“It seems like the Limerick boys can get whatever they want and they don’t have to worry about getting into trouble,” claimed one source.
Such visits are sometimes allowed in the event of special family occasions, or if senior staff or medical officers believe it can help troubled inmates.
Costello has been a disruptive prisoner since being jailed for life for the 2003 murder of Kieran Keane (below).
In 2010, Smokey was also caught with a mobile phone. Along with Anthony ‘Noddy’ McCarthy, Costello has been involved in threats against jail staff and provoking unrest.
The most infamous incident came when a jailer in Wheatfield Prison refused to open a gate for the thug in 2008. The gangster’s response was: “F**k you, you’re dead.”
Not long afterwards, as the officer pulled up in his car at a set of traffic lights, a black BWW SUV pulled up beside him. The windows slid down and two guns were pointed in his direction.
Members of the McCarthy-Dundon faction have also been heavily involved in running drug smuggling while behind bars. At one point, more than 80 inmates were identified as being part of the faction before it began to implode.
Like Smokey, three of the four Dundon brothers involved in crime are now serving life sentences. Costello was jailed for life along with four others, including John Dundon, in 2003 for luring rival gangster Kieran Keane to his death.
The trial judge warned at the time that the men would likely stay behind bars so long as the underworld feuding continued in Limerick. And recent seizures in Mountjoy have raised fears that prison gangs are back on the rise.
Ten days ago jailers found 60 litres of homemade booze and 14 mobile phones. They seized €3,000 of heroin, 400 prescription tablets, 19 grams of skunk-weed, and five makeshift knifes known as ‘shivs’.
A TERRORIST gun thug whipped up the mob that held Tanaiste Joan Burton trapped in her car as an anti-water protest spiralled out of control.
Pictures and video obtained by the Sunday World today prove that dangerous dissidents hijacked the peaceful people’s protests against the charges.
As Gardai step up armed protection around the Cabinet in the wake of a chilling threat to shoot Enviroment Minister Alan Kelly, we can reveal that convicted INLA supporter Thomas Kelly was at the centre of the protest that turned ugly last week.
The thug has a conviction for supplying a deadly Glock pistol to a notorious INLA killer
An Albanian chef who agreed to hold €87,000 of cocaine and cannabis to offset a drug debt has avoided jail after receiving a six year suspended jail sentence.
Gardai caught Emil Duro (28) when they spotted him running with a white bag away from two males in Dublin city centre.
Garda Brian Peters said he and colleagues found €67,000 of cocaine in the white bag and a further €20,000 of cannabis behind the boiler in Duro’s home.
Duro pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing the cocaine at Gardner Street Lower and the cannabis at his Bertram Court home on Francis Street on May 13, 2013. He has no previous convictions.
Gda Peters told Fiona Murphy BL, prosecuting, that Duro said he owed €6,000 from a drug debt he had built up in less than nine months. He said he wasn’t an addict, but he used to take a lot of cocaine.
The garda agreed with Dominic McGinn SC, defending, that his client had offered the people for whom he was holding the drugs €3,000 he had in savings but this was rejected.
Mr McGinn submitted to Judge Mary Ellen Ring that Duro has not taken drugs since his arrest in May 2013 and has been offered work in a takeaway business.
Judge Ring suspended the sentence in full on condition Duro keep the peace.
Two men convicted of possessing €3.5 million worth of cocaine and heroin have lost appeals to have their sentence reduced.
Mark Mahony (34) of Oak Court Lawn, Palmerstown, Dublin and Jason Brennan (33) of Willow Way Road Celbridge, Co Kildare had pleaded guilty to possession of €3.5 million worth of heroin and cocaine in January 2013.
They were both sentenced to 13 years imprisonment each with the final three suspended by Judge Martin Nolan at Naas Circuit Criminal Court in November of last year.
Refusing their appeal against sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan said the pair met each other in the car park of a service station in Naas on January 17 2013.
They were seen transferring a number of boxes to Mahony's car. Both men were spotted, stopped and arrested as they tried to leave the car park, Mr Justice Sheehan said.
Mark Mahony
The value of the drugs was €3.5 million - €488,761 worth of cocaine and just over €3.1 million worth of heroin. The judge said both men were appealing their sentence on grounds that they were excessive and oppressive and insufficient weight was given to mitigating factors.
Counsel for Mahony, Seán Gillane SC, said the movement of the drugs was from one car to another and his client's engagement “on a temporal level was for a matter of minutes”.
Mr Justice Sheehan said Mahony had no previous convictions and had worked tirelessly from the age of 15, when he left school to work as a metal fabricator.
In 2005, he was involved in a relationship and together they purchased a house. Some years later, the relationship broke down and Mahony, who had taken sole responsibility for the mortgage repayments, found himself without a job.
He tried to self harm, Mr Justice Sheehan said, and on one occasion had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets. Mahony had engaged with the Samaritans and was held in high regard by officers in charge at Cloverhill prison. A urine sample at sentencing confirmed that he was drug free.
Mr Justice Sheehan said Brennan had no previous convictions and had not been known previously to gardaí. Brennan had told gardaí that if he had known he was involved in he distribution of heroin he would not have involved himself because he had suffered form the drug himself.
Notwithstanding his addiction he worked his whole life. The court had evidence that he worked from 2003 to 2012 with the same firm and his employers described him as a popular and hardworking employee.
At the time of sentencing he had been in a relationship for twelve years and had a seven-year-old daughter.
Counsel for both men submitted that there were specific and exceptional circumstances that would justify the court going below the minimum sentence.
The Court of Appeal noted the significant rehabilitation steps taken by both men. These matters were before the sentencing judge and were taken into account by him. Mr Justice Sheehan said the sentencing judge clearly held that the appropriate sentence was one that exceeded the 10 year minimum in respect of offences involving such quantities of drugs.
Mr Justice Sheehan said the Court of Appeal saw no reason to interfere with the sentence imposed.
Both men were returned to prison where they will serve out their sentences. They each had a number of supporters and family members in court for yesterday's appeal.
Kingpin: Gareth Quinn is believed to lead the mob Killer: Thomas Hinchon Killer: Thomas Hinchon
A VIOLENT crime gang has set up Ireland’s first industrial drugs factory after flying over two Chinese chemists to show them how to make ‘zimmos’ and steroids.
The gang – dubbed ‘The Krays’ – bought machinery from China, believed to be worth an estimated €500,000, to set up their Breaking Bad laboratory and have learned how to mix and press the drugs themselves.
Armed robber Gareth Quinn is believed to head up the west Dublin gang, who are also believed to be responsible for flying a helicopter drone into a high-security jail to drop off a consignment of drugs.
Quinn’s mob have been left reeling since their operation was shut down just a few months ago. They had set up a complex distribution network and even developed packaging before the premises was busted in July, in what is the first major wholesaling plant of its kind discovered in the country.
A month earlier they were believed to be behind a daring plot to get drugs, including zimmos, into Wheatfield Prison using a high-tech drone which was fitted out with a goPro camera. It is understood that the gang had spent €2,000 on the drone and another €4,500 to fit it out so it could carry the consignment of drugs – destined for Quinn’s brother Ian, a 33-year-old armed robber.
Gareth Quinn is believed to head up the gang, along with two brothers from Ronanstown in Clondalkin, who were previously nicknamed ‘The Kray Twins’ by caged killer Thomas Hinchon, who worked with them during his reign of terror.
One of the brothers is before the courts on heroin charges and cannot be named. The pair, who have pet dogs called Reggie and Ronnie, are known for their violence and have tight links with the IRA. They were schooled in armed robbery and enforcement by a senior republican figure who was also said to have mentored the notorious Wilson brothers, Eric, Keith and John.
Another man arrested during the operation was Barry Donnelly (37), from Tallaght. In 2011, both he and Quinn were charged with possession of cannabis for sale or supply after a grow-house was busted in Manor Kilbride, Co. Wicklow. At the time, the Garda National Drugs Unit searched a house and seized 170 cannabis plants and two pill machines.
However, in recent months the gang are believed to have moved their operation up a level and officers were amazed with what they found after they burst into a lock-up in Crumlin last July. Gardai from the National Drugs Unit thought they had discovered an ecstasy unit, but were stunned to discover a laboratory which had been pumping out the street drugs and wholesaleing batches of body-building steroids.
Gardai seized machinery, chemical components and up to 50,000 tablets in a series of raids and arrested four known criminals and one of their girlfriends. The gang’s operation was so advanced that it is understood they produced the tablets themselves, having flown in Chinese experts to teach them how to mix the complex Zopiclone, which is sold on the streets as zimmos.
Gardai are now working closely with the Irish Medicines Board as they prepare a file for the DPP, as the substances are not strictly banned in Ireland. However, sources say they are confident that they will be bringing charges against the mob.
Gareth Quinn is a well-known criminal. In 2001, he was one of four men charged in connection with an attempted bank raid in Abbeyleix, Co. Laois, that ended in the death of a detective. He was charged with being a passenger in a stolen car in relation to the incident in which Detective Sergeant John Eiffe was shot dead when police opened fire during the bank raid.
At the time of the trial he fled the country, but in 2004 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob the AIB banks and allowing himself to be carried in the stolen car. At the time, then Chief Superintendent Noel White, of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigations told the court that the amount of money the gang could have got away with would have been “in the millions”.
He had handed himself over to gardai after his fellow conspirators, including Kinahan enforcer Kevin Lynch, were sentenced to 10 years each by Portlaoise Circuit Criminal Court. He was handed a seven-year sentence, but the last two years were suspended.
Quinn’s operation was busted after armed detectives raided the lock-up at Crumlin and later a premises at an industrial estate at Greenhills Road in Tallaght. It was at the lock-up that they believed they had discovered an ecstasy tablet factory and took possession of pill-making machines.
Five separate police raids followed in Tallaght and Clondalkin and the gang were arrested.
A FORMER IRA member suspected of involvement in the murder of ‘the General’ Martin Cahill is on a list of suspected republican paedophiles which has been handed over to gardai.
The man, who was also involved in a number of other high-profile IRA operations, is one of nine men on a list given to gardai by Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty. The list contains details of men who were moved to the Republic after IRA bosses became aware of sexual abuse allegations against them in the North.
Ms Doherty (below) made an official statement to gardai last Friday week detailing the nine cases where the IRA are said to have “facilitated” abusers in the organisation to move from the North to the Republic.
She received the information from a source with detailed knowledge of the IRA and the alleged abuse cases. The information passed on to gardai included names, dates and locations north and south of the border.
The abuse is said to have occurred in locations across Northern Ireland including Belfast, Lurgan, and Bangor, while the alleged abusers were moved to Dublin, Louth and Donegal. The cases span from the 1980s to the 2000s.
One of the men included on the list is believed to have been involved in the murder of notorious gangster Cahill, who was shot dead by the IRA in 1994. The man, who is originally from Fermanagh, is believed to have driven the hitman to the murder on a motorbike.
He was involved in a number of other high-profile IRA operations which we cannot detail as it would identify him. It is alleged he raped a 14-year-old girl in the North and was subsequently moved to the south after the allegations were brought to the IRA.
Meanwhile, the Sunday World has learnt a number of other well-known republican figures have been linked to sex attacks.
One well-known figure is suspected of raping a woman in Dublin in the 1980s. The man had been cheating on his wife with the woman. She told gardai that he beat her severely before raping her.
The woman spoke to detectives in detail about the matter, but did not make a formal complaint as she feared the man would have her killed.
“She said he would have her shot if he knew she had spoken to gardai,” said a source. “He was never even brought in for questioning.”
The man was heavily involved in the anti-drugs marches in the capital in the 1980s. Another well-known Sinn Fein member is suspected of raping his partner’s daughter over a decade ago. The mother of the girl spoke to gardai, but once again did not press ahead with the matter.
It is understood the suspected paedophile was given a punishment beating by IRA members who were made aware of the rapes.
A source said: “He was given a hiding, but that was the end of it. The girl’s mother wanted him charged, but because of the republican links she didn’t press ahead.”
The controversy over IRA sex abuse was sparked by Belfast woman Mairia Cahill, who went public over abuse she suffered at the hands of a senior IRA figure when she was a teenager.
Meanwhile, a major inquiry has found paramilitaries were involved in the sexual exploitation of children across Northern Ireland. The Marshall inquiry received “powerful and persuasive” evidence that paramilitaries sexually abused young people
The High Court in Dublin has for the second time began hearing the extradition case of a man wanted by the US on terrorism charges.
Earlier this month Ali Charaf Damache (49), an Algerian-born Irish citizen, won an appeal at the Supreme Court for a judicial review of the DPP’s decision not to prosecute him in Ireland.
The Supreme Court also indicated the case should proceed before a judge other than Mr Justice John Edwards who previously heard the extradition case and had refused leave for judicial review.
Today Mr Damache appeared before the High Court where the recently appointed judge Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly began hearing his case.
Mr Damache, previously with an address in Waterford, is wanted by the US authorities in connection with an alleged conspiracy to provide support to terrorists.
If convicted in the US, he could face up to 45 years in jail, a term his lawyers say would be “a lot more” than could be imposed here.
After the DPP decided in March 2011 not to prosecute him in Ireland, the US sought his extradition in 2012. He has been in custody since, pending the outcome of the extraction matter.
He won the appeal at the Supreme Court against the High Court’s refusal of permission for a judicial review of the decision not to prosecute him here.
The five-judge court unanimously ruled Mr Damache was entitled to judicial review of two issues: whether the DPP’s March 2011 refusal to prosecute him here is reviewable in the circumstances of his case; and was the DPP entitled, in the circumstances of his case, to refuse to give reasons for her refusal.
Chief Justice Ms Justice Susan Denham stressed the court wanted all matters concerning Mr Damache, including the judicial review, extradition and constitutional issues, to proceed to hearing in the High Court as soon as possible.
The court also asked for, and obtained, the consent of the State that issues related to arguments raised by Mr Damache under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights should be addressed in tandem with the judicial review.
Mr Damache had twice sought judicial review of the DPP's decision not to prosecute him in Ireland for the offences, but both applications were refused by the High Court.
Last month the Irish Human Rights Commission intervened in the case.
Michael Lynn SC for the IHRC told the court that “the commission is of the view it should intervene.”
He said the Commission wanted to be in a position to make submissions on the human rights issues relating to the case.
Mr Lynn said one potential issue would be his possible detention in a Supermax prison for 40-45 years and the right to practice his Muslim faith.
Mr Damache, who has been living in Ireland for more than 10 years, is wanted on charges alleging conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and attempted identity theft to facilitate an act of international terrorism.
The US alleges Mr Damache conspired with American woman Colleen LaRose, who used the online name Jihad Jane, and others to create a terror cell in Europe.
LaRose was sentenced last January to 10 years in prison after being convicted of planning to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had depicted the head of the Muslim prophet Mohammad on a dog.
Don mega, some great posts, first thing Sunday morning I head for the shop to get my Sunday world just for the crime stories, it's interesting when reading so and so can't be named but when you read enough reports you know of the previous arrests and pending trials so it's easy enough to figure out who's been a bold boy, working in D1 I could tell you a few stories. I won't go into detail but my better half isn't irish and in a bar one night and she thinks this lad is great, really nice.... Untill I told her who and what he was. Well that night turned out different to what we both had expected.
As for Damache I'd personally pay for 3 first class flights to send him and 2 of our finest to accompany him to stand trial in the U.S. Along with a few from clonskeagh, that other dickhead from ballinteer and then the other gobshite hunger striker, what do they call it... For every action there are consequences. Don't even get me started on a certain ethnic group who play the card of "oh we are discriminated against" don't like it here? Don't contribute to society! Well then fuck off back home! (And take your accordion and trumpet with you) Then we have our own pavee point group worse than the shimmers that lot. Ok, ok rant over. I needed that.
As for Damache I'd personally pay for 3 first class flights to send him and 2 of our finest to accompany him to stand trial in the U.S. Along with a few from clonskeagh, that other dickhead from ballinteer and then the other gobshite hunger striker, what do they call it... For every action there are consequences. Don't even get me started on a certain ethnic group who play the card of "oh we are discriminated against" don't like it here? Don't contribute to society! Well then fuck off back home! (And take your accordion and trumpet with you) Then we have our own pavee point group worse than the shimmers that lot. Ok, ok rant over. I needed that.
irelands soft as fuck with immigrants, any and nearly of them get the dole no problem,
a member called ABC123, posts all irish OC stuff aswell on here, dont know were he went though,hes not on as much as he used to be
A Sligo resident who along with a then 17-year-old boy was caught in possession of over €100,000 of heroin has been given a five year suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Anthony Fitzpatrick (22) originally from The Liberties in Dublin, has no previous convictions and moved to Sligo 18 months ago where he now lives with his partner and attends college.
He told gardaí on arrest that he got involved in the offence because he was under pressure to pay a drug debt arising from his cannabis addiction.
His co-accused, Daniel O’Neill (19), who is currently living in temporary accommodation with Focus Ireland, told gardaí he had paid upfront for the heroin and was making a profit of €5,000 in a fortnight.
He took full responsibility for the total of 703.98 grammes of heroin, worth €105,598, and said Fitzpatrick didn’t own the drugs.
Both O’Neill and Fitzpatrick of Teeling House Apartment, Tubbercurry, pleaded guilty to possession of the drugs for sale or supply at various locations in Dublin 8 on March 5, 2013.
Earlier this month Judge Martin Nolan sentenced O’Neill to a five year jail term which he suspended in full. He said he had come to the conclusion O’Neill’s involvement was not as serious as he had suggested.
Today Judge Mary Ellen Ring accepted that Fitzpatrick had no previous convictions while O’Neill had two previous and a probation report before the court indicated that Fitzpatrick was at the lower end of the medium range of re-offending.
She took into account the fact that he has moved away from his family and peer group in Dublin and has settled well in Sligo. She further accepted that he has not come to garda attention since the offence and has been undergoing treatment to deal with his cannabis addiction.
Judge Ring sentenced Fitzpatrick to five years in prison but suspended it in full on strict conditions including that he engage with the Probation Service for a year.
“If you get into trouble in the next five years I will have no option to put you in prison for five years,” she warned Fitzpatrick after he entered into his bond.
She also advised that if he doesn’t co-operate with the Probation Service for a year as ordered “they will be back to me like a shot” and he will have to go to jail.
Garda Paddy Martin agreed with James Dwyer BL, defending, that his client had “no trappings of wealth” and was no living in Sligo in a stable environment where he has not come to garda attention.
Mr Dwyer told Judge Ring that his client came from a large family and both his parents died when he was 13 years old. The children were separated and Fitzpatrick lived with a family friend. He remained in school and completed his leaving certificate but had to move into hostel accommodation when he was 18.
Counsel said a probation report before the court indicated that Fitzpatrick had engaged positively with the service, had expressed remorse for his role and showed insight into his offending behaviour. He is still using cannabis but is getting treatment for this.
Gda Martin told Lorcan Staines BL, prosecuting that gardaí set up a surveillance operation following a tip off.
O’Neill and Fitzpatrick were spotted on three occasions meeting other males during which gardaí suspected drugs were being exchanged.
Gardaí followed the two men to a house on North Circular Road where they stayed for an hour before leaving again in a taxi. Both Fitzpatrick and O’Neill were later stopped in this taxi and a shopping bag containing €36,390 worth of heroin was found at O’Neill’s feet.
Gda Martin said €4,000 worth of heroin was found in the teenager’s underwear in a follow-up search at the garda station.
A further search of the premises the pair had just left led to the discovery of €65,100 worth of heroin in a compartment under the kitchen sink.
O’Neill admitted in interview that all the drugs were his for sale or supply. He said he would earn about €5,000 in profit after two weeks.
O’Neill knew the monetary value of various different weights of heroin and said that he sold “five half gardens that day”.
He said the drugs had been paid for and he didn’t owe any money for them. He told gardaí he was sorry and he would stop.
Part of the haul discovered by Customs officers at Dublin Port The tins in which the cannabis was discovered
A massive haul of cannabis worth €4.5m stuffed into more than 1,000 tins of olives and bound for the UK has been uncovered at Dublin Port.
Customs officials seized the drugs after a profiling operation targeting cargo at the facility.
The 200 kilos of cannabis was divided into small parcels which were double vacuum packed and individually stashed in 1,050 catering tins of olives in oil.
Investigating officers believe the drugs arrived in the Irish capital from Spain and were destined for the UK.
A Revenue spokeswoman said: "Investigations are continuing here with international enquiries ongoing in Spain and the UK."
The concealment of the drugs was so sophisticated that the drug smugglers would have had to use a canning factory to stash each of the 200g waterproof parcels in the sealed tins.
The smell of the olives was enough to put a drug detection dog at Dublin Port off the scent.
Michael Gilligan, Irish Revenue's head of central investigations for tax and customs, said it was a sophisticated standard of concealment that indicated the level of the crime gang behind it.
"We've seen drugs smuggled in coffee before, but this is the first time we have have come across it in olives," he said.
"The smell of the olives was overpowering.
"The whole focus of this operation was to make sure no drug dogs would detect it."
The cargo was planned to be loaded onto another vessel bound for a UK port before the Revenue intercepted it.
The consignment only came to light when officials became suspicious after using profiling techniques on the cargo.
They looked at documentation, the route it had taken, where it was bound, the weights of the tins and compared these with previous similar cargoes.
Four pallets of the tins - which were part of a wider mixed cargo in a 40ft container on the vessel from southern Spain - were isolated and scanned using mobile x-ray technology.
Officials then had to use tin openers to confirm the contents.
Irish authorities are now working with UK and Spanish counterparts to follow a paper trail in the hope it will lead them to the organised crime gang behind the botched smuggling bid.
THEY are home to decent, hardworking families who are struggling to live and bring up kids.
But some of Ireland’s most troubled estates are also under siege from the twin parasites of anti-social behaviour and organised crime.
The economic boom saw criminals grow rich with cash from drug dealing, piling on the misery for the people who wanted nothing to do with them. The recession and the lack of cash saw the tables turned on drug gangs as volunteers, community groups and local authority projects were able to make in-roads. Yet the problems caused by anti-social behaviour, drug mobs and money lenders have left decent neighbourhoods locked in a battle to shake reputations and crime statistics they don’t deserve.
Neilstown, Dublin
This west Dublin suburb is home to thousands of honest citizens, but is also the stomping ground of a hard core of the city’s serious criminals. At times, open drug dealing has made trips to the shops an ordeal for some people, while for years burnt-out cars were a regular feature of the landscape. One woman previously told the Sunday World how she became the target of thugs who left a burning wheelie bin at her front door.
Dublin 1
The Sunday World recently revealed how drug addicts flocked to an inner-city flat to buy a version of crystal meth-style drug. The drug-induced erratic behaviour is witnessed by residents and workers in the area. The area has Ireland’s most concentrated and obvious problem, with street addicts involved in drug-dealing, petty crime and violent altercations.
West Tallaght, Dublin
Home to some of the Ireland’s most prolific criminals, such as the ‘Subaru Gang’, the people living on the estates of west Tallaght have had to endure more than their fair share of anti-social behaviour. The presence of community groups and sports clubs has gone some way to cancelling the evil influence of the drug-dealing gangs.
Sheepmoor, Dublin
In the western part of Dublin, Sheepmoor has witnessed a litany of gang-related crimes including a number of murders. Drugs dealers and users have blighted the lives of people trying to get on with their daily business. It is part of the territory once ruled by the infamous Westies gang, whose ultra-violence eventually cost several lives, including those of its leaders Shane Cotes and Stephen Sugg.
Fairview Crescent, Limerick
The most expensive public housing scheme ever to be built in Limerick has been dubbed the “estate from hell” after being taken over by rampaging, gun-wielding teens. In just five years, 20 law-abiding families have been forced to abandon their homes in the estate after being targeted by “wild” teenage gangs.
South Hill, Limerick
For years, the sprawling estate of O’Malley Park had become a byword for criminality. The ordinary people living there often had to run the gauntlet of gang-connected thugs involved in drug dealing and violent attacks.
People such as McCarthy-Dundon lieutenant Paul Crawford were barred from the estate in a bid to stop anti-social yobs from entering the area. Community groups and volunteers have made huge in-roads in turning things around.
Moyross, Limerick
This collection of smaller estates has seen more than its fair share of violence. Pineview Gardens was where ‘Fat’ Frankie Ryan was shot and kids Millie and Gavin Murray suffered horrendous burns in a firebomb attack. There are active community groups working to help youngsters find an alternative way of life away from criminality and anti-social behaviour.
Ballincurra, Limerick
The violent Dundon brothers – Wayne, John, Ger and Dessie – did their best to turn this part of central Limerick into a no-go area. In some cases, residents who refused to sell up property to them for less than the market value were the target of devastating arson attacks. ballybeg, waterford Drug gangs, feuding traveller clans and violent money lenders have given Ballybeg a reputation that the majority of residents don’t deserve. The Sunday World recently revealed how gang violence has been specifically targeted at people working to improve the lives of people in the area.
Muirhevnamor, Dundalk
Gun and arson attacks this summer have highlighted how serious criminals have established a presence in this huge estate in Dundalk. One gun attack this summer was a reckless and dangerous attack which could easily have cost the life of an innocent bystander. Criminals with paramilitary connections have allowed serious crime to become embedded in the region.
Gardai have launched a round-the-clock armed checkpoint blitz in a drive to crush the burglary gangs that have been terrorising the country.
In one of the largest ever operations of its kind, armed teams, backed up by helicopter support overhead, are mounting 40 checkpoints a day on roads in the east and south-east.
The campaign is less than a week old but already gardai have made 24 arrests and seized 41 vehicles in what has been described as an "in-your-face style of policing" by senior sources.
In addition, a massive amount of intelligence on the gangs has been gathered with gardai identifying hundreds of suspects.
Last night, gardai arrested another two criminals after their stolen BMW car was stopped at an armed checkpoint in Carlow. The Herald was present at the moment the two men, one of whom is wanted by gardai in Louth for armed robbery, tried to flee when they approached the checkpoint at Leighlinbridge at 8.40pm.
When officers quizzed the driver of the 2010 BMW regarding his driving licence, he immediately drove off at speed. Armed gardai gave chase as the pursuit continued on a maze of rural roads. The stolen car was fitted with false registration plates and reached speeds of 200kmph.
Garda Liam Lawlor from Carlow traffic corps assisted by Gda Paul Hogan arrested the two men in Clara, Co Kilkenny following a terrifying 15-minute chase through Gowran, Paulstown, before it ended in Clara. The arrested men were being held in Carlow garda station last night.
The overt operation will continue to until at least Christmas with the aim of tackling burglary gangs head-on.
A core group of up to 10 family-based mobs are involved in the crime wave that has targeted vulnerable rural homes and used the country's motorway system to make rapid getaways. The gangs, who use high-powered cars that often speed away from garda vehicles, are mostly Dublin-based and are made up of Traveller or Romanian criminals.
Most of the criminals are based in the Tallaght area of southwest Dublin but some also have addresses in other parts of the capital, including Rathfarnham, Dun Laoghaire and Shankill. It is estimated that more than 300 criminals are involved in the gangs.
The armed garda officers are being dispatched to slip-roads on the motorway system as well as secondary routes both northbound and southbound to and from the Dublin area.
A vast stretch of countryside from Gorey, Co Wexford, in the east and west to Thurles, Co Tipperary, is the focus of the operation. Gardai have established key information about the structures of these gangs.
The criminals have been using their connections in towns where they have "family hubs" to gather local intelligence on burglary targets.
Among the towns identified where this issue is most prevalent are two in Tipperary and one in Wexford.
A major part of the operation is the use of spy technology involving registration-plate recognition software hooked up to a database of cars associated with the crimewave, which is known as Automatic Number Plate Recognition. If a car linked to previous burglaries or crime is spotted entering the area, gardai send out an alert to other officers in the vicinity.
"This is a massive ongoing operation in which local gardai, both in plain clothes and uniform are assisted by national units including the Organised Crime Unit and the Air Support Unit every day and night," a source told the Herald. "Customs and Revenue are also playing their part by carrying out checks for laundered diesel at these stops."
While noting the arrests and car seizures that have taken place in the past week, the intelligence gathered so far has been described as "perhaps of even more importance" and will lead to a large number of arrests in the very near future.
"This is being run as part of Operation Fiacla and the ultimate hope is that it will lead these gangs to realise that the country's motorway system is no longer easy pickings for these crews," the source added.
"Law-abiding people have nothing to fear about these armed checkpoints and, in fact, crime prevention advice in relation to burglaries and similar crimes is given to ordinary people by community gardai when they are stopped as well," a source explained.
The gardai set up Operation Fiacla to combat the burglary gangs and more than 10,500 people have been arrested in just over two years since it was launched.
More than 6,200 people have been charged with offences in the 29 months since it began.
Gardai investigating a string of failed ‘assassination’ attempts on a former associate of ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson are finding it difficult to stack up his accounts of some of the incidents.
Car dealer Michael ‘Micky’ Frazer has shown up a number of times at Garda stations around south Dublin with allegations that he has survived broad daylight attempts on his life in busy locations around the city.
Yet it is understood that gardai are having difficulty finding witnesses to the attacks or matching CCTV footage with his version of some events.
Frazer is a marked man after falling out with his former associates in the ‘Fat’ Freddie gang over a brief affair with a woman and switching his allegiances to bitter rival Brian Rattigan.
He was shot last March at a church car park in Clondalkin, but since then officers believe that his paranoia about his safety is out of control.
Sources say he is convinced he is being followed by masked men who have placed tracking devices on his vehicles and who shoot at him randomly. And he is convinced that he sees Kinahan enforcer Paul Rice everywhere he goes.
It is understood that officers are finding it difficult to locate witnesses to a number of his reports, but are still actively investigating any alleged attempts on his life.
Earlier this month gardai were told he had been shot at in Islandbridge by two gunmen and that Frazer had fled on foot dodging bullets as he went.
An unidentified caller also indicated that Paul Rice had been spotted in the area, but officers who went to the scene failed to locate Frazer, the gunmen, or any witnesses to the attack.
The incident happened just days after he crashed into a Luas pole believing he was being followed by a mystery hitman in a Range Rover.
Frazer was driving his BMW at the time and crashed as he tried to flee from the vehicle, which officers have failed to pick up on CCTV in the area where he was driving.
The 34-year-old got out of his crashed car and flagged down a taxi, which took him to Crumlin Garda station where he reported the incident.
Frazer has also told officers that he survived a murder attempt last August in Tallaght when a masked gunman’s weapon jammed.
Rice was questioned in connection with the incident, but was released without charge. Rice himself has been living in fear since his best friend and former associate Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was gunned down in a Spanish bar last August.
“There is an enormous amount of paranoia at the moment and it is hard to decipher exactly what is going on,” a source said. “While there is no doubt that Frazer’s life is in danger, a number of his accounts of what happened just haven’t quite added up on investigation.
“He was certainly shot last March, that much we know as he had the injuries to prove it. But what has happened since seems to be a mixture of total paranoia and fear.”
International crime reporter Donal MacIntyre selects his top 10 tough neighbourhoods and trawls the bloody streets from Mexico to New Orleans to see the decay and destruction at play in some of the most hazardous places on earth.
1. Ciudad Juarez
The Mexican border town tops the list of the world’s most dangerous neighbourhoods. The $90billion U.S. drug trade fuels the murder and mayhem in this cartel-run district. Added to that, the rape and murder of women on an unprecedented scale, and you have the world’s most dangerous neighbourhood.
2. San Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula, the murder capital of the world, is nearly a brother in arms to its Mexican counterpart with its death toll also closely linked to the demand for cocaine in the U.S. The deportations from American prisons of illegal immigrants and members of feared gangs MS-13 and Mara 18 back to Honduras has spawned a gang culture and created a killing field within the city limits. It made headlines this week when a teenage beauty queen, Miss Honduras Maria Jose Alvarado and her sister, were gunned down an hour from San Pedro Sula. The chief suspect is a jealous boyfriend enraged when she danced with another man. In a city where a woman is murdered every 13 hours, it’s a common event.
3. Cali
The home of the Cali Cartel, Cali has been a byword for danger over three decades. In between the predictable drug business murders, left and right-wing militias battle it out for supremacy. FARC, the IRA-instructed left-wing organisation, has a particular foothold here. Planted bombs, kidnappings and terror attacks are part of daily life.
4. Belem
Belem, the main port on the Amazon, is a metropolis with a murder rate that cannot be accurately ascertained. The Brazilian city’s Klondyke reputation as a route for illicit drugs, valuable timber and the massacre of native indigenous Indians makes for a dangerous town.
5. Caracas
Caracas has a murder rate 100 times that of Ireland, most of which go unsolved. The capital of Venezuela is a bustling, vibrant city, but at the wrong time and in the wrong place, murder and violence is rampant and raw.
6. New Orleans
Just 80 miles away from Baton Rouge, also a high-ranking danger zone, New Orleans remains the most volatile and the most high profile of U.S. crime capitals. The murder rate ranks in the top 17 of murder capitals, but killings had exceeded 2013’s levels already by October this year. Police crime tape is a regular sight here and the discord around the destruction of the city by Hurricane Katrina did little to harmonise the city and reduce its crime rate.
7. Motor City, Detroit
You’ve got a serious problem in a city where the local police chief calls on law-citizens to arm themselves with concealed weapons to protect themselves against criminals. Motor City, a city within a city, has the highest levels of violence in any U.S. urban area. With houses going for as little as $500, and the city recovering from bankruptcy and unable to afford a sufficient police force, citizens have to defend themselves with their own weapons, mirroring a post-apocalyptic Hollywood movie script.
8. Cape Flats, Cape Town
The plague of methamphetamine or Tik (street name) and the legacy of apartheid, poverty and territorial disputes in the townships have made this part of the southern South African city of Cape Town a no-go area at night. Car-jackings and thefts often end up in murder unnecessarily, but when you can buy a gun for less than €25, then it is easy to understand why life is so cheap.
9. Tivoli Gardens, Kingston
In Jamaica, paradise comes with the visible cost of armed guards on key business outlets and banks in the country’s capital, Kingston. Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston was home to Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, the so called ‘president of the ghetto’ who ran the drugs trade and a great deal of the politicians, in this country. He was the ‘don’ and the head of the ‘International Shower Posse’ until the DEA extradited him on threat of armed invasion into the ghetto. His troops and young victims still run this area and it’s still a no-go zone for the security forces.
10. Guatemala City
In 2009, during the insurgency in Iraq, fewer civilians were killed in that war zone than were shot, stabbed or beaten to death in Guatemala city and only three per cent were solved. With 25 murders a week, currently it more than stakes its dubious claim to this top ten. The end of a civil war in 1996 resulted in a general amnesty for a range of killers and death squads, particularly those in the security apparatus and now they have mutated into highly-connected criminal businesses perpetuating the body count and the violence in this city and the country.
A large amount of cocaine has been seized in a joint operation involving Gardai, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Border Force.
The drugs were seized following the search of the cargo vessel Star Stratos at Portsmouth port yesterday evening.
Approximately 300 kilos were discovered concealed within a shipment of bananas which had originated in Colombia.
Gardaí believe that part of the consignment of drugs was destined for our jurisdiction and the seizure is a major disruption to elements of an Irish organised crime gang.
"The operation involved cooperation between An Garda Síochána and the NCA, and will help to protect Irish Communities from the scurge of illegal drugs," Gardai said.
Investigations are continuing both in the UK and Ireland.
This is the second joint operation between An Garda Síochána and the NCA which has resulted in a huge cocaine seizure in less than three months.
In September approximately a tonne of cocaine was seized by the Irish Naval Service from the yacht Makayabella around 300 miles off the south west coast of Ireland.
The first two men to be jailed under 2009 anti-gang legislation have had their sentences reduced by the Court of Appeal.
Galway brothers Michael O'Loughlin (34), of Rahylin Glebe, Ballybane and Edward O'Loughlin (31), of Rockfield Park, Rahoon, were originally charged with directing a criminal organisation but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of membership after a decision not to prosecute was entered on the more serious offence.
They were both sentenced to nine years imprisonment for participating in the activities of a criminal organisation by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on June 11 2012.
Both men successfully appealed their sentences today and new terms of six-and-a-half years imprisonment were imposed on them.
Mr Justice George Birmingham said there seemed to be some blurring of distinction between directing a criminal organisation and participating in one by Judge Nolan.
He said Judge Nolan found himself in a difficult position. He was the first judge asked to pass sentence under the act and there were no guidelines on how to approach the sentence.
Judge Nolan didn't even have available to him “what the going rate was”, Mr Justice Birmingham said.
The Court of Appeal took the view that the brothers' sentence was too severe in a situation where the organisation in question was operating at mid level criminality.
Having concluded that there was an error in principle, the court decided to substitute nine year prison sentences with sentences of 6-and-a-half years.
Giving background to the case, Mr Justice Birmingham said An Garda Síochána had launched “Operation Foolscap” targeting the activities of a Galway based criminal gang with some thirteen participants.
The garda operation involved traditional policing methods but secondly, a vehicle used by the brothers was subject to audio surveillance, authority for this having been obtained from a judge pursuant to the Criminal Justice Surveillance Act 2009.
On almost every day when recordings were taking place, the judge said, there were some discussions about criminal activities. Specifically the recordings showed the brothers having some involvement with three drug offences and four burglaries.
Mr Justice Birmingham the drugs involved cannabis worth €800, cocaine worth €8,000 and cannabis pollen worth €15,000.
The burglaries concerned two domestic premises and two commercial premises. However, Mr Justice Birmingham said the gardaí were aware the premises were going to be burgled and took steps to ensure there was nothing there.
The judge said Edward O'Loughlin had 48 previous convictions while Michael had 50 and all but one of the brothers' convictions, one of Michael's, had been dealt with in the District Court.
Assistant Chief Constable Will Kerr speaks during a PSNI press conference Dissident republicans are planning a Christmas terror blitz in Northern Ireland, a senior police commander has warned.
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Assistant Chief Constable Will Kerr said officers were ramping up security levels in the region in a bid to thwart violent attacks.
A rump of republican extremists opposed to the peace process continue to engage in armed actions in Northern Ireland, with members of the security forces their primary targets.
Last year they launched a number of attacks in Belfast in the run-up to Christmas, in a clear bid to cause maximum disruption and havoc in the traditionally busy festive period.
Revellers escaped injury when a small bomb exploded in the busy Cathedral Quarter district, and in another incident a suspected firebomber set himself alight inside a shop when the device he was carrying seemingly ignited prematurely inside his jacket.
There was also a failed car bomb attack close to the entrance of the Victoria Square shopping centre, while gunmen opened fire on a passing police patrol in the Crumlin Road in the north of the city.
Mr Kerr declined to state if the warning was based on intelligence, but said: "I think the fact we are putting out a statement that we assess there is a strong possibility that violent dissident republican groupings will attempt to carry out attacks in towns and cities throughout Northern Ireland will give you a strong sense of how concerned we are about this issue.
"At this stage we know, we believe it is a strong possibility, that a number of those groups are intent on carrying out attacks across Northern Ireland. That is why we are putting put this public appeal for patience, for vigilance, for information and support over the Christmas period."
Police will mount more vehicle checkpoints across Northern Ireland during the festive season while uniformed and plain-clothed patrols will also be stepped up.
Mr Kerr stressed the need for public co-operation to thwart the dissidents.
He described the extremists as an "unrepresentative remnant of a past that no one wants to return to".
"But they remain a dangerous remnant," he added.
He warned that police had witnessed an upsurge in the level and intensity of dissident attacks in recent months.
"We have also seen an uplift in the capability shown by some of these groups as well," he said.
"This year we assess there is a strong possibility that violent dissident republican groupings will attempt to carry out more attacks in towns and cities across Northern Ireland in the run-up to Christmas and beyond.
"There remains a severe threat across Northern Ireland posed by violent dissident republican groupings who remain determined to cause death and bring that disruption to the streets of Northern Ireland over the Christmas period."
Two men in their 20s have been shot in the legs in Belfast and Derry in two separate incidents.
Both attacks happened on Thursday.
The man in Belfast is believed to have been abducted by three masked men on the Donegall Road, before being taken to Ladymar Walk in West Belfast before being shot at around 6pm.
In Derry, a man was shot in the right leg at Bracken Park at around 8.30pm.
Both men are recovering in hospital after the attacks and their injuries are not said to be life-threatening.
Police have appealed for any witnesses or anyone with any information to contact them.
Murdered: Peter Butterly was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn
The Special Criminal Court has viewed CCTV footage from the scene of the killing of a dissident republican last year.
Peter Butterly was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath around 2pm on March 6 2013.
Three Dublin men are on trial at the non-jury court, charged with his murder.
Dean Evans (24) of Grange Park Rise, Raheny; Edward McGrath (33) of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield, Tallaght; and Sharif Kelly (44) of Pinewood Green Road, Balbriggan have pleaded not guilty to murdering the 35-year-old father of two.
Evans and McGrath have also pleaded not ) guilty to firearm offences on the same occasion.
Detective Garda Shane Curran today showed the court CCTV footage captured at the car park of the pub that afternoon. It showed various vehicles entering and exiting the car park, but did not show the actual killing.
The court also heard from a number of garda witnesses as part of a ‘Voir Dire’ or trial within a trial. The court will decide later if this evidence is admissible.
The trial has already heard that Mr Butterly was ‘lured’ to the car park that day by another man not before the court.
A Toyota Corolla was seen entering the car park and, within minutes, shots were discharged at Mr Butterly’s vehicle. Further shots were discharged when he exited his car and attempted to flee.
Mr Butterly was found by a lone garda collapsed in a corner of the car park and was pronounced dead a short time later.
A fourth man, David Cullen (30), with a last address in Balbriggan, was allegedly ‘part of the murder plan himself’ but turned State’s witness against his former co-accused earlier this year.
He has already given evidence implicating the three Dubliners in the murder and has been cross examined by lawyers for Kelly and Evans. McGrath’s legal team will have an opportunity to cross examine him on Tuesday.
The trial will continue then before the three-judge court, with Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy presiding.
Sting: Idah was secretly recorded offering Gardai money to swallow a kilo of cocaine A FORMER CIE bus driver has been given a ten year sentence for soliciting two undercover gardaí to import cocaine from Brazil.
Sunny Idah (39) was caught following an international police operation involving Swiss and Irish undercover police.
He was secretly recorded offering the two gardaí money to swallow a kilogram each of cocaine pellets and bring them back from Brazil to Ireland.
Idah, a Nigerian with addresses at Lipton Court, Dublin City Centre and Gerard House, Brown Street in London pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to soliciting another person to unlawfully import cocaine on dates between September 14 and 19, 2010.
The plea came a week after his trial began last October and following a number of applications by his legal team.
Judge Catherine Murphy today imposed a ten year sentence and suspended the final year. She backdated the sentence to September 2010 when Idah went into custody.
She described it as a sophisticated operation and noted the impact the drugs would have had on users and addicts in this jurisdiction if it had been successful.
The maximum sentence for this offence is fourteen years imprisonment.
Idah was previously sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for this and another drug trafficking offence. This conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal after that court ruled that one of the secret recordings made by gardaí did not meet the level of authorisation required.
Colm O'Briain BL, prosecuting, said that Idah's importation operation was complex and part of a “well planned out international operation which took some time to organise.”
Emails from a Yahoo email address showed Idah, using the name Mr T or Teemore, looking to recruit drug mules from a Swiss undercover operative, posing as a known Lithuanian drug dealer.
Detective Garda Brian Roberts told Mr O'Briain that Idah offered €5,000 each to undercover gardaí to travel to Brazil, swallow cocaine worth €140,000 and smuggle it back to Ireland.
Gardaí used hidden audio devices to record conversations between Idah and gardaí posing as two Polish nationals offering their services as drug mules.
Idah asked each of the would-be drug mules to swallow 1kg of cocaine, with an estimated street value of €70,000, in the form of 100 one gramme pellets of compressed cocaine.
Idah had given the two men €400 in cash to pay for a hotel room in Dublin and $1,000 American dollars and flight tickets on the day they were due to depart for Brazil. They never travelled and Idah was arrested the same day.
The court heard that Idah had lived here for ten years and has dual Irish and Nigerian citizenship. He worked as a bus driver for CIE in Galway for four years and has two children with an Irish woman and a third with a Chinese national.
GANGLAND figure Paul Rice ignored a direct order to travel to Spain for a summit with the Kinahan gang because of fears he would be assassinated, a source has revealed.
Mobster Rice (44), refused to fly to Spain this month for a ‘sit-down’ with a senior member of the Costa-based drugs gang to discuss the murder of his pal Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh. The order came as Rice was snubbed by the mob’s most-senior members at the Matthew Macklin fight in the 3Arena two weeks ago.
The Kinahan brothers failed to speak to the armed robber, even though they were sitting only a few metres apart at the boxing match in Dublin’s city centre.
Gangland hardman Rice (44), from Tallaght in south Dublin, previously acted as an enforcer for the mob and was seen as being close to Godfather Christy Kinahan senior.
However, a source has claimed Rice fears he is a marked man because of his close friendship with Hatchet Kavanagh, who was gunned down in Spain in September.
Gardai believe Kavanagh may have been responsible for a botched hit on Daniel Kinahan, during which boxer Jamie Moore was shot.
Our source said: “They [the Kinahan gang] didn’t meet Rice at the boxing and never hooked up with him at all while they were over. He was summoned to Spain for a sit-down but he won’t go because he fears he’ll end up with Hatchet.”
Rice and Hatchet were partners-in-crime for more than two decades and were close personal friends.
After Kavanagh moved to Spain in the early noughties, he set up his own drugs importation business with Rice acting as his ‘agent’ in Dublin. However, in recent years the pair had ended up working directly as debt collectors for the Kinahans. Rice was one of the coffin bearers at Kavanagh’s funeral when he was laid to rest in Drimnagh on September 23.
Gardai are investigating if a hitman from the south inner city – who was also responsible for the murder of Christopher ‘Git’ Zambra – was hired to kill Kavanagh. It is believed Hatchet had a falling out with a number of Irish criminals on the Costa del Sol who all wanted him dead.
Underworld sources have revealed that Kavanagh was also accused of pocketing money belonging to the Kinahan gang.
Two years ago he was sent home to Ireland to collect €3m worth of drug debts owed to the Kinahans, who were desperate for money.
There is no proof that he did anything wrong, but it is known that he did not see eye-to-eye with Daniel Kinahan, second-in-command of the mob, who preferred to surround himself with younger criminals.
David Cullen An accused-turned State witness in the Peter Butterly murder trial has denied that leaving his life here to go on witness protection abroad would not be much of a sacrifice for him as his ‘life was pretty bad’ here.
David Cullen was being cross examined at the Special Criminal Court in the trial of three Dublin men charged with murdering the dissident republican last year.
He was also originally accused of the murder, but turned State’s witness earlier this year and has given evidence implicating his three former co-accused in the murder.
He agreed with Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha SC, defending Sharif Kelly, yesterday that he had an incentive to make allegations about his client because he was avoiding life in prison.
He also agreed that a disincentive to someone going on witness protection would be separating himself from his life and lifestyle.
“But you didn’t have much contact with friends and family,” suggested the barrister. “You didn’t have much to lose, and going on the Witness Protection Programme would be a fresh start for you.”
The barrister suggested that the programme would actually be attractive to him as his life was pretty bad here. Cullen did not accept this.
Mr Ó Lideadha mentioned aspects of his family history, including his relationship with his parents and his consumption of alcohol.
“You’re the type of person, who doesn’t have close connections with people,” continued the barrister, adding that going away and leaving people wouldn’t represent the same sacrifice for him as it would for others.
“I wouldn’t accept that,” he replied.
Mr Ó Lideadha then read him the transcript of a phone conversation he’d had with his father in September while Cullen was in prison.
“You’ll be out of the country and all. You know that?” noted his father.
“Beats doing 20 years in here,” replied Cullen. “It’s a fresh start anyway – get away from all the f**kin sh*te over here.”
Cullen accepted he’d said this.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, however. “I meant all this IRA bullsh*t.”
Mr Ó Lideadha had already put to him the contents of a series of notes received from Cullen’s solicitor’s file. They related to how he had gone from a murder accused to a prosecution witness no-longer facing a murder charge.
These showed that he had also offered the State information on another high-profile murder.
Cullen had agreed to voluntarily disclose documents relating to his communications with his solicitor since June 5th, 2014, when he decided to become a State witness. Defence lawyers had sought the disclosure.
Mr Ó Lideadha read out a note made by his solicitor around that time, which said that he had told a Detective Superintendent that Cullen had information on another named murder case as well as on others.
Cullen agreed that it seemed that the Detective Superintendent had asked the solicitor to find out what this other information was.
He agreed that he knew he was at a very serious risk of being convicted of the Butterly murder and of getting a life sentence.
Peter Butterly
He also agreed that the solicitor’s note that the prosecution case was ‘in good shape’ meant that, in order to get a deal from the State, Cullen would have to offer something in relation to other matters as well.
He agreed that he would also have to ‘fill any gaps in the prosecution case’.
Cullen, who was a co accused of the three men on trial for murder, has already been dealt with by the court for lesser offences. He is currently serving a three-and-half-year prison sentence.
He has already given evidence implicating the three Dubliners in the murder of Mr Butterly, who was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath on March 6 2013.
Dean Evans (24) of Grange Park Rise, Raheny; Edward McGrath (33) of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield, Tallaght; and Sharif Kelly (44) of Pinewood Green Road, Balbriggan have pleaded not guilty to murdering the 35-year-old father of two. Evans and McGrath have also pleaded not guilty to firearm offences on the same occasion.
The trial is continuing before the three-judge, non-jury court, with Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy presiding
Lorena Sabio and her daughter 33-year-old Lorena Sabio, was set upon by a group of football hooligans as she and her daughter walked home.
The man who allegedly beat Ms Sabio has been identified as Miguel Angel Zienzonok, whose nickname is “Ketchup” because he likes making a red mess of his rivals.
The horrific incident occurred when Ms Sabio and her daughter were returning from the Superclásico football match, which is Argentina’s biggest domestic rivalry.
A fan of the losing side, Boca Juniors, spotted little girl and her mum wearing a River Plate jersey and attacked.
“He came up to me and I couldn’t believe it when he just punched me in the head," she said.
"I was lying on the ground barely conscious, and he told me to stay there and warned me that if I went to the police, I would pay the price."
Doctors have told the victim that she will be scarred permanently as a result of the attack.
Lorena before the attack
Although witnesses have come forward to tell local media that the attack was unprovoked the police have yet to make an arrest, which prompted the mum of one to start her Facebook campaign.
“He has threatened me and his family have told me to stop the campaign, but what more can they do to me?’ she wrote.
“They have already ruined my face, I have difficulty even managing to eat, and will need dozens of operations that I can’t afford to return my health.
“My daughter has nightmares. The man is crazy, and unless somebody stand up to him he will probably carry on doing it and next time probably kill someone.”
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 12/07/1403:35 AM
Who controls Limerick these days since the Dundon top brass got put away? Are the Keane,Collopys still active? They came up recently in an article I was reading about the drug problem in Roscrea Co Tipp, about 40 miles up the road from Lim.
Who controls Limerick these days since the Dundon top brass got put away? Are the Keane,Collopys still active? They came up recently in an article I was reading about the drug problem in Roscrea Co Tipp, about 40 miles up the road from Lim.
Wayne Dundon For the first time in 15 years Limerick has not seen one murder in a 12-month period.
It has been the least violent year in terms of murders in the history of the troubled city since 2000.
A large part of the reason given for the dramatic fall in the number of killings has been attributed to the destruction of the deadly gang led by Wayne Dundon.
The evil mobster created a climate of fear and terror for much of the last decade when as many as six people were murdered in any one 12-month period.
Many fell victim to Dundon or his associates as they waged a vicious turf war with their Keane-Collopy rivals.
With most of his gang banged up in the wake of the vicious murders of innocent Shane Geoghegan and Roy Collins in the city, and pressure brought to bear on the Keane-Collopys, peace has returned to what was once branded Stab City.
In 2012 and 2013, there were only two murders in the city and neither of them was gang-related.
Pearse McAuley The well-known Republican Pearse McAuley is due in court today on a charge of assaulting his wife in a house in Cavan on Christmas Eve.
McAuley of Canal Bank Walk, Castleforde, Ballyconnell, Co Cavan was accused of assault causing harm to Pauline Tully McAuley after she was found with serious stab wounds to the upper body last week.
Mr McAuley was also charged with threatening to kill three people on the same date - one of them his wife, who is a former Sinn Féin councillor.
Pearse McAuley has been granted free legal aid. He is due to come before a judge at Harristown District Court later.
This is grieving gangland widow Tracey Brady as she tries to rebuild her life following the murder of drug dealing husband Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh.
Tracey has thrown herself into trying to earn an honest living for herself and her daughter, who likes to keep horses and attends an expensive private school.
Since the brutal murder of Hatchet on the Costa del Sol, she has returned to her base in Benalmadena and is running a beauty salon to try and make ends meet.
The family have been in chaos for months and shortly before her husband’s murder were moving from house to house as Hatchet remained in fear of his life.
Following the murder, they returned to Ireland where they stayed with relatives in the run-up and aftermath of the funeral.
But Tracey decided to move back to her base in the sun where she is attempting to make a new life for herself without the millions her husband once pocketed from his lucrative drug industry.
For the mum-of-two, there will be no life insurance policy and no pension plan to tide her over for the tough times ahead. Instead, she has to tried to keep herself in the life she has become accustomed to on the spoils of her husband’s drug money.
But last week Tracey put her troubles behind her and hosted a Christmas knees-up for beauticians and stylists from her Divas salon in Benalmadena.
As our exclusive pictures show, the newly-widowed blonde partied with pals during a lavish dinner for staff and managed to put on a brave face despite her grief.
Tracey’s world was torn apart last August when husband Gerard was gunned down at Harmon’s bar in Marbella.
Spanish police have, to date, made no progress on the murder investigation and have yet to identify the mystery man who joined Hatchet on an outdoor terrace of the bar just shortly before he was shot.
Hatchet had arranged to go to the bar to meet a distraught Dublin couple on behalf of Daniel Kinahan. It is understood that he met with the couple, whose life was under threat and who had gone to the Kinahans to see if would they intervene.
The couple left the bar before the shooting and are completely innocent of any involvement in the incident. However, shortly after the meeting ended Kavanagh was joined by another man who fled following the murder.
Two masked gunmen pumped nine bullets into Hatchet as he tried to run for his life through the bar. After blasting him in the back, the killers turned him over and shot him in the head to make sure there was no prospect of him surviving the attack.
The getaway vehicle and murder weapons were then torched in what is recognised as a classic ‘Irish’ modus operandi, similar to several other assassinations of organised criminals.
Gardai have speculated that the murder was an inside job or an elaborate double cross from within the Spanish based Kinahan mob.
Hatchet, who had built up his own drug dealing business in Benalmadena over the past ten years, had in recent times started working as an enforcer for the Kinahan gang along with his sidekick Paul Rice.
Rice has been lying low since the murder and refused to go to Spain to meet with ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan in recent weeks. Associates say he is terrified he will be the next to be killed in a bitter fight with the criminals.
Rumours are rife on the Costa that Hatchet had trousered up to e800,000 that the mob claimed belonged to them.
Sources say that Hatchet and Tracey’s relationship had run into difficulties in recent years. The pair had been young sweethearts while Kavangh was dealing drugs around Drimnagh and Crumlin.
The couple bought a house at Mayberry Park in Tallght and she had their first child, Jamie, who would go on to become the famed boxer.
In 1996, when Hatchet was 25, he was jailed for four years for dealing heroin. However, gardai quickly realised that he was a major player and had up to 10 dealers working for him pedalling the drug around Dolphin’s Barn, Drimnagh and Crumlin.
After his release he teamed up with Paul Rice and the pair became a force to be reckoned with, making their way up the drugs ladder until they relocated to the Costa in 2005.
There they started to live a life that Tracey had only ever dreamed of. They embedded themselves with the well-heeled show jumping world and sent their children to private schools. They bought a house with a pool and lavished cash on their children and themselves.
Hatchet was known as a ‘flash’ dresser and liked expensive Rolex watches and fast cars. Tracey spent tens of thousands on her looks – booking in for botox and liposuction – and had her wardrobes stuffed with designer clothes.
But in the past two years things had started to go wrong for the couple when the Kinahans took over the business and forced Hatchet back on to the streets of Tallaght kicking in doors to collect drug debts.
Sources say the couple split and that he was spending increasing amounts of time back in Dublin with old pal Rice.
In the run-up to his death, Hatchet was living in fear for his life and moved his family out of the home they had been living in for almost a decade.
Now sources say that Tracey is desperate to save face under the Spanish sun where she was once the envy of many.
“The fact of the matter is that she is going to have to work damn hard to try and keep up the lifestyle she has become so use to. There is no more drugs money so she has to go out now and earn for herself. Tracey is a tough nut but she will have a hard time ahead to keep the show on the road,” a source said.
“But she is putting on a brave face and determined that she doesn’t lose her status.”
Catherine Delaney002.jpg A MUM of nine who survived being shot 12 times on her doorstep, has named the man she believes was behind the attack in a letter to the new Garda Commissioner pleading for the case to be re-opened.
Catherine Delaney McCormack broke a six-year silence earlier this month when she told the Sunday World of her ordeal when she was shot 12 times at her home in Clondalkin.
She revealed the full horrors of the night she opened the door and was greeted by a masked gunman who pumped bullets into her body as she tried to crawl away.
Catherine has informed the Commissioner of who she believes hired a hitman to try to kill her and asked her to appoint new investigators to her case, as the original team under Superintendent John Quirke have failed to make progress.
The award-winning care worker was shot on June 13, 2008, and to date, she says there have been no arrests made in the case and she has not been kept informed of any developments.
“At the time I was told by gardai that the gunman was a hired hitman, which I have long believed was employed by *******,” she told Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan.
“It is six years since that dreadful night and I cannot even describe what I have gone through both physically and mentally.
“I continue to live in fear for my life and in particular as the gardaí allocated to investigate my case do not seem to have made any progress” she wrote.
“I would like to request that my case be re-investigated and some priority put to solving it. I have had very unsatisfactory communication with gardaí throughout this time and feel that I, as a victim of crime, have been all but ignored.
“If I was killed on that night would my case remain unsolved? It is almost as if I am being punished for having survived such a dreadful attack.”
Catherine also detailed in her appeal to the Garda boss that she has moved home eight times since the shooting and lives in fear for her life.
“I feel as if I have been completely let down by the Garda Siochana,” she wrote.
“As a woman I’m sure you can understand how terrified I remain and I am hoping that you can help me.”
Opposition justice spokesman Niall Collins is hoping to meet with Ms Delaney McCormack in the coming weeks to discuss her case.
Catherine is a walking miracle after medics removed all the bullets from her stomach, legs and back after she was shot at point-blank range while her children looked on.
Previously, an unidentified gunman fired four shots through the hall door of her home and months later her car was set alight outside the house. Both incidents were reported to gardai.
Now Catherine is taking her case to Dáil Deputies and all the way to the Garda Commissioner in order to have the investigation relaunched.
“I am a victim of crime, not a criminal. I adhere to the law and now it is time for me to see some justice,” she said.
Arrest: Gardai discovered approximately 150 cannabis plants at the premise.
Gardai have arrested one man after discovering a large quantity of cannabis plants at a premise.
Gardai yesterday afternoon carried out a search at a house at Cherrymount, Avoca, in County Wicklow.
Approximately 150 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of €120,000 were seized, along with a large amount of cultivation equipment.
A 30-year-old man was arrested at scene and taken to Pearse Street Garda Station where he was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984.
He has been released without charge and a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
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.
Seven people have had a lucky escape after a gun attack on a house in Omagh.
Shots were fired through a back window of a house on McClay Park before 9.30pm on Thursday night.
A police spokesperson said that the seven adults in the bar at the time were left "shaken".
Sinn Féin MLA Declan McAleer said: "Thankfully no one was injured in this incident but it must have been a very frightening experience for those in the house and their neighbours.
"Those responsible for this incident do not represent the views of the community in Omagh.
"This is a community moving forward and we do not want this type of activity trying to drag us back to the past. I would urge anyone with information on this attack to bring it forward to the PSNI."
Ulster Unionist MLA Ross Hussey, said: "The New Year is all about peace and goodwill, but the perpetrators of this attack know nothing of either.
"Fortunately nobody was seriously injured. However this house is in a large housing estate."
Crime gang Action Against Drugs is running a lucrative gun for hire racket.
The north Belfast mob is in possession of a single AK47 assault rifle and has been offering it out for rent.
The gang will rent the gun for an agreed period of time at an agreed price to criminals to carry out activities that would require fire power.
And for an extra, substantial cash payment, they will even agree to claim responsibility for any shootings carried out by ‘clients’ under the banner of AAD.
The gun, once in the possession of the IRA, has a bloody history and is believed to have been used in the murder of low level drug dealer Danny McKay, shot in the Longlands estate on the outskirts of north Belfast two years ago.
The Sunday World understands a number of criminal gangs have been approached by AAD with the offer of an AK47.
The AK47 previously belonged to the Provisional IRA.
Killed: Danny McKay
“AAD has just proven once again that they would do anything for cash,” said our source.
“They’ve always been like that their only loyalty is to money, it’s their only interest and they will do anything to make a few pounds.”
The Sunday World has previously revealed how the New Lodge based outfit has been targeting drug dealers demanding payment in return for allowing them to deal on their patch.
Headed by Danny McKay murder suspect, Roy McAuley, AAD masquerades as an anti-drug vigilante group. In reality their mission is to control the narcotics trade.
“They are not making as much as they would like extorting the money from the drug dealers so this is the gang’s new racket, renting out the AK to anyone who is willing to pay.
“They have even thrown in an extra option of letting anyone who uses the weapon in a shooting to use AAD as a cover name, that’s how desperate they are for cash and some of us are not too happy about this arrangement, so many things could go wrong like never getting the gun back,” the associate said. The Sunday World can reveal AAD approached one well-known Belfast criminal in recent weeks to offer him their services even claiming they had the back of the IRA had the protection of the provos in a bid to give themselves more credibility.
These claims come as McAuley finds himself under mounting pressure as tensions in North Belfast continue to rise due to his power struggle with members of the INLA.
Last week the Sunday World revealed how McAuley was vying for control of the narcotics trade against a band of brothers who are connected to the republican paramilitary group.
The Sunday World can also reveal McAuley has also approached respected republicans in the area to claim that any allegations made against him were concocted by the INLA members.
“It’s Alice in Wonderland stuff, he has nowhere near the level of confidence he had six or seven months ago. That’s why he’s running about Belfast telling people that he has the backing of the Provo’s which is laughable, they regard him with the highest contempt and with suspicion.
“He thinks that if people think he has the support of mainstream republicans it will offer him a bit more protection but all he is doing is racking up more trouble for himself.
“People know what he is saying and his activities are being monitored, he is a criminal under pressure and his recent actions and ludicrous claims prove that,” the source added.
Like so many others McAuley is viewed with suspicion after being stopped by police in a car with false number plates and a large sum of unexplained cash. He was never arrested.
However he was named by police, in court, as the chief suspect in the murder of Danny McKay, who had refused to pay extortion demands by McAuley’s gang, then known as Correct Action Against Drugs.
Meanwhile the turf war between McAuley’s crew and the INLA brothers continues to simmer.
The scene after the firebomb attack last Christmas in Belfast city centre
A dissident plot to launch a firebomb plot to hit major stores in Northern Ireland in the run-up to Christmas has been foiled by Gardai.
The Gardai's Special Detective Unit raided premises in County Louth on Tuesday, recovering a number of firebombs which they said were "sophisticated and elaborate".
Three senior republicans were arrested by Gardai during the raid.
One of the men, in his 50s, is suspected of being an experienced bomb maker who made bombs for the Provisional IRA during The Troubles.
It has been reported that the arrests were the result of an ongoing surveillance operation, with Gardai working in conjunction with the PSNI.
Last year a Belfast city centre shop in Cornmarket was attacked with a firebomb which ignited, leading to a street to be closed and the shop evacuated.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/03/1512:36 AM
Love it Don Omega. Thought this thread was finished for a bit there. Keep em coming. Any new info on the Gerard "hatchet" kavanaugh murder or what the landscape is with "Rice" and his situation after refusing to go to that sitdown?
Notorious mobster Martin ‘The Viper’ Foley was celebrating this week after becoming a ‘Daddy’ again at the ripe old age of 64.
His 38 year old wife Sonia Doyle gave birth to an eight pound baby girl on Wednesday night making Foley a proud father for the third time.
But his happiness was tinged with tragedy after his best pal and business partner died suddenly just as his wife went into labour.
Foley was congratulated and consoled by gangster friends at Cunningham’s funeral on Thursday morning in what was an emotional week for The Viper.
Sonia is Foley’s second wife and the pair have been together for 10 years having met after his first wife Pauline passed away ni 2003.
They married in a small ceremony in Puerto Rico in the Canary Islands in November 2013 and were thrilled when Sonia found out she was pregnant last year.
Friends say that Foley was thrilled with impending fatherhood despite the fact that his other two daughters are both in their 20s and he will be in his 80s when his child is still just a teenager.
The birth of a the little girl is sure to take the edge off what has been a difficult year for Foley.
He was raided by the Criminal Assets Bureau late last year after being handed a bill for euro 916,960 from them. The bill relates to the alleged under declaration of income tax from his debt collection business Viper Recovery Agency which is now defunct.
Last October Foley spoke out saying he was infuriated that his wedding ring was taken during the dawn raid on his home in relation to his CAB bill. It is understood Revenue officials also took company accounts.
The veteran gangster has proven to be something of a medical miracle after surviving five attempts on his life. He is believed to have 18 bullets lodged in his body after the attempts.
Foley has more than 40 convictions, some for assault, robbery, and possession of threatening weapons.
BIZARRE: Breen's paranoid rant Killer mobster Karl Breen has claimed the vicious Clondalkin feud is over and that he is more worried about the gardai than his old enemies.
Breen (33), was released from prison in October after serving seven years for stabbing pal Martin McLaughlin (21), to death during a drunken fight at a New Year’s Eve party back in 2006.
Gardai believe the criminal was previously the head of a west Dublin gang known as the Infamous D22.
The mob was involved in a bloody gangland war in the Clondalkin area, which lead to at least four gangland killings – including the murder of Breen’s best pal Pierce Reid.
But in a rant on a social media site, Breen has claimed he is no longer under threat from his former rivals and is regularly in Clondalkin.
He writes: “Theres NO feud in clondalkin, its sorted but d media are doin their best to restart it. “I’m not paranoid bout enemies, id b more paranoid of d garda settin me up or killin me and makin it look lîke sumtin else.”
These exclusive photographs show Breen posing in Limerick during a visit to the city earlier this month.
Gardai believe that since his release he has been living in Co. Westmeath and associating with criminals from the Athlone area who he met in prison.
Breen denies he is on the run from the gardai, but admits failing to give the address he is staying at when stopped by officers.
“You think I’d give them any adress i be at? What, so they can kick d door in every week.
“I dont have to giv my adress to NOBODY so F**L them tramps. Tryn to get me killed,certain garda wud b in collusion wit certin crims theyd giv ur adress up like a light. “And d LAST time d garda had me adress they tried to kill me and make it look like an accident,only for there was a witness there they wouldve killed me.. Im on d sóuthside EVERY day im hidin from NOBODY.”
During his time behind bars, Breen was moved to a protection wing in Limerick Prison after he had crossed some of the prison system’s most notorious inmates.
Prisoners high on "moonshine" caused mayhem in a hospital Emergency Department over Christmas, it has emerged.
The patient overcrowding crisis at the Accident and Emergency department at University Hospital Limerick was compounded by three inmates been admitted on St Stephen's night drunk on 'prison hooch'.
The inmates who are serving sentences Limerick Prison were also allegedly drugged out of their heads on a concoction of prescribed tablets mixed with hand wash gel.
"They came in having consumed moonshine or something like that. I think they had made up some alcoholic drink in jail. They were drunk as skunks," said a hospital source.
"They had some kind of reaction to whatever they had drank. They are supposed to be in prison and they can get their hands on alcohol. It's crazy," the source added.
An investigation is underway by the prison into the prisoners' behaviour and use of illegal contraband in jail
Seizure: Approximately €30,000 worth of cocaine was discovered A man has been charged in connection with a large drugs seizure in Dublin this week.
The 33-year-old man will appear in court this morning charged in connection with drugs seizures in Dublin South City Centre between January 6 and 8.
During searches Gardaí discovered cocaine with an estimated value of €30,000.
A substantial amount of cash was also seized during the planned raids, Gardai said.
Two men - aged 33 and 27 - were arrested and were detained at Pearse Street Garda Station under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996.
The man is set to appear at the Criminal Courts of Justice at 10.30am.
Shot dead: Andy Connors DANGEROUS criminals connected to slain ‘Fat’ Andy Connors have nearly trebled the price on the head of the man they want dead in revenge.
Despite Fat Andy’s family asking for no retaliation, his underworld associates have put out a €200,000 murder contract on the man they believe to be behind the killing
His murder came as huge shock to both his family and the gangsters who dealt with the multi-millionaire professional criminal.
The Sunday World previously revealed how €75,000 was on offer for anyone ready to carry a revenge hit in the immediate aftermath of last August’s fatal shooting. Now sources have claimed that the bounty is €200,000.
His sudden death cost other gangsters the huge sums of cash they had entrusted to him to launder and invest in property.
However, his immediate family said they are not involved in any attempt at seeking vengeance. Members of the INLA were blamed for being behind the lethal gun attack after failing to extort cash from the wealthy traveller.
The Sunday World previously named INLA thug Gareth Byrne as being suspected of being linked to the gangland-style hit. The 32-year-old is said to have demanded 20 per cent of O’Connor’s income as protection money.
However, it later emerged that a businessman had also borrowed as much as €500,000 from Fat Andy, but had refused to start paying back the cash.
Fear of a revenge attack promoted the man to pay €5,000 a week to the INLA thugs for round-the-clock protection. It is thought that the order was given to murder Andy because the businessman feared he himself would be murdered.
The 45-year-old died in a hail of bullets at his home near Rathcoole in County Dublin after a masked gunman opened fire with a handgun on August 19 last year.
Connors was a major underworld player and a leading figure in the criminal network dubbed The Subaru Gang.
Damage: A car is burnt out AN innocent family have been targeted in a second petrol bomb attack in the space of three days in Waterford.
A well-known Waterford gang are suspected of carrying out the attack.
The latest incident occurred around 8:30pm on Friday, when gang members threw a petrol bomb at a car in the Birchwood estate.
Two innocent families have been attacked in three separate incidents since New Year’s Eve after they were caught up in a feud between criminal figures. The families targeted have nothing to do with the feud.
Words were exchanged between Waterford associates of Michael ‘Mongo’ Stokes and another local man early on New Year’s Eve. Mongo was not himself involved in the altercation or the follow-up incidents.
At around 7:30pm that night associates of Stokes are believed to have targeted the Brophy family home in the Birchwood Estate in a petrol bomb attack.
Emma Brophy (20) was in the house with her 12-week-old baby Alex and two-year-old daughter Donna-Marie. Four others, including children, were in the house.
At 4:30am on New Year’s Day the home of another innocent woman, Joanne Hazelbury, was targeted. Windows and doors were smashed in during the incident.
Gardai from the armed response also raided a halting site in Waterford on Friday as part of the investigation.
At 8:30pm on Friday thugs once again targeted the home of Emma Brophy. Her mother’s car was seriously damaged in another petrol bomb attack.
Orla O'Hanlon 19-year-old Orla O’Hanlon and her boyfriend Keith McConnan have appeared in court to face eight charges relating to the running of a bomb making factory and the possession of ammunition with the intent to endanger life.
The gymslip bomb-maker from Tievecrom Road, Forkhill and her boyfriend Keith McConnan from Dundalk, appeared in Newry Crown Court yesterday.
Miss O'Hanlon pleaded not guilty to all charges, and was released on continuing bail.
Mr McConnan faces the same charges but his arraignment has been delayed because his legal representative was not in court.
He was remanded in custody to appear in court in Belfast tomorrow.
O’Hanlon, who has changed her hair colour to brunette was arrested at a house on Tievecrom Road on Wednesday, December 18, 2013, under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act.
O’Hanlon leaving court
At a previous hearing a detective constable from the PSNI’s Serious Crime Branch told district judge Eamonn King that he could connect the two teenagers to the charges.
He told the court that in a walk-in wardrobe in a bedroom officers found a timer power unit and ancillary items for the timer power unit.
”This would enable a bomb to be placed which could delay the detonation for several days.''
The detective added that in a bin a white substance was discovered which was forensically tested and found to be ammonium nitrate which he said is used for “homemade explosives”.
Brutal: The scene of the murder today in Antrim A father-of-five from suffered a sustained and brutal assault before being shot, police in Northern Ireland have said.
Brian McIlhagga, 42, was attacked and killed when at least three armed and masked men forced their way into a house in Riverview Park, Ballymoney in Co Antrim last night.
Mr McIlhagga, a plasterer who was originally from the Ballymena area of Co Antrim, was dragged out of the house in a quiet cul-de-sac, beaten and shot once in the leg in the front garden where, despite frantic resuscitation efforts by neighbours, he died.
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief inspector Michael Harvey who is leading the murder hunt, said: "This was a brutal, sustained and vicious assault on this gentleman.
"This is a gentleman who has five children."
A 32-year-old woman was also in the house was battered and forced to lie on the kitchen floor while the shooting took place.
Four children aged 13-years-old and younger were in the house when the gang burst in but it is unclear whether they witnessed the killing.
A motive has yet to be established and the PSNI has not ruled out the involvement of paramilitaries.
Mr Harvey added: "I have no information to rule in or rule out paramilitaries or any other motives for this attack."
Police have not disclosed what type of weapon was used or whether other instruments were used during the beatings.
Police have set up a dedicated incident room at Ballymoney police station and are urging members of the public to get in contact.
Mr Harvey said: "I would appeal for anyone who was in the area of 10 Riverview Park between 10 and 11pm (last night) who saw any persons or any vehicles to contact detectives. We have a special incident room established at Ballymoney police station.
"Enquiries are at a very early stage. But, I would appeal to the local community to contact detectives."
Mr Harvey said: "The victim has a minor criminal record but, he is certainly not a major criminal."
A white and yellow forensic tent has been erected in the front garden of the pebble-dashed property which overlooks a small a river and public walkway which leads to the town centre.
The well-kept sleepy cul-de-sac, which is not far from a memorial garden dedicated to the Ballymoney hero -- motorcycle legend Joey Dunlop -- has been a hive of police activity for much of the day.
A large section of the riverbank has been cordoned off for most of the day with blue and white tape and police patrol cars preventing members of the public from gaining access from a number of points.
Stunned neighbours who heard two shots ring out have spoken of their horror at the attack.
Ivy Owens, whose house backs on to the property where the murder happened, choked back emotions as she described hearing the gun.
She said: "I was lying with my daughter in bed in the back bedroom when I heard two almighty bangs - which I never thought for one minute were gunshots. I looked out the window to see if I could see or hear anything in my yard because it sounded so close. But I couldn't see anything.
"Moments later my husband came home and then we saw lights (from emergency services) coming in but, again we didn't match the arrival of the lights with shots.
"I didn't really think it was gunshots until I heard this morning.
"I am really shocked. It's such a quiet place."
Ms Owens, who has lived in the area since 1997, said she had been left frightened by the shooting.
"Those children go to school with my children, so it is unreal and it does leave you frightened," she added.
Leslie Gregg, a resident of Riverview Park for almost 20 years, said he was shocked by the shooting.
Mr Gregg said: "I think it is terrible news. For this to happen to any family is just terrible. I wouldn't know the victim by name but I might know him to see. It is really shocking - just terrible, but these things do happen.
A mob boss is believed to have staged a fake hit on himself in order to get his bail conditions changed, which would allow him to move house.
Gardai in Clondalkin, West Dublin, were called to the scene on Saturday night, following the bogus hit.
The gangster, who is suspected of ordering the murder of Benny Whitehouse last September, told officers that the gun jammed twice during the incident.
The thug and a close pal of his from the Ballymun area drove to the gates of a property at Commons Road, Clondalkin, at 8.55pm on Saturday.
As they waited for the gates to open, a man in a balaclava approached and appeared to attempt to fire a shot at the gangster with a handgun.
The gunman's weapon allegedly jammed and he then appeared to attempt to fire a second time, but again the gun failed to go off.
The gangster got out of the car and ran, but the gunman did not follow and instead was driven away in a waiting car.
Gardai from Clondalkin were notified and rushed to the scene before recovering two 9mm bullet cartridges in the area.
Detectives have found discrepancies in the man’s version of events as the entire incident was caught on CCTV at a house on Commons Road.
It is now believed the criminal recruited a pal to “stage” the hit.
A garda source said that the gangster has been ordered to live in an address in West Dublin, but the thug had recently been trying to move an address in North Dublin.
It is suspected that he hatched a plan which would enable him to plead in court that it was unsafe for him to live in Clondalkin.
THEY are the sounds and smells of a professional car racing track – but they greeted me on a Saturday evening in a Limerick housing estate this winter.
The stench of burning rubber mixed with the laughter and whooping of children could be heard as a stolen car roared up and down O’Malley Park in the south of the city.
Joyriding no longer makes the headlines as it did in the 1980s, but when 30 young children are looking for a Garda chase in front of your eyes, it seems very much in the here and now.
I didn’t fear for my life, but I did for the 10 and 14-year-olds who joined in like they were joining in on a game of football.
As the car circled around myself and film crew, I could see that although Limerick city has changed dramatically – old habits still die hard.
Here, joyriding is still a rite of passage and nine-year-olds graduate from being passengers to drivers. By the age of 18, many grow out of it and unfortunately move into more serious criminality.
Today, though, children are growing up with more hope than ever.
Notorious criminals Wayne, John and Dessie Dundon are all behind bars for gang-related crimes, while rival mob boss Brian Collopy is also serving a lengthy prison sentence.
However, despite the massive garda successes, there are still problems in Limerick.
While the feud between the McCarthy-Dundons and the Keane-Collopys has dominated the headlines from this city over the last decade, the gardai have other battles on their hands – including against prescription pills, youth crime and poverty.
In our journey across Ireland while making ‘Breaking Crime’, we set out to meet young offenders, Gardai, and everybody with a stake in trying to break the cycle of generations lost to the criminal justice system and jail.
The secret to Limerick’s recovery has been the regeneration package and the intensive Gardai interventions into its gang culture.
But this city has also needed the help of ex-offenders and criminals.
The man who helped bring down the mob, businessman Mark Heffernan, who testified against the McCarthy-Dundon gang, believes that using ex-criminals and addicts as mentors is essential.
“In the U.S. and the U.K., ex-offenders are used to keep young people out of crime,” said Heffernan.
“It is a difficult concept for many to accept, but the principal of rehabilitation and mentoring has proved very effective and it has got to be embraced here.”
Ballinacurra Weston resident Deirdre Corbett told me about the difficulties of raising a family in the area.
She explains: “If I had my way I would be gone out of here. You can’t rear children up here.”
Anthony Kelly has had many run ins with the law, but as a father and grandfather who has seen his own son in trouble, his own brother shot and another brother die as a teenager in suspicious circumstances in prison, he knows all about the cycle of crime in Limerick.
“You have to get them young. We had problems growing up and now, through sport, I’m trying to protect the next generation. We have to try and break the cycle,” Kelly told me.
Sadly, for many families across the country, that cycle will never be broken. My journey revealed that Cork is on the threshold of a heroin epidemic.
There are 13-year-olds selling and using heroin in the city today.
The saddest part of my expedition across the country was when good people told me that they were afraid to walk down the street as it was too dangerous.
There has to be a complete intolerance to drug dealing on the street and a retreat from political correctness. When good people refuse to do the right thing, it is a reminder that communities have to rescue themselves. It is up to the Gardai and community leaders to act together and put people in the dock for these heinous crimes.
Donal MacIntyre: Breaking Crime aired last night on TV3
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/11/1511:37 AM
Donmega I have some questions regarding Irish OC. How are Irish groups structured, for example more horizontal hierarchies, family based organizations etc. ? Was or is the IRA a big time player in the Irish drug trade? And do the Irish operate on a International level like other crime groups like Ndrangetha? Does the religion or political stance play a role in Irish OC and their Modus Operandi?
Dissident republicans are targeting a senior UVF figure in south Belfast.
Terror group Oglaigh na hEireann is actively gathering intelligence on a veteran loyalist paramilitary and suspected OnH members have been spotted on the Donegall Road in the Village area of the city as well as Sandy Row.
Well placed sources have told the Sunday World elements connected to the dissident group have been watching the movements of the UVF veteran. He is understood to be one of a number of brothers who are all members of the terror group. advertisement
The fact that OnH has ventured into the heart of loyalist south Belfast will set alarm bells ringing. The move is being seen as a direct result of the revelation in October that the UVF had been gathering intelligence on a number of prominent republicans.
Among them is OnH Belfast chief Carl Reilly. The Sunday World revealed a UVF squad had been keeping tabs on his movements with a view to mounting a hit.
With the dissident group on its knees having lost the bulk of its membership across the city, Reilly is regarded as a lame duck leader and a soft target.
He has lost the respect of the membership and has become increasingly isolated and rarely seen in public.
The move was slammed as reckless by leading UVF members who feared a backlash.
Now the stakes have been raised and there are real concerns that should the dissidents attempt an attack it will provoke a round of tit-for-tat incidents.
Loyalist sources in the south of the city have told us the man targeted will not hesitate to take action.
South Belfast UVF has been left badly splintered by a series of bust ups within the ranks. Local commander Eddie ‘Onions’ Rainey has divided opinion and is understood to be at loggerheads with the man targeted by OnH.
The target is a vitriolic and outspoken critic of cocaine user Rainey, who in turn has tried to discredit his rival with a smear campaigning making a series of false allegations.
He tried to pin a series of race hate incidents on him when in fact it was Rainey who personally ordered a number of attacks which saw foreign nationals intimidated from their homes and racist graffiti daubed on walls.
Rainey’s decision to go into partnership with an eastern European organised crime gang also angered veteran members many of whom secretly support the OnH target.
He challenged Rainey over his partnership with the Russians and is believed to have been behind a number of attacks on members of the organised crime gang. Rainey defied his membership and struck a deal with the Russians and in return for supplying him with cocaine they are allowed to peddle their drugs free from interference.
The Russians even offered to bring a hitman in from Limerick to ‘take out’ Rainey’s rival.
Should dissidents continue to target him or even launch an attack it will ignite a powder keg.
As previously revealed by the Sunday World a splinter group within the UVF in the south of the city have been actively rearming for the last two years. They have slowly built up a cache of clean guns made up mostly of handguns which are more readily used for assassination bids.
Sources have also told us they have brought in Mac10 sub machine guns, US made 9mm US Navy issue pistols and a large quantity of explosives.
The splinter group is believed to have been responsible for a series of pipe bomb attacks including the targeting of Catholic schools in north Belfast.
And were behind an audacious plan to assassinate Old Bailey bomber Marian Price as she underwent medical treatment at Belfast City Hospital. They planned to riddle the car carrying the former IRA woman from her cell at Hydebank to the hospital and it was only the last minute intervention orfRainey that prevented the attack going ahead.
Price was releasedfrom prison 18 months ago after a high profile campaign to win her freedom.
Rainey is seen as an ineffectual leader incapable of holding back the hawks should they decide to launch an attack.
Donmega I have some questions regarding Irish OC. How are Irish groups structured, for example more horizontal hierarchies, family based organizations etc. ? Was or is the IRA a big time player in the Irish drug trade? And do the Irish operate on a International level like other crime groups like Ndrangetha? Does the religion or political stance play a role in Irish OC and their Modus Operandi?
There is not like OC in USA in Ireland at all.
religion or political stance play a role in Irish OC and their Modus Operandi? NO.
Irish criminals are some of the euro zones most dangerous gangs and have come to the top league over the last 10 years or so.
Two days ago, the rumour of West End Gang leader Richard Matticks's death was believed to be true, and the Montreal Gazette reported his death as fact. The newspaper had to print a correction notice.
There is now confirmation that Matticks passed away yesterday.
Two days ago, the rumour of West End Gang leader Richard Matticks's death was believed to be true, and the Montreal Gazette reported his death as fact. The newspaper had to print a correction notice.
There is now confirmation that Matticks passed away yesterday.
Eight men accused of IRA membership were arrested after a garda swoop on a used car lot in west Dublin, the Special Criminal Court heard today
The court was told that gardai who searched the area found cable ties. balaclavas, a Glock pistol, a baseball bat and pepper spray among other items.
Stock image of a Glock
The eight are: Kevin Braney (40), of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght , Des Christie (50), of Liam Mellows Road, Finglas, Eamon McNamee (34), of Larkfield Square, Lucan, Hubert Duffy (47), of George’s Place in Dublin 1, William Jackson (55), of Dooncourt, Poppintree, Declan Phelan (33), of Lanndale Lawns, Tallaght, John Brock (42), of Glenview Park, Tallaght, and Darren Murphy (44), of Rory O’Connor House in Dublin 1.
All eight have pleaded not guilty to membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on March 29th, 2013.
Opening the prosecution case Ms Tara Burns SC said that members of the Garda National Surveillance Unit observed the eight at various locations in Finglas and Clondalkin on the morning of March 29th, 2013. She said that around midday members of the Emergency Response Unit entered the yard of a used car sales lot in Clondalkin and arrested the eight men.
In follow up searches of two vans, an office and kitchen, gardai found cables ties, gloves, balaclavas, a baseball bat, a lump hammer, a pepper spray and a Glock pistol.
Ms Burns said that after their arrest the eight men were interviewed at various garda stations. She said some of them made no reply when questioned, some of them denied membership of the IRA and some of them gave answers to garda questions which were untrue.
She said the court would be invited to draw inferences from the responses of the eight men to garda questions.
Ms Burns said that the prosecution case against the men would rely on the sightings of the accused by the National Surveillance Unit, items found after their arrest, their responses to garda questioning and the opinion evidence of Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Kirwan.
VIOLENT criminal Lee McDonnell went on a vicious crime spree in the North after his escape from a prison van in December.
The vicious thug, from Ballyfermot, Dublin, is believed to have been involved in a spate of crimes in Armagh as well as in Louth and the capital while he was on the run.
Sources say McDonnell (23) and a convicted drug dealer pal from Ballyfermot had been staying at an address at Callan Bridge Park in Armagh following the thug’s escape.
The house was owned by a man who has republican connections and owed a favour to associates of McDonnell due to a debt.
However, a source said McDonnell outstayed his welcome after he “went on a rampage” in Armagh and Louth.
“He caused terror. He targeted business people in their homes and took cash and other valuables after putting knives to their throats and guns to their heads. I know some of the families robbed and they were left severely traumatised.”
The source said it is believed the Armagh man who supplied McDonnell with the house had given him information on which business owners to target.
As well as the home invasions, McDonnell is suspected of targeting business premises.
In one such incident, a Dundalk shop owner was viciously attacked by two men, believed to be McDonnell and an associate. The pair stole a silver VW Golf in Armagh before driving to Hackballscross on January 6. They jumped from the stolen vehicle and attacked the shop owner before making off with a sum of money.
The PSNI believe the same vehicle was also linked to an attack in Culloville, near Crossmaglen.
In another incident in the Republic, McDonnell and an associate tried to hold up a security van collecting cash from an insurance firm in south Dublin. During the incident the security man was injured when McDonnell’s associate deliberately ran into him with a car.
The raid was foiled when a motorcyclist saw what was happening and tackled McDonnell, pulling a balaclava off his head. Gardai carried out searches looking for McDonnell after that incident, but he is believed to have fled to the North at the time.
However, McDonnell was eventually asked to leave the house in Callan Bridge Park.
He is believed to have turned on the Armagh man and assaulted him when he was asked to leave.
“He gave him a serious hiding and left him in a very bad way,” said a source. “It wasn’t just a dig or two. It was a right going over.”
McDonnell’s associate was arrested by the PSNI and is facing a number of serious charges related to the crime spree. It is understood McDonnell is under threat from republican figures as a result of his crime spree.
He has also been involved in a long-running feud with traveller criminals.
McDonnell is believed to have left Armagh in recent weeks before being arrested at the weekend. The thug was seen by gardai on Saturday evening walking at Rowlagh Avenue in Ronanstown in Dublin around 5pm.
He sprinted away when he saw the gardai approaching and ran across a number of gardens. McDonnell was eventually cornered when he climbed onto the roof of a garage before giving himself up.
He was brought to Ronanstown Garda Gtation and transferred to the Midlands Prison.
A spokesman for the Prison Service confirmed he was back in custody but declined to speak about disciplinary procedures that he faces.
Meanwhile, three prisoner officers who were on escort duty transporting McDonnell could face disciplinary proceedings. The investigation is focusing on how McDonnell was not handcuffed when he made his escape.
He fled after the van stopped to pick up chips in Dublin.
Packets of Class A substances are being put under tourists' cars using magnets
Drug smugglers are turning "trusted travellers" into unwitting mules by placing containers with powerful magnets under their cars in Mexico and then recovering the illegal cargo far from the view of border authorities in the United States.
One motorist spotted the containers while filling up with petrol after crossing into southern California this month, and thought it might be a bomb.
His call to police prompted an emergency response, and then a shocker - 13 pounds of heroin were packed inside.
There have been four such incidents in San Diego since January 12, all involving drivers enrolled in the "trusted traveller" programme, which enables hundreds of thousands of people who pass extensive background checks to whizz past inspectors with less scrutiny.
Robbery: The raid took place at the Aldi Supermarket in Bagenalstown
Gardai are appealing to the public after a failed cash-in-transit robbery possibly left the suspects covered in red dye.
Gardaí in County Carlow are appealing for information following the robbery, which occurred this afternoon at the Aldi Supermarket in Bagenalstown.
At approximately 3pm, two males drove up to the entrance of the Aldi Supermarket in a black BMW coupe car while a security van was making a collection.
One masked male, armed with what was described as a firearm, threatened a security guard and took a cash box containing a substantial amount of cash. The raiders, who were both wearing balaclavas and gloves, then escaped in the BMW.
In a follow up search the cash box and its contents were discovered on Dunleckney Road in Bagenalstown. The cash box had exploded on opening and destroyed the cash with red dye.
Fortunately, no shots were fired and no persons were injured during this incident. All money was recovered but no arrests have yet been made, Gardai said.
Investigating officers are appealing to the public for information on the raid.
In particular, anybody who may have seen a black BMW Coupe with two males on board in the vicinity of the Aldi Supermarket shortly before 3pm and any suspicious activity on the Dunleckney Road after 3pm.
"The raiders may have been exposed to red dye and this is an important appeal point," Gardai said.
Court: The Garda car was rammed by the balaclava-clad gang
A man jailed for possession of a loaded firearm “available for immediate use” having rammed a garda patrol car has had his sentence increased by the Court of Appeal.
Daniel Prenderville (27), with an address at Rutland Avenue, Crumlin, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition, unlawful use of a mechanically propelled vehicle and dangerous driving at Ballycullen, Dublin on September 6 2012.
He was sentenced to six years imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended by Judge Mary Ellen Ring at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on June 21 2013.
The Court of Appeal increased Prenderville's sentence to seven years imprisonment today following an undue leniency application by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Giving background to the case, Mr Justice George Birmingham said a garda patrol car spotted a stolen Audi A3 in the area of Daletree Place, Ballycullen on the date in question, in which three occupants were wearing balaclavas.
When the gardaí activated their flashing lights, the Audi was driven head on into the patrol car. “In effect the patrol car was rammed,” Mr Justice Birmingham said.
After the collision, the judge said, Prenderville got out of the driver's seat of the vehicle and was apprehended trying to escape over a wall.
Another occupant of the car was seen throwing a 7.65 calibre Baikal semi-automatic pistol over a wall. It was loaded with three bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber, the court heard. Furthermore the serial number had been removed.
It later emerged that the Audi had been stolen earlier that day, Mr Justice Birmingham said.
The trial judge had remarked that it was clear on the night in question, Prenderville and others were found in “highly suspicious circumstances” in possession of a loaded firearm “available for immediate use” and they were dressed in clothing that would “make their identification impossible” by the use of balaclavas and gloves, Mr Justice Birmingham said.
“It was even more disturbing to hear” that the loaded firearm was accompanied by a silencer, the sentencing judge had said.
Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cathleen Noctor BL, had submitted that Judge Mary Ellen Ring had erred in suspending a portion of Prenderville's sentence that was not permitted by statute.
Ms Noctor submitted that the judge had not found the exceptional and specific circumstances which would justify the imposition of a sentence less than the statutory minimum of five years.
She further submitted that the offence should have been placed at the high end of the scale and for that a sentence of six years with 18 months suspended was seriously inadequate and represented a significant departure from the norm.
The Court of Appeal took the view, Mr Justice Birmingham said, that “only if exceptional and specific circumstances are identified is it possible to suspend all or part of the sentence,” so as to bring it below five years.
Mr Justice Birmingham said the trial judge, having found no exceptional and specific circumstances, erred in bringing Prenderville's jail term below five years.
He said the offence had to be seen at the top, though not the very top of the range for offences of this nature.
Consequently, Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice Peter Kelly and Mr Justice John Edwards imposed a new sentence of seven years imprisonment in lieu of the original term.
Before leaving court, Prenderville was heard telling family members from a distance “it doesn't make any difference”.
Bust: Gardai from the Tipperary Division conducted searches in four premises Gardai have arrested four men and seized a large amount of cocaine during a planned search.
Gardai from the Tipperary Division conducted searches in four premises in the Roscrea area yesterday.
As a result of these searches a quantity of cocaine - subject to analysis - was seized, with an estimated street value of €40,000.
Four men were arrested and were detained under Section 2- Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996 at Roscrea Nenagh, Thurles and Templemore Garda Stations.
Three of the men have been released without charge and a file will be prepared for the information of the Director of Public Prosecutions. One man remains in custody in Templemore.
"This is part Operation Overwatch, which was set up to target persons involved in the distribution of controlled drugs in the Roscrea area," a spokesperson said.
Two of three men charged with the murder of dissident republican Peter Butterly have been granted bail by the High Court pending their retrial in 2017.
Dean Evans (24), of Grange Park Rise, Raheny and Edward McGrath (33) of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield Tallaght are charged with the murder of Mr Butterly in the car park of the Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath at around 2pm on March 6th, 2013.
Mr Evans and Mr McGrath are also charged with firearm offences on the same occasion.
Dean Evans
The 55-day-long trial collapsed at the Special Criminal Court last month after a failure in evidence disclosure.
A third man Sharif Kelly (44), of Pinewood Green Road, Balbriggan is also charged with the murder of the 35-year-old father of two on the same occasion. Mr Kelly was on bail throughout the trial and had honoured his conditions in full, the court heard.
At a bail hearing before the High Court today Mr Justice Michael Moriarty said “justice demands” that bail be granted to Mr Evans and Mr McGrath despite objections by senior gardaí.
Mr Justice Moriarty said the retrial of Mr Evans, Mr McGrath and Mr Kelly had been fixed for the Special Criminal Court in January 2017.
Mr Justice Moriarty said evidence given by two senior gardaí, including Superintendent Alf Martyn, was “quite chilling”. Not only that, the judge said, but their evidence amounted to a very strong case against Mr Evans and Mr McGrath.
Mr Justice Moriarty said the proposed retrial, fixed for a date in January 2017, meant that another two years in custody would be visited upon the accused.
As a result, Mr Evans and Mr McGrath may have served four years in custody before the case proceeds, he said.
That did not accord with the norms of constitutional justice, Mr Justice Moriarty said.
He said their continued detention based on the evidence of gardaí would amount to preventative detention when they still enjoyed a presumption of innocence.
Sureties for both men of €20,000 each were present in court. The sum of €20,000 represented the life savings of Mr McGrath's brother and sister, the court heard.
Mr Justice Moriarty said both men undertook to abide by a curfew, to sign on daily at garda stations, to provide mobile phone numbers to gardaí and to keep those devices switched on at all times.
If there was any breach of the terms, the judge said he would require the matter to come back before him.
Although free to walk from court that afternoon, Mr Justice Moriarty had a commitment to keep in the Four Courts which required both men to enter into their bonds before the Governor of the Midlands Prison.
Gardai this week seized a large amount of cocaine and heroin with an estimated value of €4.9 million pending analysis.
As part of an ongoing investigation Gardaí attached to the Clondalkin Detective and Drugs Units carried out a planned search of a premises at Bluebell Industrial Estate, Dublin, on Tuesday
During the search, 32.5 kilos of heroin and a half kilo of cocaine - pending analysis - were discovered and seized. A handgun and a quantity of ammunition were also seized during the search.
"To date, this investigation has led to the seizure of heroin and cocaine with an estimated value of €5.2 million, five firearms, ammunition and cash," a Gardai spokesperson said.
A 39-year-old man, arrested on Monday in connection with this investigation, remains in Garda custody. He is being detained at Clondalkin Garda Station under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996. The investigation is ongoing.
"This is a significant seizure of heroin, which causes terrible damage in communities throughout this country. This operation has taken drugs, firearms and ammunition off our streets, which could have caused terrible damage," Gardai said.
"This lengthy operation has caused major disruption to an Irish organised crime gang with international connections and is part of our on-going strategy of targeting criminal gangs.
"We remain determined to do all we can to protect communities from the scourge of drugs and we thank communities for their support in this,” said a Garda spokesperson.
A number of machine guns and a handgun were also discovered by Gardai in Ballyfermot following an arrest on Monday.
Gardai are investigating the provenance of two pipe bombs found in Limerick and Cork.
The first was found in Killala Gardens in Knocknaheeny in Cork city early this morning.
The army bomb disposal team arrived on scene at approximately 9.45am after receiving a call regarding a possible explosive.
A cordon was erected at the scene and traffic restrictions were put in place for public safety. A number of nearby houses were evacuated.
The suspect item was made safe by the by an army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit and removed to a military location for further testing. The scene was declared safe just before 11am.
Elsewhere, a viable pipe bomb was defused in Limerick city last night.
In the second such incident within a 12-hour period, Gardai called in bomb disposal at around 12.45am to Upper Gerald Griffith Street.
A cordon and traffic restrictions were put in place for public safety, while a number of nearby apartments were evacuated.
The Defence Forces said: "The suspect item was rendered safe and removed to a military location for further testing and the scene was declared safe at 1.30am."
Evidence has been handed over by the army and Gardai are now investigating.
Gardai investigating the murder of a Dublin man in the capital two weeks ago have arrested a man.
The body of 41-year-old Kevin Molloy was discovered at Glendhu Road in Cabra on Sunday, February 1.
Gardai investigating the circumstances surrounding the Dubliner's death have arrested a man in his early 20s this morning.
He is currently detained under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 at Finglas Garda Station.
A subsequent post-mortem carried out on the body of the victim by the State Pathologist, Professor Marie Cassidy, discovered signs of foul play and the investigation was subsequently upgraded to murder.
It is understood Mr Molloy had suffered head injuries and lost a large amount of blood during the 'frenzied attack'.
It is believed he may have been dead for a number of days before being found.
The gruesome discovery was made by the dead man's relatives who had become concerned after they had no contact with him in several days.
Gardai have spent the last week piecing together the man's final movements in a bid to establish a suspect.
Dissident republican terrorists planned to use a rocket launcher to kill Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, it has been revealed.
Martin McGuinness said he was warned of the CIRA (Continuity) IRA plot by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
In a statement, Mr McGuinness said: "I have been made aware the PSNI has discovered a plan to launch a rocket attack against me.
"The PSNI has said that a group calling itself 'CIRA' considered an attack against me using a rocket launcher."
A decision by Mr McGuinness to meet the Queen in 2012 caused outrage among hardline dissident republicans opposed to the peace process in Northern Ireland.
He has since met the Queen on three occasions including as a guest at a Windsor Castle banquet last year.
The Sinn Fein MLA added: "I will not be silenced or deterred. These people are only interested in plunging us back into the past.
"If those behind this threat think they have the ability to destroy the peace agreements which have been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland then they are clearly detached from reality.
"They need to wise up, listen to the people of Ireland and abandon these futile actions.
"This threat will not stop me or anyone in Sinn Fein from our work in representing everyone in our society and continuing to pursue our political objectives."
The CIRA split from the Provisional IRA when it declared a ceasefire in 1994.
While the IRA moved towards decommissioning of arms, the CIRA's aim remained to kill members of the security forces in pursuit of its goal of a united Ireland.
The terror group's most notorious action was the murder of police officer Stephen Carroll in March 2009. The 48-year-old was shot dead as he attended a call for help at a housing estate in Craigavon, Co Armagh.
The officer, originally from County Kildare, was hit by a sniper and became the first police fatality since 1998, the year of the Good Friday Agreement which largely ended three decades of conflict.
Earlier this year 12 suspected CIRA members were arrested during a police raid at a house which had been bugged by MI5 for months.
A number of suspects have appeared in court charged with a range of terror offences linked to the operation at Ardcarn Park, Newry in Co Down.
A street drug dealer who sold ecstasy to an undercover garda three times after first approaching the officer at a Dublin nightclub has been given a two and a half year suspended sentence.
Adam Nevin (27) of Lealand Close, Clondalkin, Dublin who has since moved to Norway for work, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to three charges of having MDMA for sale or supply at Sin Nightclub, Clondalkin Community Centre and Clondalkin Shopping Centre on various dates in September 2012.
His 23 previous convictions include two for dealing drugs that were dealt with in the District Court.
advertisement “This demonstrates to me that he is either criminally inclined or not very bright,” Judge Martin Nolan said.
Judge Nolan said he was impressed with Nevin’s attitude to work but added that he previously got a chance from the District Court. Judge Nolan had revoked Nevin’s bail and remanded him in custody for two weeks prior to sentencing him.
Garda Sean O’Neill told Dara Hayes BL, prosecuting, that gardaí set up an operation to deal with street dealing of MDMA in the Dublin 2 area and one officer was instructed to go to Sin Nightclub to see if anyone would approach him to buy drugs.
Nevin later asked the officer if he wanted “a light” and the man enquired if he knew anyone who had “any yokes”. Nevin offered to sell him four tablets and the garda paid €20.
Gda O’Neill said Nevin also gave the garda a mobile phone number to contact if he wanted any more tablets.
This number was again contacted on September 13 and following an exchange of texts, the same garda met with Nevin in Clondalkin Shopping Centre where he paid €60 for ten ecstasy tablets.
Almost two weeks later the garda again contacted the same number and said he was “looking for more yokes”. He was told it would be “no bother” to get 100 tablets for him and an arrangement was made to meet in the carpark of Clondalkin Community Centre.
Gda O’Neill said he and other officers positioned themselves in an unmarked garda car while the garda who had been in contact with Nevin was waiting in an official unmarked patrol car.
Nevin later arrived on a mountain bike and produced a bag of tablets which he said he wanted €300 for. The other gardaí moved in and Nevin threw the bag away before he was arrested.
The bag was later recovered and all the tablets were analysed and found to be MDMA.
Gda O’Neill agreed with Kenneth Kerins BL, defending, that Nevin told gardaí in interview that he was working to pay off a drug debt.
Mr Kerins told Judge Nolan that his client had no work at the time and had no way to finance his own drug habit.
He said he has since secured work in Norway and has enjoyed that and “getting out of the situation he found himself in Dublin”.
Man who pointed fake hand gun at garda won't face higher sentence
A man who pointed a "realistic looking" imitation handgun at two gardaí following an attempted robbery will not face a higher sentence despite an appeal by prosecutors.
Mark O'Reilly (37) with an address at Dunmore Avenue, Killenarden, Tallaght had pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and possession of an imitation firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence at a Fortunestown service station, Tallaght, Dubln 24 on March 11 2012.
He was sentenced at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to three years imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended by Judge Desmond Hogan on April 7 2014.
advertisement The Director of Public Prosecutions failed to appeal O'Reilly's sentence in the Court of Appeal yesterday on the ground that it was too lenient.
Giving background to the case, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, said O'Reilly had pointed a “realistic imitation firearm which looked like a handgun to the head of another person and demanded money”.
The attendant, Mr Rizman Ali, was quick thinking and realised that a so called customer was in truth a participant in this attempted robbery, he said.
The so called customer had feigned to purchase cigarettes from Mr Ali. O'Reilly came up from behind and pointed the imitation firearm to his head.
Mr Ali silently pressed the emergency button and counted the money, which had been demanded, slowly while facing increased threats from O'Reilly.
The gardaí arrived quickly and no money was paid over, Mr Justice Hogan said.
When the gardaí arrived they produced firearms and announced that they were armed gardaí. It was clear, Mr Justice Hogan said, that O'Reilly did not put down the imitation firearm and it was not in dispute that he pointed the firearm at the two gardaí.
O'Reilly ultimately ran and was hauled to the ground by the gardáí and arrested.
He made no admissions while in detention but did say 'the other lad was innocent: I stuck a gun to his head'.
The so called customer was also charged with certain offences, pleaded guilty and was given a suspended sentence, he said.
It was only right, Mr Justice Hogan said, that the court pay tribute to the conspicuous bravery of Mr Ali and the individual gardaí who “fearlessly responded” to "a potentially very dangerous situation".
Mr Justice Hogan said O'Reilly was an early school leaver with 27 previous convictions for robbery and seven for burglary.
He was chronically addicted to drugs, the judge said, to heroin amongst others. One of the key terms of his suspended sentence was that he should participate in a drug and alcohol treatment programme.
He had been released in April 2014 but the suspended part of his sentence was reactivated following an application by the Probation Service a few days earlier on grounds that he had not fulfilled the condition attached to his sentence.
He is presently serving out the balance of the 18 month suspension, Mr Justice Hogan said.
The judge noted that Mr Ali was very understandably shocked by the incident. He sought time of work, “it would appear no real assistance was forthcoming and he left the job after four years employment there”.
Mr Justice Hogan said there was no doubt that O'Reilly's sentence was lenient. However, the sentencing judge was clearly influenced by O'Reilly's drug addiction, which was the "root cause" of his criminal behaviour.
While the sentence was undoubtedly lenient, the judge had substantial grounds to justify the manner in which this particular sentence for this particular offender was structured.
It was structured so as to persuade and encourage O'Reilly to wean himself from his drug addiction. It may thus be said to offer an example of where rehabilitative considerations were properly put to the fore.
Mr Justice Hogan, who sat with Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan and Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan, dismissed the DPP's appeal.
Gardai have arrested four men and seized a large amount of cocaine during a planned search.
advertisement Gardai from the Tipperary Division conducted searches in four premises in the Roscrea area yesterday.
As a result of these searches a quantity of cocaine - subject to analysis - was seized, with an estimated street value of €40,000.
Four men were arrested and were detained under Section 2- Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996 at Roscrea Nenagh, Thurles and Templemore Garda Stations.
Three of the men have been released without charge and a file will be prepared for the information of the Director of Public Prosecutions. One man remains in custody in Templemore.
"This is part Operation Overwatch, which was set up to target persons involved in the distribution of controlled drugs in the Roscrea area," a spokesperson said.
Veteran criminal Martin Foley is unlikely to face any charges in relation to a bizarre incident in a city centre jewellers after he was accused of false imprisonment.
CCTV of the supposed ‘kidnapping’ incident shows no suggestion that a woman had been held against her will.
Jewellery shop owner Colm Buckley called Gardai and held Foley at his Ilac Centre shop on Monday.
The footage of Foley being dragged to the ground in the Milano store was on YouTube during the week as the 64-year-old remained in hospital after taking a turn while being questioned at Store Street Garda Station. He was released on Thursday.
Buckley’s wife Lucy told us that she was retracting her statements to Gardai. “I just want all this to be forgotten. There is nothing to it,” she said. It is understood her husband had agreed to sell a €6,000 ring for Foley, but after it was sold the customer’s credit card transaction never processed. Foley said he was owed his money regardless.
Last Monday, Foley had a coffee with Lucy to discuss payment, but the jeweller panicked and rang Gardai.
They were told Foley had held her against her will and demanded money with menaces. However, CCTV footage shows no indication Foley was breaking the law.
Gardai were called to the scene and the veteran gangster and his pal were subsequently arrested.
The 64-year-old has a long history of involvement but only recently got married and had a child. He has more than 40 convictions, some for assault, robbery, and possession of threatening weapons.
Before settling down, he was the subject of four attempted assassinations, and has been shot over a dozen times.
Foley has a total of 15 bullet holes in his body after surviving the murder bids. He is known as "Rasputin" among his criminal colleagues because nobody has ever been able to kill him.
After a botched hit attempt in 2000, Foley spoke about how being shot had affected him.
He said: "When you are shot on three different occasions and you have eleven holes in your body, psychologically the thing is never going to leave you and you would react to certain situations where anything bad might happen."
He was raided by the Criminal Assets Bureau late last year after being handed a bill for €916,960 from them. The bill relates to the alleged under declaration of income tax from his debt collection business Viper Recovery Agency which is now defunct.
Gardai have today arrested three men in connection with the murder of Dean Johnson at Harelawn Green, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 on August 24th 2013.
The men, who are aged in their 20s, and one in his 30s, were arrested in the Dublin area.
Two are detained at Lucan Garda Station and one at Ronanstown Garda Station.
Thirteen people in total have been arrested in connection with this investigation to date.
21-year-old Dean Johnson was gunned down in a cruel and callous manner just yards from his home in Clondalkin, west Dublin.
Three people were involved in his death. One gunman shot at him from a distance before a second gunman stood over him as he lay on the ground and shot him a number of times.
Gardai believe that he was killed in a case of mistaken identity.
A nearby neighbour who rushed out of her house recalled the horrific moment when she realised what had just happened.
“I was the first one there,” the woman, who did not want to be named, said.
“I knew Dean well, but I couldn’t recognise him because there was so much blood on his face. “He was gurgling and making a horrible sound in this throat, like he was trying to say something, but I couldn’t do anything.”
The young woman, who was still clearly in shock, told how she tried to help the victim as she called an ambulance.
“The ambulance men were telling me over the phone to turn him over,” she recalled as she sat trembling on her doorstep. “I didn’t want to but I did and, oh God, there was so much blood. I could see that he had been shot in the head, but there were loads of other wounds on his body. He died before anybody got here.” Other neighbours who went to help the young man as he died on the pavement were too frightened to talk to the Sunday World.
A number of months after the murder, his brother Andrew (31) told the Sunday World the killing had devastated the family.
This is the man blasted in a gun attack this week posing for a pic with notorious gangster and jail escapee Lee McDonnell.
Robert Ellis (23) was shot in the stomach while his innocent girlfriend was hit in the arm by a gunman as they walked home on Thursday night
The 23-year-old was blasted in the stomach while his girlfriend was hit in the arm with a small calibre handgun outside a house in Grange View Lawns in West Dublin.
Ellis had previously been warned by Gardaí that his life was in danger.
“We would ask anyone who may have witnessed the attack to contact the Garda confidential line or their local Garda station,” said a spokesperson.
A man who was the victim of a gangland-style shooting has been left paralysed from the waist down as a result of the attack.
Jonathan Burke (40) was shot outside a house in the Heatherwood estate, Bray, on November 13 of last year.
A gunman fired several rounds from a shotgun at the victim, striking him six times in the upper-body as well as hitting him in the spine.
Burke miraculously survived the ordeal, but there were fears at the time that he would be permanently injured. A source told the Herald that Burke is now confirmed as being paralysed from the waist down.
He was released from prison just two weeks before the shooting, and is well-known to gardai.
Burke was one of the first prisoners to be convicted of being in possession of a mobile phone in Wheatfield prison, and was also caught trying to flee from the compound during his incarceration.
One of the most serious convictions of the former heroin addict was in April 2008, when he was jailed for five years for taking part in multiple armed robberies at pharmacies.
The main suspects for the hit that left Burke paralysed are a local drugs gang, who are led by a convicted killer.
The same gang are suspected of knee-capping a man in August of last year.
The victim, Tiernan Stokes, was shot in the back of his knees in the People’s Park in Bray.
No charges have been made in relation to the shooting of Burke, and gardai are appealing for anyone with information to contact Bray Garda Station.
Gardaí seized a major cache of ecstasy tablets at a house in Dublin on Friday evening.
Members of the Clondalkin District Drugs Unit seized ecstasy tablets with an estimated value of €380,000
A garda spokesman said the raid is “part of an ongoing operation into the illegal sale and supply of controlled drugs in the Dublin West area.”
“The drugs were discovered following the planned search of a premises at Oak Rise, Clondalkin yesterday evening, Friday 13th March 2015 at approximately 8.20pm,” he added.
A small quantity of cocaine and other drug paraphernalia was also seized during the search.
A 25-year-old man was arrested at scene and is currently detained at Clondalkin Garda Station under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996
AN innocent woman hospitalised following a gun attack this week said she and her boyfriend were “so lucky” to have survived.
Robert Ellis (23) and his girlfriend Sarah Hardiman (21) were injured when a gunman opened fire on them outside a house in Grange View estate in Clondalkin, Dublin, on Thursday night.
A hitman fired five shots from a handgun in the attack, hitting Sarah in the arm and Ellis in the stomach.
Ellis, who has dozens of convictions, was believed to be the intended target of the attack, having recently been officially warned by gardai there was a threat to his life.
Gardai believe the pair were lucky that the would-be assassin used a low-calibre handgun.
“We were so lucky,” Sarah said online. She went on to tell pals she and Robert were “both grand”.
“We’re both doing well,” she said.
She told Ellis she loved him and added that she was “feeling blessed” after surviving the gun attack.
Ellis has close links to notorious criminal Lee McDonnell, who went on the run in December after he escaped from a prison van which had stopped for food following a prison visit.
Robert Ellis and Lee McDonald
McDonnell, who is serving a 10-year sentence for a number of violent crimes, including armed robbery, was recaptured in Ronanstown in January.
Ellis, who had only been released from prison in September, is believed to have met up with McDonnell while he was on the run.
He had been serving a sentence for his involvement in a machete attack on a man in Ballyfermot along with McDonnell and another pal.
Ellis received a four-year sentence with 18 months suspended. He was previously sentenced to seven years with four suspended for drugs offences.
Gardai are investigating whether a southwest Dublin gang were behind the gun attack on Ellis this week.
Gardai are also looking into claims he was targeted because of his links to McDonnell and other associates.
Gardai from the newly amalgamated Organised Crime Unit and National Drug Unit uncovered a firearm and other offensive weapons when they stopped a van on Rosemount Avenue, Artane at 1:15pm this afternoon.
Three men were detained at the scene, another three, sitting in a nearby car, were arrested and a seventh man was collared a short distance away.
The men range in age from early 20s to mid 50s.
The men are being detained under Section 30, Offences Against the State Act, 1939 at Coolock, Ballymun, Clontarf and Raheny Garda Stations.
No injuries have been reported and investigations are ongoing.
A ring of steel has been placed around Ballymun since the release of gangland thug Derek ‘Bottler’ Devoy who has been listed as the number one gangland target in Ireland.
This is dead man walking Devoy, who has caused a major headache to Gardai patrolling the streets of north Dublin in an effort to prevent any attempt to assassinate him.
It is understood that there is a €20,000 bounty on his head by associates of gang boss Greg Lynch who are suspected of shooting his brother ‘Mad’ Mickey dead last year.
He was assassinated after he was blamed for the shooting of Lynch in a packed Dublin pub which has left him scarred for life. The feud erupted over a row about a €30,000 debt.
Armed Gardai are doing spot checks on cars travelling through the area after mounting the highest possible security alert since ‘Bottler’s’ release last week.
Devoy walked free from Mountjoy Prison after serving a sentence for an attempted robbery of a post office in Balbriggan, north Dublin, and for shooting at his neighbours
Lynch’s mob were suspected of the murder of ‘Bottler’s’ brother ‘Mad’ Mickey Devoy last year after he was blamed for the gun attack on Lynch at Hanlons corner pub.
Gardai believe a major ‘kill or be killed’ threat exists on Devoy who is living with his mother on Balbutcher Road.
The thug is keeping a low profile since his release and has not been seen out and about in Ballymum.
He is said to be completely paranoid that he is going to be shot dead just like his brother.
The 35-year-old was released from jail two days early in an effort to thwart any planned assassination attempt and was driven straight to his mother’s home where he has remained ever since, only popping out to collect a girlfriend.
Gardai are hoping that their presence on the street coupled with heavy CCTV in the area will be enough to discourage a shooter from taking a pop at Devoy.
Locals in Ballymun are believed to be terrified of Devoy who is known to be a highly volatile criminal.
He was in jail when his brother was shot dead but was not allowed out for his funeral.
Bottler was found guilty of a non-fatal drive-by shooting of two of his neighbours in Ballymum in 2007.
His trial heard that he was recognised when a scarf slipped from his face after he shot at the two men from a speeding car.
Ballymun woman Victoria McElligott who recognised Devoy as he shot at her brothers Eugene and Paul has been under armed guard since she gave evidence against him.
She was on the street when she said she saw a Mazda car drive up to her brothers and saw a person in the back seat shoot at them. She told the court that she got a look at the gunman and screamed “it’s Bottler Devoy!”
Ms McElligott said Devoy then pointed the gun at her but she pulled her coat over her head until she heard the car drive away. Eugene McElligott told the court he heard ‘the wind going past my ear’ while he ran for safety to a neighbours house.
In the meantime the Devoys got involved in a feud with associates of gang boss Greg Lynch over a debt owed.
Last January his brother ‘Mad’ Mickey was shot dead and dumped in Bohernabreena.
It is understood that the Lynch mob had planned to kill two other brothers and had targeted window cleaner John O’Reagan who was shot dead outside a school in Ballymun.
O’Regan was blamed for stealing the car which was used in the botched hit on a Lynch in 2013.
Lynch was lucky to survive the shooting and has since been so paranoid he rarely goes out barricading himself into his home in Marylands. When he does he tries to cover his face and the horrific scarring that he endured.
Lynch is a key member of a drugs gang that also includes Paul Rice and has close links to the international crime syndicate controlled by godfather Christy Kinahan.
Originally from the Oliver Bond flats complex, Lynch has been a long-term target for Gardai.
Lynch was aged just 19 when he was jailed for six years in 2004 after he was caught handing over €400,000 of heroin.
Gardai are appealing for witnesses to a shooting, which occurred in Dublin in January.
A number of shots were fired at a house in Stoneybatter on January 22 earlier this year.
Several children were in the house at Blackhorse Grove when the gunman fired the shots, Gardai said.
"Thankfully nobody was injured which does not take away from the experience suffered by the families within," a Garda spokesperson said.
Detectives are working on establishing the circumstances surrounding the shooting but are appealing for any witnesses or people with information that may assist with the investigation.
Garda are asking members of the public if they have any information regarding this incident to contact the Bridewell Garda Station
Seven Dublin men were cleared of IRA membership by the Special Criminal Court today after the prosecution case against them collapsed following a court ruling on evidence.
Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding at the non jury court, directed that the seven men should be acquitted after prosecuting counsel Ms Tara Burns SC said that the DPP would not be offering any more evidence.
The court earlier this week ruled that the belief evidence of a Chief Superintendent that the men were IRA members was not admissible.
Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Kirwan, the head of Security and Intelligence at Garda Headquarters, previously told the court that he believed on the basis of confidential information that all seven accused were members of the IRA.
He claimed privilege in relation to the sources of the confidential information but during cross examination he admitted that it was based on human sources and telephone intercepts.
On Tuesday Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding at the non jury court, said that this had not been disclosed in advance to the defence and a “basic unfairness of procedure” in the case had resulted and the only remedy was to rule the belief evidence as inadmissible.
The seven men acquitted by the court are: Kevin Braney (40), of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght , Des Christie (50), of Liam Mellows Road, Finglas, Hubert Duffy (47), of George’s Place in Dublin 1, William Jackson (55), of Dooncourt, Poppintree, Declan Phelan (33), of Lanndale Lawns, Tallaght, John Brock (42), of Glenview Park, Tallaght, and Darren Murphy (44), of Rory O’Connor House in Dublin 1.
All seven had pleaded not guilty to membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on March 29th, 2013.
During a twenty one day trial the prosecution had claimed that the seven men were part of an IRA operation to extort money from a used car dealer in Clondalkin and that they had travelled to the car dealership for that purpose.
The court heard that members of the Emergency Response Unit and the Special Detective Unit moved in to arrest the men and that a number of items were recovered from the scene.
In follow up searches of two vans, an office and kitchen, gardai found cable ties, gloves, balaclavas, a baseball bat, a lump hammer, a pepper spray and a Glock pistol.
The prosecution case relied on garda observations of the men on the morning of their arrest, items found at the scene, their response to questioning during garda interviews and the opinion evidence of Chief Superintendent Kirwan.
A notorious criminal who is linked to three brutal gangland murders and was the subject of a garda manhunt that lasted for over a year was caught just minutes after he was observed sipping on a drink in a north-Dublin pub.
It is not known why details of the arrest operation involving the criminal were kept top secret, but it is believed that he has been locked up for the past fortnight because he has been unable to get bail.
Described as "highly volatile and dangerous", the criminal - who had spent months on the run in England - is currently on remand on charges not linked to his suspected murder spree.
The Herald has learned that despite having a number of major underworld enemies, the north-Dublin man - aged in his early 30s - is not on a prison protection landing and has been mixing freely with other inmates in the Dublin facility he is being held in.
Sources said that he is suspected of "major involvement" in three gun murders stretching from 2005 to 2010, as well as a string of armed robberies and non-fatal shootings.
Heavily-armed detectives pulled him from a vehicle he was travelling in shortly after he was seen drinking in the pub late last month.
The criminal has served numerous short prison sentences in the past and has been heavily involved in gang feuding, especially in the Darndale and Coolock areas.
Among the murders gardai have questioned him about is the death of Tallaght criminal Mark Byrne (below, 29), who was shot dead outside Mountjoy Prison.
Sources said that he masterminded Byrne's murder just minutes after the victim was released from jail on temporary release after the two men became involved in a bitter prison row in May, 2005.
In 2008, Byrne's inquest heard that his killer stood over Byrne who was on all fours trying to scramble away when he was killed.
The killer shot the man in the back and, as his body flipped over with the force of the impact, shot him again in the head. The hitman then checked to make sure Byrne, from Kilcarraig Green in Tallaght, was dead.
Another gruesome murder the gangster is suspected of being involved in is that of rival criminal David 'Fred' Lynch (26) in Darndale in March, 2009.
Lynch, from Ferrycarrig in Coolock, had previously sustained serious injuries after being shot outside a pub in Ballymun in October, 2006.
His body was found in a pool of blood in wasteland near the Newtown Court apartments, off Belcamp Lane, by a woman walking her dog in the area.
The jailed psycho is also the chief suspect for the murder of Noel Deans in Coolock in January, 2010, as part of a bitter drugs dispute.
When reading about Irish OC you often come across articles on crime among Irish Travellers. But in general it seems that the majority of Traveller criminals (with several exceptions of course) are more active in stuff like burglaries, smaller robberies, fraud,...while most the really powerful criminal gangs that are involved in the more mob-like activities such as narcotics, extortion, rackets,...are not Travellers but rather come from the inner city working class districts of Dublin.
Thanks for sharing these articles by the way. Reading through it proves that Irish OC today is one of the more pervasive types in Europe.
When reading about Irish OC you often come across articles on crime among Irish Travellers. But in general it seems that the majority of Traveller criminals (with several exceptions of course) are more active in stuff like burglaries, smaller robberies, fraud,...while most the really powerful criminal gangs that are involved in the more mob-like activities such as narcotics, extortion, rackets,...are not Travellers but rather come from the inner city working class districts of Dublin.
Thanks for sharing these articles by the way. Reading through it proves that Irish OC today is one of the more pervasive types in Europe.
When reading about Irish OC you often come across articles on crime among Irish Travellers. But in general it seems that the majority of Traveller criminals (with several exceptions of course) are more active in stuff like burglaries, smaller robberies, fraud,...while most the really powerful criminal gangs that are involved in the more mob-like activities such as narcotics, extortion, rackets,...are not Travellers but rather come from the inner city working class districts of Dublin.
Thanks for sharing these articles by the way. Reading through it proves that Irish OC today is one of the more pervasive types in Europe.
If I remember well, Wayne Dundon claimed to be a Traveller. How serious is he considered in comparison with guys like Christy Kinahan. Are the Dundons known internationally or they don't have power outside Limerick? Just being curious.
When reading about Irish OC you often come across articles on crime among Irish Travellers. But in general it seems that the majority of Traveller criminals (with several exceptions of course) are more active in stuff like burglaries, smaller robberies, fraud,...while most the really powerful criminal gangs that are involved in the more mob-like activities such as narcotics, extortion, rackets,...are not Travellers but rather come from the inner city working class districts of Dublin.
Thanks for sharing these articles by the way. Reading through it proves that Irish OC today is one of the more pervasive types in Europe.
When reading about Irish OC you often come across articles on crime among Irish Travellers. But in general it seems that the majority of Traveller criminals (with several exceptions of course) are more active in stuff like burglaries, smaller robberies, fraud,...while most the really powerful criminal gangs that are involved in the more mob-like activities such as narcotics, extortion, rackets,...are not Travellers but rather come from the inner city working class districts of Dublin.
Thanks for sharing these articles by the way. Reading through it proves that Irish OC today is one of the more pervasive types in Europe.
If I remember well, Wayne Dundon claimed to be a Traveller. How serious is he considered in comparison with guys like Christy Kinahan. Are the Dundons known internationally or they don't have power outside Limerick? Just being curious.
From what I've learned the Dundons are Traveller from their mother's side. That's also where they have their connection to the McCarthy's, which is a notorious Traveller family. The Dundon's father is an East Londoner. They also lived in Hackney for quite some time before they moved to Limerick.
I don't think the Dundon-McCarthy's really had any power outside of Limerick. Sure they may have been known and within the prison they hold a reputation for violence. But to me it seems that their way of conducting business was solely based on violence. Their rivals the Keane-Collopy's on the other hand seemed to be far more professional. The Keane's were also the ones with the more important contacts for narcotics and such. The Keane-Collopy's, as far as I know, are not Travellers but come from the settled community. They grew up on the estates. Both gangs have been severely weakened now however.
Their rivals the Keane-Collopy's on the other hand seemed to be far more professional. The Keane's were also the ones with the more important contacts for narcotics and such. The Keane-Collopy's, as far as I know, are not Travellers but come from the settled community. They grew up on the estates. Both gangs have been severely weakened now however.
But if the Keanes are the real deal, why was Christy Keane caught so foolishly, PERSONALLY delivering a sack of hashish, if I remember correctly? And why no attempt to kill any of the Dundons? I read the latest book by Paul Williams called "Murder Inc" about the Limerick gangland and it says the only serious retaliation by Christy Keane was robbing of drugs his former allies who aligned themselves with the Dundons. Also, Brian Collopy had some high-ranking Dundon/McCarthy member (forgot the name) killed by Gary Campion who switched sides. I thought when Christy Keane got out of prison there would be a river of Dundon/McCarthy blood washing the streets. Instead, nothing. The police did all the work.
Their rivals the Keane-Collopy's on the other hand seemed to be far more professional. The Keane's were also the ones with the more important contacts for narcotics and such. The Keane-Collopy's, as far as I know, are not Travellers but come from the settled community. They grew up on the estates. Both gangs have been severely weakened now however.
But if the Keanes are the real deal, why was Christy Keane caught so foolishly, PERSONALLY delivering a sack of hashish, if I remember correctly? And why no attempt to kill any of the Dundons? I read the latest book by Paul Williams called "Murder Inc" about the Limerick gangland and it says the only serious retaliation by Christy Keane was robbing of drugs his former allies who aligned themselves with the Dundons. Also, Brian Collopy had some high-ranking Dundon/McCarthy member (forgot the name) killed by Gary Campion who switched sides. I thought when Christy Keane got out of prison there would be a river of Dundon/McCarthy blood washing the streets. Instead, nothing. The police did all the work.
I don't think either of the two gangs were all-powerful or held any influence outside of Limerick. None of them are rocket scientists. Able to control the local drug trade but that's where it stops. But compared to the Dundons, the Keane-Collopy's seem to have had the better contacts and were also far more involved in buying up property and such. They seemed to be more businesslike compared to the Dundons and McCarthy's that more behaved like raving mad dogs.
Again, this is just my view from reading through the cases. Irish posters may have a different opinion.
New information has emerged about the man believed to have shot Ireland’s revolutionary leader Michael Collins, including the revelation that he had previously met “the Big Fella” twice.
Denis “Sonny” O’Neill, a former Royal Irish Constabulary and IRA officer who fought on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War, was at Beal na Blath on August 22, 1922 for the ambush that took Collins’ life.
According to pension records just published by Ireland’s Military Archives and analyzed by the Irish Independent, he claimed that his presence that day was an accident.
Advertisement “We accidentally ran into the Ballinablath [sic] thing. We took up a position, and held it there until late in the evening,” he said in a sworn statement delivered in 1934 when he was applying for a military pension.
The Collins party had been delayed and O’Neill and his comrades were about to abandon the ambush when they heard the Collins group approaching.
Collins leaped from the car and began firing when they came under fire. He was shot by a single bullet through the head and died instantly.
O’Neill also had two personal encounters with Collins while working with the IRA during the War of Independence. The first in 1920, when he was introduced to Collins and a number of his confidantes; the second in 1921, when he was entrusted to deliver a message to Collins from London.
That these records survive is remarkable in itself, given that a 1932 government order directed all files pertaining to the Civil War be burned.
O’Neill, described in army intelligence files from 1924 as “a first class shot and a strict disciplinarian” and “undoubtedly a dangerous man,” was born in Timoleague, Co. Cork in 1888.
He served in the RIC and as a marksman for the British Army in WWI, but was discharged after being shot in the arm.
Back in Ireland, he rose through the ranks of the IRA thanks to the access granted him by his RIC past. In the Irish Civil War he fought on the Anti-Treaty side. The pension files paint a picture of a man on the run after the war ended, never staying in the same house two nights in a row.
Years later he settled in Tipperary, becoming a peace commissioner and a director of elections for Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail. He died in 1950.
All of this new information about O’Neill is included in the second cache of Military Pensions Archives published by the Irish Defense Forces and just made available online.
Between 1924 and 1949, the Irish government made those who had fought or performed intelligence work in the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War eligible for pensions.
In order to receive benefits, however, they had to provide evidence, personal testimony and second hand testimony of their service.
Because of this, the records are exceptionally detailed. The portion just released, for example, includes 1,158 individual pension records, 77 administrative files and 173,000 scanned documents, letters and photographs. The site also includes a map of activity during the 1916 Easter Rising and a photo identification project.
A prison officer has been treated in hospital after suffering a cut to his eye in another brutal attack on prison staff inside Mountjoy today.
The attack came as members of the Operational Support Group carried out searches.
It is the latest in a series of attacks that have threatened to spark industrial action by prison officers, who claim cutbacks have affected their safety.
Thug Stephen Dolan, who is serving time for actual bodily harm after attacking a taxi driver and head-butting a garda during a court appearance, launched his unprovoked attack during a routine search.
Prison Officer Association (POA) spokesman Jim Mitchell said there have been six assaults on staff in Mountjoy in the last three weeks.
“It highlights the dangerous and difficult job prison officers have to do,” he told the Sunday World.
The POA are due to meet Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald this week to discuss a report into the escape of dangerous prisoner Derek Brockwell, during which two warders were stabbed.
A Dublin man has been jailed for ten years for robbing a credit union and firing a gun while resisting arrest.
The weapon fired by Derek Murphy (45) was later revealed to have had an umbrella shaft for a barrel.
The shot caused a bicycle patrol garda who was pursuing Murphy and his accomplice on foot to dive behind a nearby vehicle and retreat from the area.
Murphy, of Springdale Road, Raheny pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing Portmarnock Credit Union, Strand Road, Portmarnock, Co Dublin of €2,800 on November 16, 2012.
He also pleaded guilty to producing a firearm while seizing a vehicle and using a firearm while resisting arrest at St Anne’s Square, Portmarnock on the same date. Judge Martin Nolan said Murphy remained a potential threat to society. He suspended the last two years of a 12 year sentence on condition he keep the peace for two years after his release.
Murphy was previously jailed for six years for a 2003 bank robbery, for 12 years for a tiger kidnapping and seven years for manslaughter in 1993.
Detective Garda Brian Pentony revealed that Murphy had only been released from the tiger kidnapping sentence about two years before he committed the credit union robbery.
He told Anne Rowland BL, prosecuting, that Murphy and his accomplice pushed into the credit union as a customer was being buzzed in. One credit union staff member later told gardai that Murphy had been the most aggressive robber in her experience of raids.
Garda Michael Bolton, who was on bicycle patrol, spotted the two men in balaclavas exiting the credit union. He discarded his bike to pursue the robbers on foot and saw them shouting at a motorist to get out of her car. He was then forced to dive behind a nearby vehicle when he heard a bang and saw a flash coming from Murphy’s gun.
Gda Bolton, who has since been nominated for a medal for bravery, retreated towards the main road and flagged down a passing car to follow the robbers in their hijacked vehicle.
The hijacked Opel Astra was later discovered by other gardai abandoned at a housing estate. The two raiders were seen lying on a grass embankment nearby.
Murphy failed to hop a fence to escape when garda units moved in on him and his accomplice, who managed to flee. A 9mm handgun was found in poor condition at the scene.
He said tests confirmed that a spent casing was jammed in the gun. He agreed with Sean Guerin SC, defending, that one part of the weapon was the shaft of an umbrella.
Mr Guerin submitted to Judge Nolan that his client had mental health and drug difficulties and had spent most of his life in custody. The judge agreed that Murphy had a dysfunctional upbringing and was not treated well.
Gardai attached to the Cork City Divisional Drug Unit and the Garda National Drug Unit/Organised Crime Unit seized heroin and cocaine worth an estimated €37,000 and €1,000 (pending analysis) following the search of a car at the M8 Toll Plaza in Cork.
The driver and sole occupant, a male in his 30’s, was arrested at the scene and brought to Mayfield Garda Station where he is currently detained under the provisions of Section 2 of The Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996.
In a follow up search of a house in Navan, Co. Meath this afternoon a small amount of ecstasy, cash and mobile phones were discovered.
ALAN RYAN’s inner circle held a night out to celebrate the freedom of Dean Evans as he awaits trial on a murder charge.
Evans and his brother Darragh joined up with Ryan’s brother Vinnie, Derek Nolan and other pals on a night out to celebrate the fact he got bail last month.
Dean Evans was one of three men charged with the murder of former Real IRA member Pete Butterly, who was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn in Gormanstown, Co. Meath, on March 6, 2013.
He had been in Portlaoise Prison for over a year, but the case against the men collapsed at the Special Criminal Court in January and a retrial has now been set for next year. As a result, Evans was granted bail and he soon joined up with his old pals, who were Ryan’s core associates.
Vinnie and Darragh spent a year in Portlaoise after being charged with possession of an assault rifle and a handgun on the day gang boss Michael ‘Micka’ Kelly was shot dead in 2012.
However, the Special Criminal Court ruled there was an insufficient evidential basis from which a jury could find them guilty.
They weren’t the only members of the group to be charged of an offence and later walk free.
Derek Nolan ,along with Alan Ryan, John Stokes and Daryl Mulcahy, had been charged with demanding that the Castle pub in Summerhill, Dublin, close within 24 hours.
Stokes ran the rival Player’s Lounge pub, which became a Real IRA hangout at the time.
Ryan was shot dead before the case came to court and the State dropped the charges against the other men after the publican who said he was threatened changed his evidence.
The majority of Ryan’s pals have faced death threats in recent years, including the Evans brothers and Nolan. Dean Evans and Nolan were living in a house in the south inner city when the threats were at their highest around two years ago. Evans can not stay at his parents home due to the threats against him.
Nolan fled Dublin after being informed of threats to his life, but has since returned.
Associates of the gang boss known as Mr Big have targeted their family homes on more than one occasion, despite the fact the men no longer live there. As well as celebrating Evans release from prison, pals of Alan Ryan recently commemorated him by having special mugs made up featuring his picture and a picture of an IRA colour party firing shots over his coffin.
Four members of a north inner city gang were in garda custody last night after a dramatic arrest operation in which two of the men were discovered in the boot of a Toyota taxi wearing balaclavas.
Heavily armed detectives pounced on the taxi and a Ford Mondeo, which were travelling in convoy at Harold Road in Stoneybatter, in Dublin's north inner city, at around 10.30am.
Two of the criminals were hiding in the taxi's boot and had a large knife in their possession, while the only occupant of the Mondeo was its driver. Neither car had been stolen.
"A number of items including a large-bladed knife and balaclavas were recovered during the searches," a garda spokesman said.
Wigs and ski masks were also seized by armed officers. All four were arrested and were being questioned last night in Mountjoy and Store Street Garda Stations.
The men are being questioned about conspiracy to commit a robbery and sources say that gardaí intercepted the vehicles yesterday morning shortly before this was due to happen.
An Irish Traveller has been arrested in connection with the murder of a 72-year-old Texas housekeeper.
Colleyville police say 26-year-old Bernard Gorman faces a murder warrant in a scam to collect on $1 million insurance without the victim's knowledge.
Gorman was arrested and is being detained in relation to the murder of Anita Fox (73), an elderly housekeeper who was found stabbed to death last year. Polk County jail records show Gorman was being held without bond Thursday.
Colleyville Police Chief Michael Holder says Fox was found slain in September at a residence where she worked. She was discovered at a house in Colleyville with stab wounds to her head, back and chest areas.
According to the Star Telegram, it was the city’s first homicide in 23 years.
Holder says the suspect's late father Gerard Gorman - who recently died of natural causes in January - fatally stabbed Fox.
Police allege the victim had been followed by two suspects in the days leading up to her death. They believe the father-son duo planned to murder Fox and collect an insurance policy.
The Telegram reported that greed was the motive, and that the Gormans planned to collect on a $1 million life insurance policy in Fox’s name. Gorman was part of a group of three people paying for the policy.
The arrest results from a months-long investigation launched by the U.S. Attorney's office in Columbia, South Carolina.
Colleyville Police Chief Mike Holder said: “Our investigation discovered an elaborate, organised scheme, organised by several individuals and designed to obtain fraudulent life insurance policies.
“Specific to our investigation, we discovered there was an insurance policy issued on Miss Fox, for at least seven figures.”
A man and a woman who met on the night they were involved in an armed robbery have avoided jail.
Suzanne O’Connell (42) was the get away driver for Daniel McMahon (23) and another man who went into the petrol station in Clonsilla, Dublin armed with a pellet gun and a knife.
O’Connell of Whitestown Crescent, Blanchardstown, Dublin and McMahon of Woodlands, Clonsilla, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbery of the Applegreen shop on September 19, 2013.
Detective Garda Rebecca Doolin said that gardai had O’Connell under observation on the night and followed her as she drove from her home to a house on Briarwood Lawn, Clonsilla where she picked up McMahon and another man.
She drove off and parked on a cul-de-sac road opposite the petrol station. The two men got out and, wearing balaclavas, walked into the shop. McMahon was pointing what looked like a 6mm colt handgun and demanding money. The other man had a knife.
The raiders told staff to fill a plastic bag with cash and they left with around €800. Gardai who had followed the car then moved in and arrested all three.
They shouted “armed gardai, stop” as the men left the shop and the men threw down their weapons. The gun was found to be a pellet gun and was a convincing replica, the court heard.
After his arrest McMahon said he didn’t know O’Connell and they had only met that night. Detective Doolin agreed with McMahon when he said: “I’m not a big criminal mastermind”. He has no previous convictions and O’Connell’s convictions are for road traffic offences and a drug dealing offence in 2002.
Garnet Orange SC, defending, said she is actively involved in the care of her autistic son.
Ronan Kennedy BL, defending McMahon, said he comes from a very decent family and that things spiralled out of control for him after his cousin, who he was very close to, killed himself. He said he is now back in education and also carries out volunteer work.
Judge Martin Nolan suspended a five year prison term on condition that each of them keep the peace for that time. He said he was taking into consideration their personal circumstances and the mitigating factors of a guilty plea and their co-operated with gardai.
The PSNI has reportedly launched new investigations into six key IRA suspects alleged to be behind some of the most notorious attacks of the Troubles - who received letters telling them they were not wanted by police
The PSNI has reportedly launched new investigations into six key IRA suspects alleged to be behind some of the most notorious attacks of the Troubles - who received letters telling them they were not wanted by police.
The scheme saw around 200 fugitive republicans receive assurances that they were not wanted by UK authorities.
A political crisis was sparked after the collapse of the prosecution last year of John Downey for the Hyde Park bombing which killed four soldiers in 1982.
The Telegraph newspaper reported that detectives in Northern Ireland have found "six additional individuals whose circumstances have been identified as similar to the Downey case".
It almost brought Stormont down, with First Minister Peter Robinson threatening to resign.
Downey received one of the OTR letters in error when he was wanted by the Metropolitan Police. The Government has said it no longer stands by the letters.
The revelations came from a leaked police document which reportedly shows that detectives now believe these "comfort letters" do not protect suspects from prosecution.
The Telegraph said police in Northern Ireland have identified six individuals suspected of carrying out terrorist attacks, which are believed to have taken place both here and in England. The document does not give details of the six cases.
In a statement, ACC Will Kerr said: "The review of these cases is an ongoing processes. This does involve active criminal investigations and it would therefore be inappropriate to comment further at this stage."
It is understood that the comfort letters were given to suspects in the Harrods car bomb in 1983, which killed six and injured 90, and the 1987 Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen.
UUP MLA Tom Elliott welcomed the news. He said: "It is important that every possible avenue is taken to bring justice for the innocent victims in our society. No one should be above the law, and letters of comfort should not be allowed to prevent prosecutions."
Background
A judge-led review was requested by Prime Minister David Cameron to investigate how more than 200 people were told they were not wanted for paramilitary crimes as part of a peace process deal between Sinn Fein and Tony Blair's Labour government.
Lady Hallett said the scheme was not well publicised, and effectively kept "below the radar", but was not secret. Mr Blair said the letter should not have been issued to Mr Downey.
Police are reportedly investigating six key IRA suspects who received letters telling them they were not wanted.
The Sunday Telegraph said they were alleged to be behind some of Britain's worst attacks.
The Government has said it no longer stands by the letters, drawn up under Tony Blair's administration as a peace process move.
It followed the collapse of the prosecution last year of John Downey for the Hyde Park bombing which killed four soldiers in 1982.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, officers have found "six additional individuals whose circumstances have been identified as similar to the Downey case".
The leaked police document shows that detectives now believe these "comfort letters" do not protect suspects from prosecution.
It discloses that police in Northern Ireland have identified six individuals suspected of carrying out terrorist attacks.
Mr Blair's Government sent about 200 letters to republicans assuring them they were not being pursued by the UK authorities following requests from Sinn Fein.
Mr Blair began the peace process scheme in 2000 which saw 95 of the so-called letters of comfort issued by the government to suspects linked by intelligence to almost 300 murders.
The plan was drawn up following pressure from Sinn Fein to allow the fugitives, who had they been in prison before 1998 would have been released under the Good Friday Agreement, to return to Northern Ireland.
An investigation was launched by MPs when the prosecution of Mr Downey for the murder of the soldiers at Hyde Park in 1982 was halted after he received one of the OTR letters in error when he was wanted by the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Blair apologised to Hyde Park victims but made no apology for sending letters to those who should have received them.
He took responsibility for the structural problems with the scheme, which developed from a small to a large number of cases over many years, and said the framework could have been better. A judge said had the issues been corrected they may have prevented the Hyde Park error.
Household Cavalry Lieutenant Anthony "Denis" Daly, 23, died in the explosion alongside Trooper Simon Tipper, 19, Lance Corporal Jeffrey Young, 19, and 36-year-old Squadron Quartermaster Corporal Roy Bright.
Mr Blair said the letter should not have been issued to Mr Downey.
ACC Will Kerr said: "The review of these cases is an ongoing process. This does involve active criminal investigations and it would therefore be inappropriate to comment further at this stage."
The son of a west Belfast man who was honoured for his bravery in trying to rescue victims of the Shankill bomb said he was his family's as well as the community's hero.
Raymond Elliott (71) from Highfield died on Wednesday after suffering from long-term ill-health. He had never fully recovered from or talked about the horror he witnessed on October 23, 1993 when the IRA bombed Frizzell's fish shop on the Shankill Road, killing 10 people and injuring more than 50 others.
With no thoughts for his own safety, Mr Elliott spent hours digging through the rubble trying to save people.
He received the Royal Ulster Constabulary Award Certificate for his valour.
Diane Morrison - sister of Michael Morrison, one of those killed in the bomb along with his partner Evelyn Baird and seven-year-old daughter Michelle - said Mr Elliott had been a lifelong family friend and they would always be grateful to him for his efforts on the day of the bomb, and proud of him.
Mr Elliott's son Stephen last night told the Belfast Telegraph that his family were devastated at the loss of their "hero".
His father died on Wednesday morning, his son's 50th birthday, after struggling with ill-health.
"He had been ill from Christmas. He fought it all the way which was typical of my father, fought until his last breath," he said.
"My father didn't like talking about the bomb too much, he didn't want to upset my mum or any of the families of those who were killed, so he kept a lot in and it tortured him.
"Every time it came up to the anniversary of the bomb, he and my mum would get away from Belfast. They went to Portrush, Portstewart, Bangor, anywhere just to get away from it. It was too hard for him."
Mr Elliott said his father hated passing the site where the bomb had exploded as it upset him to think of people who he had not been able to save.
"He always had it in his head that if he had have been able to save just one person," he said.
"We tried to explain to him that there was nothing anyone could have done, but it haunted him."
Mr Elliott said his father was a different man after the bomb.
"Before that bomb went off he had been the life and soul of the party," he said. "After that bomb, we lost a part of him."
He said his father took solace in his family, especially the new lives coming into it.
"He loved his family, he especially loved having the grandchildren and great grandchildren about him, but he still wasn't the same as he was before that bomb," he said.
"He used to get these depressions. You knew when they were coming on."
Mr Elliott said his father is his hero, and also the hero of the grandchildren and great grandchildren.
"He cared a lot about people, if he saw anyone in trouble he would have helped them, that's just the way he was," he said. "He was our hero, he was the hero to a lot of people.
"The grandchildren kept him going, then the great grandchildren. They were his wee munchkins. They really miss him. We have got DVDs and articles about him getting his medals.
"They don't understand about the Troubles and what happened, but we have told them what he did and you see their wee faces light up, they are so proud of him."
Victims campaigner Willie Frazer described Mr Elliott as a friend, and said he will be sorely missed by the many affected by the Troubles who he had reached out to in the last decade.
"He had been through a lot," he said.
"He helped other victims a lot too, people often find it hard to talk, but Raymond seemed to have a way about him that he could talk to people who had been affected by trauma.
"He was a great help to other victims and he will be sorely missed."
Mr Elliott's funeral is set to take place from his daughter's house next Tuesday.
He is survived by his wife of 53 years Doreen, sons Jim and Stephen, daughter Eileen as well as 11 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.
Gerry Adams told the sister of a man left to bleed to death after a so-called punishment shooting that the IRA men behind it would not be reported to the police, it has been claimed.
Andrew Kearney was shot three times in the leg after a west Belfast bar brawl in which he punched an IRA man in 1998.
His sister Eleanor King is still seeking justice.
She has revealed in an RTE documentary about paramilitary attacks, Above The Law, how the Sinn Fein leader apologised privately for the IRA killing.
However, he refused to make it public.
"The first thing he told us was that he was extending an apology from the top of the republican movement," Ms King said.
Asked by Mr Adams what she wanted, Ms King said her mother requested the gunmen be handed over to the police and for justice to take its course.
"But I think at that stage he told her that it wouldn't happen," she said. "That they wouldn't be handed over but that they would deal out any discipline that was forthcoming from them."
A Dublin man who was arrested for membership of the IRA has been granted bail by the Special Criminal Court.
Declan Phelan (32), of Lanndale Lawns, Tallaght, Dublin 24 was granted bail on condition he surrenders his passport /travel documents, signs on daily at Naas Garda Station, agrees not to leave the jurisdiction that includes not travelling to Northern Ireland, observes a curfew between the hours of 12 Midnight and 6.30 am and does not to associate with any person convicted or charged with a scheduled offence.
The accused must also provide a mobile phone number to the Gardaí from a mobile phone provider in the jurisdiction, and the phone is to be left on at all times and be the sole phone used by accused.
Mr Phelan was granted bail on an independent surety of €10,000 and his own bond of €100.
Mr Phelan will next appear before the Special Criminal Court on June 9 2015 at 11am.
At a special sitting of the non-jury court in July 2013, seven men were charged with membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on July 3 2013.
The seven were: Peter Burns (39) of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, Kevin Braney (39) also of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, Michael Barr (33) of Carlton Court, Poppintree, Ballymun, Brian Nick McBennett (54) of Ard Collum Avenue, Artane, John Brock (41) of Glenview Park, Tallaght, Declan Phelan (31) of Lanndale Lawns, Tallaght and Desmond Christie (49) of Liam Mellows Road, Finglas were all charged with the same offence on the same date.
The paedophile brother of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams will today begin an appeal against his conviction and sentence for raping and sexually abusing his daughter.
Liam Adams, 59, from west Belfast, was found guilty in 2013 of a string of attacks on Aine Dahlstrom when she was aged between four and nine in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
He was subsequently handed a 16-year sentence, only half of which he is expected to spend behind bars.
His case is being heard in the Appeal Court in Belfast.
Adams, formerly of Bernagh Drive, was found guilty of 10 offences against Mrs Dahlstrom - three counts of rape, four of indecent assault and three of gross indecency.
The opportunist predator committed the crimes when he was left alone with his daughter, often sneaking into her room while she slept.
The abuse was committed over a five-year period between 1977 and 1981. In later years he went on to work in a number of youth centres in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Mrs Dahlstrom, now in her early 40s, has waived her right to anonymity.
The conviction heaped pressure on Gerry Adams to explain why he did not alert the authorities to the abuse allegations when he initially learned of them.
Gerry Adams (above) has insisted he acted properly and accused political rivals of exploiting a family issue to attack him.
The UVF is set to launch a sectarian hate campaign in support of the Ligoniel Orangemen.
We can reveal the terror group held a meeting in south Belfast on Wednesday evening also attended by representatives from the east and north of the city.
Hosted by south Belfast commander Eddie `Onions’ Rainey it agreed a blueprint for an anti-catholic hate campaign in an attempt to put the pressure on the government to accede to a list of demands including the stalled Orange parade in north Belfast.
As revealed by the Sunday World last week the UVF intend to hijack a call from the Orange Order leadership for a campaign of peaceful protests against the continued refusal to grant permission for the completion of the Ligoniel parade.
The UVF intends to target catholic families in a systematic campaign of intimidation leading up to the marching season. Security chiefs are already concerned at the prospect of a tense summer.
In the firing line will be foreign nationals and there is increased anxiety that students may also be targeted as the Ulster University develops its city centre campus and increased student accommodation is built in south Belfast. Sources within the UVF described the campaign as a `smoking gun’ to the head of the government.
“The meeting was called for Wednesday night,” said our source, “a whole range of issues were discussed but in particular Twadell and the forthcoming (Gary) Haggartt supergrass trial.
“The message was blunt, any catholics living in or close to loytalist areas are to be put out.”
He said social housing schemes and student accommodation in particular are to be targeted.
We understand that plans to build student housing on the site of the former Albion shirt factory off Sandy Row are to be monitored. New houses on Broadway between loyalist Donegall Road and the Falls are due to allocated in the coming weeks and the UVF have said they will not allow homes to be granted to foreign nationals or anyone they perceive to be catholic.
The Whitehall Square apartment block, also on Sandy Row is to be targeted. It’s not the first time the upmarket development have come in for attention from loyalist paramilitaries. In the past the building has been daubed with anti-catholic slogans.
The complex was seen as a sign Belfast was becoming more cosmopolitan, it was a view not shared by local residents who have variously dubbed it `Vatican Square’ and `White Chapel.’
“We want these people to leave,” said a loyalist source.
“We believe a large proportion of people living there are from the catholic persuasion, and it could be that they will be given 24 hours to get out. If they don’t they leave themselves open to further action.”
He said Wednesday’s meeting made it clear their intention is to target caholics.
“It’s all about getting the taigs out and keeping the prods in. It’s a step back in time and is the same tactic they have used time and time again.”
He said there is little support among the organisation’s membership but there are enough `young guns’ keen to make a name for themselves who will be more than willing to do the leadership’s bidding.
He said the attacks would not be limited to loyalist areas but could spread to the periphery of what are conceived as loyalist districts.
This week a social housing development in Carryduff in the Belfast commuter belt was claimed by loyalists. UVF flags and signs were erected and an entire section of railings were daubed in red white and blue paint.
The 40 house development, which is near completion, is not in a loyalist district but is close to Killynure estate which is regarded as mainly unionist. Carryduff is a typical commuter belt town and has always been regarded as a socially and religiously mixed.
“They (UVF) say this campaign is about getting the parade down the road, by hook or by c rook, but they also have an eye on the Haggarty trial,” said our source.
“They think they can put a gun to the government’s head, if they want to go ahead with Haggarty then they will see catholic families being petrol bombed out of their homes.”
He said veteran members have warned the leadership, including Rainey, that such campaigns in the past have yielded little or nothing for loyalists.
“Have they forgotten Drumcree,” said our source, “they firebombed a house and murdered the Quinn children, are they seriously suggesting we go down that road again.”
Three young brothers were murdered in a loyalist arson attack in Ballymoney, at the height of the Drumcree protests in 1998.
The boys - Richard Quinn, 11, Mark Quinn, 9, and Jason Quinn, 7 - were asleep in their beds when a petrol bomb was thrown through a window at the rear of their terraced house in the early hours of the morning on the Twelfth.
The Quinns were Catholics living on the predominantly Protestant Carnany estate, but they were accepted by the community and attended a Protestant school.
“It seems to be ok for drug dealers to move into protestant areas but not catholics. This is going to be a very long summer.”
An armed robber who said he led gardaí on a chase from Dublin to Westmeath because “he had nothing left to lose” has received a five year sentence with four suspended
Eugene Byrne (21) of Lohunda Down, Clonsilla, Dublin had pleaded guilty to attempted robbery at Clonsilla Post Office on December 16, 2013.
Byrne and his accomplice Ian Mansfield (24) fled the scene on a single motorbike and were chased as far as Mulligar, Co Westmeath.
Mansfield of Fortlawn Drive, Blanchardstown, Dublin was earlier spared jail with a suspended five year sentence.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Byrne was arrested in Trinidad and Tobago last year for trying to export cocaine. He was sentenced to two years hard labour, or a fine equivalent to about €4,000 which was paid after he spent six months in jail. He returned to Ireland in January.
Detective Seargent Paul Tallon said that witnesses described how Byrne was armed with a gun when he entered the post office. His accomplice had a hammer. Both men were wearing motorcycle helmets.
The post mistress’ mother saw the men and hit the panic button. The raid lasted about one minute before the men left and got on a motorcycle.
Det Sgt Tallon told James Dwyer BL, prosecuting, that he was on duty in an unmarked patrol car and responded to a alert about the raid. He pursued the raiders and the Air Support Unit were called in.
The lengthy pursuit down the N4 dual carriageway ended in Mullingar, Co Westmeath at a second roadblock set up by gardaí. The men had managed to evade capture at an earlier roadblock.
Det Sgt Tallon said that the post mistress’s mother has suffered nightmares ever since. She is now on edge all the time and finds herself being cautious with every customer.
After he was arrested, Byrne told Det Sgt Tallon that he panicked when gardaí began chasing him and decided to flee because he had “nothing left to lose”.
Luigi Rea BL, defending, told Judge Martin Nolan that Byrne was “out of kilter” at the time of the offence due to the death of his father a short time before. In addition to the conviction in Trinidad and Tobago, Byrne has one previous conviction in Ireland, for dangerous driving.
Judge Nolan noted that Byrne had a more serious involvement in the attempted post office raid that his co-accucsed, as he had carried the immitation firearm and had driven the motor bike.
The judge gave Byrne credit for the six months he had spent in the foreign jail when passing sentence.
GANGSTER’s moll Natasha McEnroe and her drug-dealing boyfriend, who has survived attempts on his life, were among four people arrested over two separate seizures of almost €1m worth of drugs in Dublin this week.
McEnroe is a former girlfriend of jailed gang boss Brian Rattigan.
Her current partner, convicted drug dealer Paul Geraghty, was previously targeted in hit attempts on the orders of Rattigan because of his relationship with McEnroe, but that dispute was settled.
Geraghty (30) and McEnroe (32), were arrested on Wednesday after gardai carried out drug raids in Ranelagh and discovered €350,000 in a bin outside a property.
The previous day gardai arrested another man and a woman linked to Geraghty and McEnroe after discovering heroin with an estimated value of €525,000.
McEnroe has had close links to some of Ireland’s major criminals over the years.
As well as relationships with Rattigan and Geraghty, she had very close friendships with well-known figures such as Mark ‘Guinea Pig’ Desmond (39) and Christopher ‘Git’ Zambra (39), who was shot dead in Dublin last year.
Natasha and Rattigan
A drugs trial involving Rattigan previously heard that McEnroe was at the centre of Rattigan’s crime operations. Rattigan contacted her by text message from prison over a €1m drugs haul in Crumlin in May 2008.
Gardai also raided her home and found notebooks which they considered to be drugs ‘tick lists’ as they had a list of names on them, but McEnroe was never charged in connection with the haul.
Geraghty is no stranger to the criminal world either.
In January 2011, he narrowly escaped with his life after a two-man hit team tried to kill him in his home in Ranelagh.
Rattigan, who is serving life for murder, flew into a rage when McEnroe told him of their relationship, but the feud came to an end after McEnroe made peace with the Rattigan family in 2013.
Fear: Mark Buckley carrying Eamon 'The Don' Dunne's coffin The best pal of slain gang boss Eamon 'The Don' Dunne is under serious threat in prison less than a fortnight into a two-year sentence.
It is understood that there is a reward on offer to any inmate who causes serious harm to 32-year-old gangland bully Mark 'Bucko' Buckley.
Buckley is said to be in a complete state of "isolation and paranoia" in Wheatfield Prison after becoming a hate figure for other serious criminals.
"He shoved his weight around way too much when he was going around with Eamon Dunne, but things are very different now five years later," a jail source said.
"He got moved to Wheatfield from Mountjoy as things were so bad for him there that he was not even able to go into the exercise yard because he would have been attacked."
Sources said Buckley is in danger because he had been involved in a number of brutal fights on the outside.
These included one at a northside gym several years ago with a serious gangster who is a key player in the 'Mr Big' drugs organisation.
Of most concern to Buckley is the fact he is a "major enemy" of convicted killer Craig White (29), who is considered one of the most powerful and dangerous prisoners in the country.
In July 2009, White was convicted of the Crumlin/Drimnagh feud-related murder of Noel Roche, who was shot dead in the passenger seat of a car in Clontarf in November 2005 after attending a Phil Collins concert at the Point.
White has been feuding with Buckley since before he was locked up nearly six years ago and is now eager for "payback", according to sources.
Buckley has also fallen foul of key members of his former mob and is "despised" by associates of murder victim Paul Cullen (27), who was shot dead in a Cabra pub in March 2013.
It is believed Cullen was targeted by a local mob because he was demanding payment for his role in the gun murder of notorious hood John Daly (27) in October 2007.
Buckley was handed the two-year sentence for his involvement with three other criminals in the vicious assault on one of Cullen's best pals in the Cabra House pub where Cullen was shot dead five months earlier.
Dublin Circuit Court heard last month that the four men arrived at the pub in two cars driven by Buckley and his pal David Waldron.
They walked to the back bar where they attacked Cullen's friend, chased him out of the pub and beat him up after knocking him to the ground.
Mourning: Conor McGregor was seen at the funeral of Paul Kavanagh Ireland's latest gangland murder victim Paul Kavanagh was laid to rest in south Dublin yesterday.
Among his mourners was one of Ireland's most noticeable sports stars.
Conor McGregor (27) was among hundreds of people who turned out to pay their respects to the late gangland figure. The UFC star is understood to be close to Paul Kavanagh's nephew boxer Jamie, who spoke at the ceremony.
McGregor and Kavanagh, who are roughly the same age, grew up in the same area of Drimnagh.
The UFC fighter was pictured leaving the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel on Mourne Road in Drimnagh before the victim's body was transferred to the graveyard.
The 27-year-old father was shot dead as he sat in his car on Church Avenue in Drumcondra almost two weeks ago.
It is believed the gangland figure was murdered for pocketing drug money he was collecting from a criminal in Dublin.
It was the second gangland murder in the Kavanagh family in less than a year. His brother Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was shot dead by two masked assassins in Spain last year.
Kavanagh, also from Drimnagh, was an enforcer in Christy Kinahan’s drug organisation.
However, it is believed he had a falling out with Irish criminals based in the Costa Del.
The brother of infamous figure Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh was buried today in Palmerstown Cemetery less than two weeks after being gunned down.
Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh
A funeral procession began at the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel on Mourne Road in Drimnagh before the victim's body was transferred to the graveyard.
His funeral was attended today by friends and family, most notably his "beloved partner" Gemma and his two daughters.
The father-of-two was shot several times as he sat in a car on Church Avenue in Drumcondra on March, 26. It is believed the 27-year-old was murdered by his own gang for pocketing drug money.
His murder is the second gangland killing in the family in a year. His brother Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was shot dead by two masked assassins in Spain last year.
Kavanagh, also from Drimnagh, was an enforcer in Christy Kinahan’s drug organisation.
However, it is believed he had a falling out with Irish criminals based in the Costa Del Sol.
Gardai in Trim are investigating a troubling incident where a man was knocked out by someone posing as a Garda before having his car and phone stolen.
A man in his 30s was driving home at 4am on Thursday near Connell's Cross near Trim in Meath when a car with blue flashing lights started following him.
After indicating for him to stop the man pulled over and when he rolled down the window he was asked for his driver's licence. But then the assailant, who it seems was not wearing a garda uniform, hit the victim over the head with something heavy.
The man woke a few hours later to find his Ford Transit and phone stolen and as nobody would come to his aid, he was forced to walk 2km home to his house in Kilmessan.
The man's van was found in Bellewstown the next morning.
Their partners are some of the most notorious mobsters being held in Irish prisons, but as our photographs show, the life of bling goes on for the one-time partners of gangland’s finest.
Natasha McEnroe was once betrothed to crime boss Brian Rattigan and even had her first child with him.
However, when ‘King Rat’ was jailed for life for the murder of Declan Gavin in 2009, she dumped him and subsequently hooked up with another drug dealer, Paul Geraghty.
Rattigan flew into a rage when he first got the ‘Dear John’ letter from Natasha and Geraghty survived an assassination attempt in January 2011.
But peace was eventually restored and Natasha has gone on to have two children with Geraghty. This month, the pair dressed up in their finery to celebrate the confirmation of Rattigan’s daughter.
While her dad remains behind bars, her mum pulled out all the stops for the big day and even splashed out on special party bags, personalised bottles of champagne and a three-tiered Confirmation cake.
Just days after the celebrations McEnroe (32) and Geraghty (30), were arrested in connection with two separate seizures of almost €1million worth of drugs in Dublin.
The pair were lifted after gardai carried out drug raids in Ranelagh and discovered €350,000 in a bin outside a property.
The day before, another man and woman linked to the couple were arrested after the discovery of €525,000 of heroin.
Meanwhile, Ciara Killeen, the long-term partner of jailed killer John Dundon, managed to muster up a smile and don her glad rags for her big day out as she celebrated her son’s confirmation.
The Limerick moll even hired a stretched white limo for the party, which lover John can only see pictures of from his jail cell.
Ciara still lives in her fortress home in Ballinacurra Weston, Limerick, despite the demise of her husband’s gang, known as murder inc.
In 2013 he was jailed for the murder of rugby player Shane Geoghegan on the evidence of his brother’s former partner April Collins.
But Killeen hasn’t let her husband’s life sentence get in the way of the extravagant lifestyle she has been accustomed to.
Perma-tanned, she remains a close friend and neighbour of the other Dundon women – Ann Casey, wife of Wayne, and Ciara Lynch, Dessie’s partner, who lives next door.
The Sunday World understands that Ciara, who is deemed to be a ‘looker’ within the traveller community, has been finding it difficult to remain totally loyal to John, as she faces such a long time without him.
Last year a ‘friend’ of hers was jailed for five years for the possession of a makeshift firearm.
Gordy ‘Goz’ Ryan was rarely seen without Ciara until he was jailed, but their friendship came at a cost and gardai believe there was an active threat on his life from her husband.
In Sligo, Avril Boland put her troubles behind her to celebrate a family communion. Her partner Patrick Irwin is banged-up on cocaine charges.
The hairdresser, who earns just €300 a week, enjoyed a massive party and even managed to doll herself up in designer threads for the occasion.
She is one of a number of partners of drug dealer Irwin, and is known to enjoy fine clothes and a hectic social life.
She has been living in Sligo, surrounded by members of Irwin’s family since she was ordered out of her luxury Leitrim home after it was seized by the CAB, who proved in court it was built using the proceeds of drug trafficking.
Avril was just 23 and training to be a hairdresser when she applied in 2005 for planning permission to build the house overlooking the shores of Lough Gill on the Sligo-Leitrim border.
In the High Court, Mr Justice Kevin Feeney said her evidence about the financing of the property was inconsistent and self-serving. Quality
He said that she had a hairdresser’s salary of €300 per week, but lived a lifestyle − including residing in a high-quality house, driving a car and taking foreign holidays − which was funded by Irwin’s criminal activities.
He said that Boland’s bank account was effectively used to launder Irwin’s criminal funds and he ordered her to leave the house.
TWO men have been charged following a seizure of almost €500,000 worth of cocaine in Dublin.
Gardai from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau arrested the pair following searches of a vehicle in Ballyfermot and a premises in west Dublin on Thursday.
Thomas Knowles, 55, from Knockriada, Chapelizod, Dublin and 34-year-old Mark McHugh with an address at Woodhaven, Clondalkin, Dublin, made no reply when they were charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act with possessing cocaine with intent to supply.
Both are alleged to have been in possession of cocaine at Kylemore Road, in Ballyfermot. Mr Knowles has an additional charge for possessing cocaine at his home address on the same date.
They appeared before Judge Michael Walsh at Dublin District Court today and were remanded custody with consent to bail in their own bonds of €10,000.
Judge Walsh also said to to take up bail they must have independent sureties in the sum of €15,000 for Mr Knowles and €10,000 for Mr McHugh. Some of the bail money would have to be lodged in cash, the judge directed.
Gardai had objected to bail.
Det Garda John Paul Carroll said Mr Knowles, an unemployed plasterer, faces a serious charge and is accused of possessing seven kilos of cocaine which has an estimated street value of €490,000.
He said the 55-year-old, who is in receipt of a disability allowance, was caught “red-handed”. However, he agreed with defence solicitor Niall O'Connor that the accused, a father-of-three adult children, was not a flight risk and was of limited means.
Det Garda Aisling Hobbs said Mr McHugh, an unemployed father-of-three was caught red-handed in possession of €70,000 worth of cocaine and it was likely there would be further charges.
Judge Walsh said that if the pair take up bail they must sign on at their local garda stations, provide gardai with a contact number, surrender their passports and not apply for duplicate travel documents.
They will face their next hearing on April 17 at Cloverhill District Court.
A trusted ‘foot-soldier’ in the ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson gang has been caught smuggling more than 2,000 steroid tablets into Mountjoy Prison.
Convicted drug dealer Aaron ‘Benji’ Wrafter (34), was nabbed with the bodybuilding drugs last month as he returned to the jail after being granted Temporary Release.
It is believed the illegal drugs were found concealed on his body by officers in Mountjoy’s Training Unit on 9 May. The seizure highlights a growing problem for prison bosses, with steroid use becoming more popular in Ireland’s jails.
Crime boss John Gilligan used the dangerous drugs to pump up his physique while serving a lengthy sentence in Portlaoise Prison.
One prison source told us that steroids can be bought in most prisons in Ireland.
“They are as valuable as cocaine or heroin in some prisons. For a lot of prisoners, the only aim they have while they are in jail is to bulk up,” he said.
In 2012, Wrafter was locked up for six years after gardai found him with 5,000 ecstasy tablets and €27,000 worth of cocaine, as well as pressing machines and other drug dealing equipment.
Wrafter’s drugs factory was shut down by gardai only seven months after they seized a haul of drugs from him in another location in Dublin City Centre.
Wrafter was supplied with cocaine from Thompson’s crew. He would then mix it with potentially lethal mixing agents in order to make thousands for himself and Thompson’s drugs gangs.
Two Irish men have been jailed for the killing of a British ex-pat at his home on the Costa del Sol.
A jury in Malaga this week returned a guilty verdict in the trial of Brian McConville and Wayne Lennon, who were accused of murdering Paul Feathers at his Costa del Sol flat.
The pair went on the run after slaying the Brit expat on April 21, in 2010. Spanish state prosecutors announced in February they would be seeking 20-year prison sentences for Dubliners McConville (30, below) and Lennon (38).
However, their charge was downgraded from murder to homicide, a crime which carries a lesser sentence.
They were sentenced to 11 years each for the killing.
Indictments submitted to a criminal court in Malaga claimed the pair stabbed their alleged victim 44 times in the back during a brutal, hour-long attack as he lay bleeding on the floor after being knifed in the neck. They also kicked and punched their victim before stabbing him dozens of time in the neck, arms and legs.
It was claimed the head injuries he sustained during the attack led to brain injuries, and subsequently to his death.
Court documents also alleged they stole a mobile phone from Feathers’ flat in Benalmadena before leaving him unconscious in a pool of blood.
Prosecution documents claim: “When the victim was in a bad way but still alive, they jabbed him 44 times in the back with the knife, as well as cutting him several times in the back and legs, thereby increasing consciously and deliberately his physical pain and mental suffering.”
The court heard the row began after a failed drug deal. Feathers was attacked by the Dubliners after they blamed him for the loss of a vehicle that was to be used in the transportation of illegal substances.
His girlfriend, who unwittingly opened the door to the two men who were wearing balaclavas, identified his attackers.
Gardai said two guns were discovered during the planned raid in Athlone A man in his 20s and an 18-year-old girl have been arrested by Gardai investigating the discovery of two firearms and drugs found a house during a planned raid.
Gardai this morning conducted an operation to combat the sale and supply of controlled drugs in the Athlone area.
The operation involved the search of two houses in Goldsmith View, Athlone town, a Garda spokesperson said.
During the course of the searches, Gardai recovered a quantity of cannabis herb and cannabis resin with a street value of up to €10,000, pending analysis, along with additional drug paraphernalia.
Two firearms - pending technical examination - were also recovered in this search.
A 24-year-old male and an 18-year-old female were subsequently arrested following the planned raid.
Phishing: Car owners are having their keys stolen through their letterboxes A special operation called Operation Waste has seen over 50 vehicles destined to be exported confiscated by Gardai in the last 18 months.
Operation Waste - a joint venture by Dublin Metropolitan Region Garda Traffic Divisionand Dublin City Council’s Waste Management Team - was established to combat the use of public roads by uninsured, untested and dangerously loaded vehicles arriving at Dublin Port, destined for export to West Africa.
Since its inception in September 2014, the operation has seen over 50 vehicles including cars and articulated trucks detained for either no insurance or no certificate of road-worthiness.
Three stolen vehicles including an Audi Q7, a Toyota Avensis and a Mercedes Benz S350 have been recovered before they could be exported, Gardai said.
Also utilising ANPR technology Gardai have recovered a further 11 stolen vehicles parked in communal areas of housing and industrial estates, where it is believed they were being prepared for export.
"The majority of these vehicles had been stolen during the course of burglaries or the keys had been fished out through the letterbox of homes", a Garda spokesperson said.
"As a result we wish to advise all home owners that cars keys should be stored in a safe and secure place in the home and away a safe distance from Front Door letter box’s to avoid their phishing out by thieves and burglars."
Gardai make series of raids in connection with Romanian organised crime group
Gardai carried out a number of raids in Dublin’s north inner city, as well as Balbriggan, Donabate and Blanchardstown as part of an investigation into Romanian organised criminal groups.
The gangs are believed to have been involved in a number of aggravated burglaries of jewellery shops throughout the country, during the course of which staff members were assaulted.
A total of five men have been detained under the provisions of Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007.
They are all aged in their mid-thirties and are detained at a number of North Dublin Garda Stations.
A mother-of-one accused of murder was refused bail today (fri) amid fears that she would reoffend.
Remanding 23-year-old Shauneen Boyle back into custody, District Judge Mervyn Bayes said he was also concerned about her interfering with the ongoing police investigation.
Boyle and 27-year-old Stephen Hughes are jointly charged with the murder of Owen Creaney in Craigavon on a date unknown between 4 - 5 July last year.
The charge arises after the badly beaten body of 40-year-old Mr Creaney was found hidden in a wheelie bin at the back of Hughes' house at Moyraverty Court after a report of suspicious activity on the Saturday, although police believe that he may have been in the bin for a number of days.
Speaking at the time of the gruesome discovery, Detective Chief Inspector Richard Campbell said Mr Creaney, who celebrated his 40th birthday last week, was a "frail and vulnerable" member of our society who was disabled and used a walking aid. He said it appeared that he "was the victim of a serious and sustained assault" and had initially survived the beating but later died while in the bin.
Boyle and Hughes were arrested before officers uncovered the victims body in a green bin at the house and the court has heard that during interviews, each blamed the other for the death, not withstanding the fact that Boyle had allegedly confessed to a witness that she had assaulted Mr Creaney.
With Boyle appearing via video link today (fri), a detective sergeant have evidence that if released, there was a risk of further offending as she had quite a substantial record in relation to violence and claimed she was possible flight risk as at one stage she was planning to go and live with her father in Liverpool.
Boyle's solicitor Peter Corrigan said police found body of victim because she told the where it was, adding that she did not stonewall them but gave a detailed account of everything that happened.
A social worker who is in contact with the defendant on a regular basis gave evidence saying social services would have no objection to her being released on bail and that Boyle was "100 per cent" committed to her son.
Judge Bates said he did not consider there was any flight risk but add that she faces a serious charge and he was concerned about the risk of re-offending and interference with witnesses.
Boyle was remanded for a further video link appearance on May 8.
A man has beaten with baseball bats by a gang in North Belfast.
Seven men forced their way into the victim's home on Forthriver Drive at around 10.00pm on Thursday night.
The so-called 'punishment beating' left the victim with several broken bones.
His injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.
A 33-year-old man was arrested in the early hours of Friday morning on the Crumlin Road in connection with the attack.
Detective Constable Gareth Hussey said: “The victim sustained a number of suspected fractures however his injuries are not believed to be life threatening.
“A suspect was subsequently arrested in the Crumlin Road area at around 2am.
“He remains in custody at this time assisting us with our enquiries.”
The PSNI have asked anyone with information to contact them on 101.
UDA "foot soldiers" to stand trial for attempted murder
A 100-strong UDA mob ransacked the house last March in Larne
Two Greenisland men once described as "foot soldiers" in the UDA were today (thurs) ordered to stand trial accused of attempted murder and intimidation.
Standing in the dock of Ballymena Magistrates Court, 29-year-old Steven Adam Blackwood and Stephen Craig Mettleton (34) were charged with trying to kill a man after a gang of up to 100 loyalists smashed their way into his home at Knockdhu Park in Larne on 30 March last year.
As well as attempted murder and aggravated burglary Blackwood, from Moyard Gardens and Mettleton, from Rossmore Green in the town, are also charged with causing criminal damage to the house and intimidating both the male and a female to leave the property.
Alongside them in the dock today (thurs) was Ballyclare woman 37-year- old Elizabeth Sharon Anderson from Grange Park in the east Antrim town who faces a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by allegedly providing Mettleton was a false alibi.
The charges arise after serious public disorder involving a 100 strong gang armed with knives, machetes, golf clubs and hammers smashed their way into a man’s home, wrecked various items inside and issued threats for the family to get out of Larne.
During earlier court hearings, Mettleton and Blackwood have been described as "foot soldiers in the south east Antrim UDA" who can allegedly be linked to the incident after the men's DNA was found on a balaclava and gloves found in a bin near a house in Knockdhu Park.
Although no facts of the case were opened today (thurs), a prosecuting lawyer submitted there was a Prima Facie case for the trio to answer, based on the legal papers before the court and as their solicitors had no contrary submissions, District Judge Des Perry said he was satisfied there was enough evidence to commit them to the Crown Court for trial.
All three accused were given the opportunity to comment on the charges, give evidence to the Preliminary Enquiry or call witnesses on their behalves but each declined to do so.
Releasing the defendants on continuing bail, Judge Perry extended legal aid to allow senior barristers to be instructed and ordered the three to appear at Belfast Crown Court for arraignment on a date to be fixed.
Shots have been fired as police came under attack in Derry on Wednesday night.
Trouble began just before 10pm in the Leafair Gardens are of the city.
Police said that the 30-strong mob was mostly made up of youths.
The PSNI had to deploy CS gas to bring the crowd under control after two police Land Rovers were "substantially damaged" after coming under attack from masonry and other makeshift missiles thrown by the mob.
Later in the evening the PSNI said they were reports of shots being fired in the same area.
The police have asked for anyone with information to contact them on their non-emergency number, 101.
Two men aged 23 and 30 arrested as part of major international drug smuggling probe
Two men aged 23 and 30 have been arrested as part of a major investigation into international drugs smuggling.
The pair were detained during a search of a house in the Donegall Pass area of south Belfast and have been taken to a police station in the city for questioning.
In the past nine days, 12 people have been arrested and £1 million worth of cannabis has been seized following 22 police raids across Northern Ireland.
Further arrests and seizures have also been made in England and Italy.
Detective Inspector Andy Dunlop, from the Police Service Organised Crime Branch, said: "Five people have been remanded in custody, two were released on bail pending a report to the PPS and three others are due to appear in court tomorrow.
"We have seized £1 million worth of cannabis in Northern Ireland and have worked closely with colleagues in the National Crime Agency and Italian Carabinieri as additional searches were conducted and arrests were made.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 04/28/1511:14 AM
Man pleads guilty to gun murder of veteran criminal Eamon Kelly
A Dublin man has pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court to the murder of veteran criminal Eamon Kelly in Killester two-and-a-half years ago.
Sean Connolly (35), of Bernard Curtis House, Bluebell, had been charged at a special sitting of the non-jury court with the murder of Mr Kelly at Furry Park Road, Killester on Dublin’s north-side, on December 4th, 2012.
Connolly had also been charged with IRA membership and with possession of a firearm on the same occasion.
His trial on all three counts was due to commence this morning in the three-judge court. However, Connolly pleaded guilty to the murder of Mr Kelly on his arraignment and the court was told that the remaining two counts would proceed no further.
Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Greene SC, told the court that there were three counts on the indictment and a response to the count of murder was "likely".
Connolly's barrister, Paul Burns SC, confirmed that his client “may be arraigned” on the count of murder.
When asked by the registrar of the Special Criminal Court to stand up, Connolly made no reaction. The registrar asked if he was Sean Connolly, to which he said “yeah”.
When asked how he would plead to count 1 – that on December 4 2012 in Killester in Dublin, he murdered Eamon Kelly – Connolly said “guilty”. Mr Greene told the court that a nolle prosequi – a decision not to proceed – would be entered on the outstanding counts.
A Victim Impact Report was being prepared, Mr Greene said, and a date of Friday May 1 next was set for the court to convene again.
The trial, which was expected to last three weeks, was due to be heard before Mr Justice Paul Butler, Judge Alison Lindsay and Judge Flann Brennan.
There was a large garda presence in court with senior officers, detectives and uniformed gardaí in attendance.
A man who agreed to transport almost a kilogramme of cocaine to Cork has been jailed for three years along with an accomplice who had been holding the drugs for two days.
William O’Shea (30) of Dunmore Gardens, Knocknaheeney in Cork and Mark Hayden (43) of the North Circular Road, Dublin both pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of cocaine for sale or supply on April 6, 2014.
O’Shea has no previous convictions, while Hayden has one for a public order offence.
Judge Martin Nolan accepted that both men had a good work history and work ethic, had co-operated with the gardaí and had made admissions.
He said the men “committed a misjudgement” and involved themselves in a reasonably large amount of cocaine for their “own particular reasons” before he jailed them for three years.
Detective Garda Val Russell told Cathleen Noctor BL, prosecuting that gardaí had the Skylon Hotel, in Dublin under surveillance following a tip off. They saw O’Shea leave and get into a car Hayden had pulled up in.
O’Shea then got out of the vehicle carrying a bag he had not had earlier and returned to the hotel.
Gardaí moved in and searched Hayden, O’Shea and the vehicle. The cocaine, worth €68,740, was found in the bag O’Shea had with him, while nothing was found in the car.
Both were arrested and Hayden later told gardaí he had been in a pub when “a fella” asked him if he would collect a package and deliver it for €1,000. He said he was to get a phone call to pick it up and a call to tell him where and when to drop it.
He acknowledged that he knew it would be illegal and said that he had collected the drugs two days previously.
O’Shea told gardaí he had been in Dublin at a concert when he got a call asking him if he would collect something and bring it back to Cork. He said he knew it was drugs and he had a recollection of being told it was “a box of coke”.
O’Shea said he was told he would be “sorted” for his role. He had an outstanding loan of €1,400 and he agreed to do it. He said he was too afraid for his family to name anyone else involved.
Det Gda Russell agreed with Tara Burns SC, defending Hayden, that he told gardaí he had fallen behind in rent and owed money to loan sharks due to his gambling and alcohol addictions.
He agreed he was co-operative and accepted responsibility for the drugs.
Det Gda Russell agreed with Caroline Biggs SC, defending O’Shea, that he had no history of drug dealing and had never been involved in distribution prior to this.
He accepted that O’Shea was not the target of the operation and in his experience his involvement in the operation was unusual.
Det Gda Russell further accepted that O’Shea was unlikely to re-offend and his involvement had “a catastrophic impact on him and his family”.
GARDAI fear there will be an outbreak of violence in Limerick after a member of the Keane clan was involved in a punch-up at a dole office with mobster Kurt Ryan.
Owen Treacy Jnr – a grand nephew of Christy Keane – was attacked on Tuesday outside a social welfare office in the city centre by baby-faced thug Ryan.
The pair were involved in a vicious brawl in front of shocked onlookers which spilled out on to the street.
Gun criminal Ryan has close links to a Moyross-based gang run by associates of jailed heroin dealer ‘Fat’ John McCarthy.
This same gang are believed to be behind an assassination attempt on Treacy Jnr in January. The 21-year-old was lucky to escape with his life when gunmen targeted a car he was in at Thomond Bridge. Christy Keane’s son, Joe Keane, was also in the car. Previously, on January 2, Treacy Jnr also escaped when a gunman opened fire at him in the King’s Island area of the city.
Two days beforehand, he received slash wounds to the face and a broken nose when he was attacked in Cruises Street.
Treacy Jnr has no major criminal convictions and may have been targeted because his father gave evidence in a high-profile criminal trial.
Owen Treacy Snr was abducted with his cousin Kieran Keane in February 2003. Keane was murdered, but Treacy Snr survived and his evidence led to five members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang being jailed for life.
A source said that following the savage brawl Treacy Jnr and Ryan exchanged insults on Facebook. “Both men went on to Facebook to claim victory, though neither man was seriously hurt. Owen Treacy posted a selfie to show his ear hadn’t been bitten off,”
Despite the demise of the Dundon brothers, gardai still fear that there could be an outbreak of violence in the city.
The Moyross-based gang – who were once aligned to the Dundon brothers – and comprises of associates of ‘Fat’ John McCarthy and criminal brothers, Eddie and Kieran Ryan, have vowed to wipe out the Keane gang.
Kurt Ryan, who is aligned to the gang, is regarded as one of the most erratic criminals operating in Limerick. In 2011, he was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to unlawful possession of a 9mm modified semi-automatic pistol.
Eamonn DUNNE knew he was a marked man. He was sitting in the Fassaugh House pub in Dublin on April 23, 2010, about to pay lounge boy Geng Zian for a 7-Up when his killer arrived.
Seconds earlier, a red VW Passat had pulled up outside the Cabra pub and three armed men with their faces concealed emerged.
One stood at the door, while another two walked into the pub. One stood back and kept guard as the other man walked to within a few feet of Dunne and shouted at terrified punters to “get down on the floor”.
Dunne grabbed Zian and tried to use him as a human shield. Luckily, someone pushed the lounge boy out of the way just before the gunman fired a dozen shots at ‘the Don’. Two shots to the head and three others to his vital organs proved fatal.
Graham Farrell, who was in Dunne’s company when he was shot, said: “I saw Eamonn’s head splatter on the back top right of his head. I knew he was bolloxed.”
It was five years ago this week when a dozen shots marked the end of one of Ireland’s most violent ever gangsters. It signalled the end of one bloody era, but the start of another.
In the years before the spectacular hit, Dunne signed his own death warrant by ordering up to 17 murders during a reign of terror as Ireland’s most ruthless gang boss. His killing was believed to have been carried out by criminals from the northside of Dublin, with the sanction of the Christy Kinahan crime cartel based in Spain.
Former associates of Dunne are believed to have helped set him up because he had become so volatile. His killing spree was bad for business. Dunne had stepped on a lot of toes.
Much has changed in gangland Ireland in the years since Dunne’s death. The gangland murder rate dropped significantly after the Don was taken out.
There were 22 gangland murders in Ireland in 2009. There were 20, including Dunne’s murder, in the year of his death. In the whole of 2011, just 11 murders were classified as being linked to organised crime. The past couple of years have seen around a dozen gangland murders a year.
As well as lowering the number of murders, Dunne’s death left his former associates seriously weakened.
It left a vacuum in the underworld that was filled by rising rival factions and led to further violence.
His former cronies have not had an easy time since his death, having to deal with gun attacks and prison sentences.
His pal Brian O’Reilly has been targeted in two separate murder attempts. In August 2010, a Real IRA gang led by Alan Ryan and buoyed by the killing of Dunne, tried to murder O’Reilly in a pub in Bettystown, Co. Meath.
Ryan’s gang had been demanding extortion payments from members of the Don’s former crew, who they saw as weak following his death.
The same gang also targeted another former Dunne ‘untouchable’ Eamon Kelly. In September 2010, they tried to shoot him outside his home on Furry Park Road in Killester in north Dublin, when the attacker’s gun jammed. He was eventually shot dead by the Real IRA in December 2012. O’Reilly was shot in another assassination attempt outside a gym in Balbriggan, north Dublin, last June.
O’Reilly’s close pal Derek McLoughlin, from Ballymun on the capital’s northside, was also targeted in May 2013. He was in a car park at the Castle Shopping Centre in Swords, north county Dublin, when a gunman walked up to him, but the hitman’s gun jammed.
Both McLoughlin and O’Reilly carried the coffin at Dunne’s funeral.
Another person who carried the coffin was Mark Buckley, who was jailed last month for two years after being one of four men convicted of attacking a man in a pub.
During that attack, Buckley threw a pint glass at the victim and then punched him. He picked up a bar stool and hit the victim with it while he was on the ground.
Associates of Buckley are believed to have been responsible for the murder of Paul Cullen, who was shot dead in a Cabra pub in March 2013.
Other coffin carriers who have had bad luck since Dunne’s death include Finglas brothers Alan and Wayne Bradley and their former pal Jeffrey Morrow, who were jailed for their part in a conspiracy to rob a cash-in-transit van.
Another pal of Dunne, Sean Enright, was shot in two separate murder attempts since the Don’s death.
The bodybuilder cheated death in January 2011 when he was blasted in a parked car outside a house in Clonsilla, west Dublin. The Real IRA was believed to have behind that attack. He also survived a gun attack outside a gym in Glasnevin in May 2013. Karl Wynne, originally from Finglas but living in Tallaght, was arrested over that incident. Wynne, who worked as a hitman for hire, died in July 2013, days after being shot in a gun attack in Tallaght.
Northside drugs kingpin Micka ‘the Panda’ Kelly was a criminal expected to benefit from Dunne’s death. However, Kelly also became a target for the Real IRA and was shot dead by that group in September 2011.
One criminal who did take advantage of both Dunne and Kelly’s murders was the gang boss known as ‘Mr Big’, who cemented himself as the northside’s biggest drugs dealer in recent years. He is still on top, but he lives with the daily threat of death.
Mr Big was also targeted by the Real IRA gang, but avoided the same fate as Kelly by striking first.
The notorious gangster is believed to have ordered the murder of Alan Ryan, who was shot dead in September 2012, sparking the biggest gangland upheaval since the murder of the Don himself. Mr Big is currently awaiting trial on serious offences and cannot be named here. One man who thought he would benefit from Dunne’s death was Cabra man Gareth Hopkins. The Trinity-educated man known as ‘Mr Clean’ forged links with a veteran criminal from Ballyfermot, west Dublin, to import huge quantities of drugs from Europe.
However, his luck ran out as he was jailed for a total of 13 years in 2013 after he admitted to the importation of €29m worth of cocaine in 2012.
A 37-year-old man from the Donaghmede area of the capital who was closely linked to missing armed robber and drug dealer Sean Dunne, also grew his drug dealing business after Dunne’s death.
The drugs kingpin, now based in Meath, runs a major gang suspected of importing more than €40m of cannabis into Ireland and the U.K. over a two-year period.
He was arrested in connection with a major drugs haul two years ago, but was never charged. For now, he remains the main contender for the Don’s former title.
At the very top of the drugs food chain, Eamonn Dunne’s murder cemented the ruthless reputation for the real Godfather of crime. In sanctioning the hit on their own associate, the Kinahan cartel in Spain made it clear that everyone was a target. Five years on, the Irish Mafia still rules from its Spanish bolthole.
After the discovery on Friday in Tipperary, two men will appear in court tonight.
The two men, in garda custody in Tipperary and Cahir Garda Stations, in relation to the discovered of a quantity of cannabis plants with an estimated street value of €700,000, following a search at Boytonrath, Boreen, Kileenasteena, New Inn, Co. Tipperary on Friday will appear at a special sitting of Nenagh District Court tonight charged in relation to the incident.
Gardai announced on Friday that they had discovered a cannabis grow house, as well as a drying house and approximately 1,100 plants of various maturities were discovered.
A single barrel shotgun was also reported to have been discovered in an operation which included members from Drugs and Detective Units in Tipperary Town, Clonmel Garda Station, Regional Surveillance Unit, Regional Support Unit, Divisional Scene of Crime, Dog Unit (Cork) and Uniform Units from the Tipperary Division.
Fears of violence spreading as dissidents target Provos.
Security chiefs fear further violence after dissident terrorists began an orchestrated campaign of intimidation against pro-peace process republicans.
Former Provo bosses have ordered ex-IRA members not to get involved after a series of bomb threats and attacks across the North. A car belonging to a Sinn Féin councillor in Derry was firebombed early yesterday while a second car belonging to another councillor had its windows smashed. Police arrested two men, aged 17 and 23, close to the scene. It followed a paintbomb attack on the Derry home of Sinn Féin leader Martin McGuinness the day before. The 90-year-old mother of MEP Martina Anderson, who suffers from Alzheimers, had to be moved from her home in the city after a bomb scare. A bomb alert at the west Belfast home of party president Gerry Adams was declared a hoax, while the party's candidate in East Derry, Caoimhe Archibald, had a death sympathy card delivered to her home by loyalists. Security sources say they fear individuals within the main republican movement "won't stand back" if the attacks continue, despite a call from Sinn Féin for attacks to be reported to the PSNI. "The Provos have been very disciplined over the past few years but there are always a few 'hotheads' who will see a refusal to react as cowardly," said one security source. "That's the real danger and it is always difficult to counter-act when individuals decide to go their own way on something like this." He referred to a speech by former British Prime Minister John Major, in Dublin 18 months ago in which Mr Major said Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were risking their lives by pursuing the peace process. "Let me now say something that may surprise you. Throughout the process, I was acutely conscious that IRA leaders were taking a risk, too: if Albert (Reynolds) and I upset our supporters we might - as Albert put it - be 'kicked out'. That was true but the IRA's supporters were more deadly than our backbench colleagues. "And their leaders were taking a risk too, possibly with their own lives," the former PM said at the time. The security source told the Irish Independent: "Rather than recede with time, that risk has gotten greater with time as the Provos have wedded themselves to the PSNI. "The dissidents know the Provos won't retaliate, but it's a very risky strategy because some Provos won't sit back and let this continue." However, a former IRA commander in Belfast said he expected the Provisionals to "hold the line" in the face of the attacks. There is some pressure within Provo ranks to organise public protests against the dissidents, with some suggestions that the homes of dissident republicans should be picketed. Mr McGuinness called on the communities affected by the attacks to stand up to the dissident gangs. "This was also an attack on the wider democratic process," said Mr McGuinness after the Derry arson attack. "It shows the contempt of those behind these attacks for the will of the people. "I am calling on all the community to defend the progress and gains of the peace process and to reject those intent on dragging us back to the past." Irish Independent
A LOVE/HATE actor has been arrested by gardai investigating an attempted armed robbery at a Dublin pub.
Darndale man Stephen Clinch (49) was still being questioned at Store Street Garda Station last night after a dramatic incident in which staff chased and overpowered two raiders on the premises.
The real-life crime drama took place at The Living Room sports pub on Findlater Place, Cathal Brugha Street, in Dublin's north inner city at around 9.30am yesterday.
The actor, who previously claimed that he was a reformed criminal, was arrested with another man by gardai at the pub after they were pinned down by the staff.
Clinch starred as Noely in Love/Hate. His character was infamously involved in a savage jail assault in which a pool cue was used to attack Fran in the final episode.
Stephen Clinch
Sources said that a sum close to €50,000 and a handgun were recovered from the scene.
A senior member of management of the business told the Herald: "I can't commend the staff highly enough. It was a very tense situation.
"I was in the middle of it all too and we had them restrained when the gardai arrived."
Staff said the two raiders entered the premises early on Monday morning.
The Living Room on Findlater Place, the Fibber McGee's pub in Parnell Street and Murray's pub on O'Connell Street are all run by The Murray Group company
The raiders threatened a member of staff with a gun in an attempt to steal a bag of cash containing some of the weekend takings. The two men then attempted to escape from the building but were pursued through the premises by up nine staff.
At one point the bungling raiders tried to flee via a door on to Parnell Street but they didn't have the security code. The duo then tried to escape through a firedoor but two individuals members of staff grabbed them and forced them to the ground.
The other staff members then joined in the scrum until two unarmed community gardai arrived to arrest them.
"It was a good outcome … I'm very happy," said the senior management member, who added there was a lot of "adrenalin" involved.
"This was a good lesson for the criminals. These were two idiots," said one delighted staff member.
A 43-year-old man who was arrested yesterday alongside Clinch is a career criminal who is currently facing serious charges before the courts.
Clinch also featured in TV3's series about his own locality 'Darndale: The Edge of Town'.
Last October Clinch, who has armed robbery convictions, was interviewed by Marian Finucane on RTE Radio One about being behind bars before rising to stardom.
He claimed that he is still haunted by his memories of the terrified people he targeted. "I do apologise but it wasn't me that was robbing them. It was my addiction, I had to feed it," he said at the time.
Two Polish brothers who were caught with almost €3.5 million worth of cannabis and cannabis resin have been jailed for ten years.
Judge Martin Nolan said Slawomir (37) and Marcin (29) Syzmala were effectively renting a house in Meath as “a holding and storage hub” for the drugs.
He said the men were arrested following a “good garda operation” and there was evidence that they had packed “a huge amount of drugs” for distribution. He accepted that as Polish nationals they will have “extra difficulties” serving time in prison.
Slawomir of The Parklands in Santry and Marcin of Tyrellstown Plaza, Tyrellstown both pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to three charges of having drugs for sale or supply at two different locations on April 17, 2014. A total of €3,489,000 worth of drugs was found.
Marcin has no previous convictions. Slawomir has served a two year jail term in Poland for burglary and has a conviction for public order from Naas District Court.
Detective Garda Darragh O’Toole told Cathleen Noctor BL, prosecuting, that a surveillance operation led officers to a farmhouse, known as Knock House, in Castletown in County Meath, where a large amount of the drugs were discovered.
The house had been rented from the owner by someone acting under an alias.
Det Gda O’Toole said a surveillance operation was initially set up by the Garda National Drugs Unit in a business park in Finglas following a garda tip off.
At 10.15am officers saw the brothers arrive at a particular unit. They remained there for about 25 minutes before they left again and drove to Castletown. They stayed there for about two hours before leaving again and driving to Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.
The brothers met a man there who pulled up beside them in a people carrier. Marcin got into the back of the van he had arrived in and handed out a large packet of toilet rolls and a shopping bag to Slawomir who placed them in the back of the people carrier.
This vehicle was later stopped and searched by gardaí and almost nine kilogrammes of cannabis was found. The drugs were vacuumed packed and valued at just over €179,000.
The Syzmalas were then followed to an apartment complex in Blanchardstown where gardaí moved in and arrested them. Neither made admissions in interviews. The van they had been driving was searched and although a false panel had been fitted into the rear of the vehicle, no drugs were discovered.
A key to a second vehicle, a Mercedes van, was found and this vehicle was later discovered parked up at Knock House. Det Gda O’Toole said a key for the house was found in the Mercedes van.
During a follow up search of the building gardaí found over €1.6 million worth of cannabis resin in a storeroom. The drugs were found in shopping bags contained in boxes.
A further €1.62 million worth of cannabis was found in another room further down the hall. The drugs were piled up on the floor and covered with a sheet.
Det Gda O’Toole said a tick-list, a weighing scales and a vacuum packing machine were also found in the house. DNA found on gloves connected both brothers to the house.
Patrick Marrinan SC, defending Marcin Syzmala, said his client has been in Ireland for ten years. He initially worked as a chef in a Dublin hotel but later started up his own event management firm. He got into debt and also got involved in the “drug subculture” which counsel said led him to this offence.
Damien Colgan SC, defending Slawomir Syzmala, said his client has a daughter with a former partner, who both live in Poland.
He said he has been doing well since his remand in custody and handed in a number of certificates from courses completed by his client.
Seizure: Wiggins was caught on a boat with cocaine worth around €400 million A British citizen who was found onboard a boat holding more than €400 million worth of cocaine off the Irish coast has moved to appeal his conviction.
Christopher Wiggins (48) with an address at Estepona, Malaga, Spain, pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to possession of cocaine for sale or supply on November 5 2008 when the boat 'Dances With Waves' was boarded 250km off the Irish coast.
advertisement
Three British citizens including Wiggins were on board the boat when 1.9 tonnes of cocaine worth more than €400 million were found by Irish authorities. All three men pleaded guilty to possession for sale or supply.
Wiggins was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by Mr Justice Carroll Moran on May 8 2009.
Representing himself, Wiggins moved to appeal his conviction today on grounds that a section 15A sale or supply drugs offence could not have been levied against him on the facts.
He said there was no importation involved in the offence, it was committed outside of the State so section 15a of the Misuse of Drugs Act should not have applied because it only has a territorial application.
Furthermore, Mr Wiggins submitted that the boarding of 'Dances With Waves' by the authorities was unlawful.
'Dances With Waves' was flying the British Red Ensign “because there were three British nationals on board” but the boat was not registered, Mr Wiggins said.
The court heard claims from Wiggins that 'Dances With Waves' was boarded at 21:54 but the boats registration was not checked by the authorities until 23:20, one hour-and-a-half after the boarding.
An Irish ship simply cannot board a vessel flying the flag of another State without doing a regisration check, he said.
'Dances With Waves' was not registered anywhere but the Navy should have confirmed its status before boarding the boat. Until you make the regisration check you can't check if the boarding would be valid or not, he said.
Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Thomas Creed SC, told the court that where a ship was unregistered there was a power to visit the ship
Mr Creed said the enforcement officers used the law of the sea to establish the regisration of the ship. They did that by using their right to visit 'Dances With Waves' under the law of the sea.
It wasn't an unlawful or illegal boarding, Mr Creed said, it was just a boarding.
Mr Creed said there was no basis for Mr Wiggins' argument regarding section 15a of the Misuse of Drugs Act
President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Seán Ryan, who sat with Mr Justice Gerard Hogan and Mr Justice Alan Mahon said the court would reserve judgment to a date “as soon as possible”.
One of Mr Wiggins' co-accused, Philip Doo (58), from Devon in England, withdrew his appeal before proceedings commenced.
Former Loyalist terror boss tells court he and UDA pal Mad Dog Adair are 'top targets for Republican extremists'
A FORMER Loyalist terror boss has told a High Court jury that he and pal Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair would be “huge scalps” for dissident Republican killers.
Sam “Skelly” McCrory was giving evidence at the trial of four men accused of plotting to murder him and his best friend Adair.
Antoin Duffy, 39 Martin Hughes, 36, Paul Sands, 31 and John Gorman, 58, deny conspiring to murder Adair and McCrory – once major figures in the UDA and its “military wing” the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
Duffy and Gorman also deny being part of an alleged car bomb plot to murder the governor of Barlinnie jail.
McCrory told prosecutor Paul Kearney he and Adair were top targets for Republican extremists.
He said anyone harming them would be “held in high esteem by the Republican movement”.
The High Court in Glasgow heard Adair and McCrory had both been sentenced to 16 years for terrorist crimes but now lived in Ayrshire.
Adair said police told him in October 2013 to step up his security because his life was in danger from dissident Republicans, and that people had been arrested over a plot.
Asked if he considered himself under threat, Adair said: “All that was supposed to be over. But from their point of view, I would see myself as a target as a leader of Loyalism.”
Adair insisted he was now a man of peace and “irrelevant” to politics in Northern Ireland, but conceded that police believed he would be in danger if he returned to Ulster.
The court heard Adair commanded C Company of the UFF in Belfast’s Shankill Road during the Troubles.
Asked if his group had murdered up to 40 Catholics, he said: “It has been reported as that.”
MirrorpixSam McCrorySam McCrory Adair denied involvement in drug dealing and said he didn’t know any of the accused.
McCrory was jailed in 1993 for conspiracy to murder and possessing machine guns. He was freed as part of the Good Friday Agreement.
He told Donald Findlay QC, for Sands, that he had only been involved in one “military operation” in Northern Ireland. He said it was a plot to kill two IRA leaders but he was caught on the way to carry it out.
McCrory claimed to have been a political prisoner and said: “I’ve never killed anyone.”
Findlay asked him: “Was Johnny Adair somebody who sent people out to murder?” McCrory replied: “No. People volunteered.”
McCrory said he knew Sands to say hello to and was his friend on Facebook. Like Adair, he denied any involvement with dealing drugs.
Adair and McCrory gave evidence on Monday but it can only be reported today after restrictions were lifted.
Duffy, Hughes, Sands and Gorman are accused of plotting with others to kill Adair and McCrory between August 2010 and October 2013.
Plans were allegedly discussed at places including Shotts jail in Lanarkshire and a flat in Old Castle Road, Shawlands, Glasgow.
It’s claimed conspirators carried out “surveillance and reconnaissance” and tried to get guns and bullets.
Duffy and Gorman also deny being involved in a conspiracy to murder Barlinnie governor Derek McGill between June 2012 and last October.
All four accused deny joining others “with the intention of committing acts of terrorism”, and Hughes, Sands and Gorman deny intending to assist Duffy in terrorist acts.
Craig Convery, 37, Gary Convery, 34, and Gordon Brown, 29, deny charges linked to the alleged plots. The trial continues.
Housing estate evacuated after suspect device found.
Residents of a Courtown estate have been evacuated from their homes after a suspect device was found. SHARE Gardai raided a house in Harbour Court on Thursday morning and found the device. The raid is part of an ongoing investigation by members of An Garda Siochana from the Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Sq and Crime & Security, Garda Headquarters into dissident republicans activity. A total of 20 searches were carried out in Wexford, Louth and Dublin on Thursday as part of the investigation with the assistance of the Garda Emergency Response Unit, Technical Bureau, Dog Unit and uniform and detective Gardai from the Louth and Wexford Divisions. As part of this investigation four men, one in his 60s and the other three in their 20s, were arrested. All are currently detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against Act at various Garda Stations in the Dublin Metropolitan Region. They were arrested for directing terrorism, membership of an unlawful organisation and possession of explosives. As part of this operation Gardai have recovered a suspect device in Courtown. The area has been cordoned off and the Army EOD team are on their way to the scene. Gardai have also recovered component parts for explosives devices at some of the other locations searched. All component parts will now be subject to technical examination. Investigations are ongoing.
The man, in his 20s, was walking along Mount Vernon Lane when two men approached him.
However, when the pair tackled the victim to the ground and one of the men produced a gun, it failed to fire.
A PSNI spokesperson said: "It was reported that at around 10.20pm, a man aged in his 20’s was approached by two masked men as he walked along an alleyway in the area and was forced to the ground.
"One of the men produced a suspected firearm from under his coat and an attempt was made to fire the weapon which is reported to have jammed.
"Both men, who were wearing gloves and dark-coloured clothing, then made off on foot."
Detective Constable Anita Cummings is appealing for anyone who was in the area last night and who may have noticed any suspicious activity to contact detectives in Musgrave on 101.
Andrew Lynch: Dissidents' arrests shows that killers have not gone away.
ANDREW LYNCH – 15 MAY 2015 03:00 AM
Has Prince Charles just dodged a Real IRA bullet? Until we know full details of the garda security crackdown that led to the arrest of six men last Wednesday, it is impossible to say for sure.
What this operation does prove is that dissident republicans still pose a grave threat to peace in Ireland - and there can be no mercy shown in the fight to stamp them out for good.
Although Charles and his wife Camilla have been here a number of times before, next week's visit will be by far their most personal.
The itinerary includes Mullaghmore in Co Sligo, where Charles's beloved grand-uncle Lord Mountbatten was blown up by the IRA in 1979 (along with two teenage boys and an 82-year-old woman).
For the small but dedicated group of hardliners who still believe in bombing their way to a united Ireland, the idea of history repeating itself must be hard to resist.
This is why Wednesday's events were so significant. Gardai on traffic duties in Co Leitrim detained two men after finding a pistol and pipe bombs in their vehicle.
2015-05-14_new_9538551_I2.JPG Charles and Camilla
There were also raids in counties Dublin, Wexford and Louth, resulting in more arrests and a controlled explosion to put bomb-making equipment out of use.
It appears that republican terrorism hasn't gone away.
Their 'Brits out' mentality has not changed since 1984, when the Provos came within seconds of killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at her Brighton hotel.
"Today we were unlucky," read the chilling IRA statement afterwards. "But remember, we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always."
From our secluded vantage point down south it may seem hard to believe that this kind of fanaticism is alive and well.
After all, the Good Friday Agreement convinced most republicans to lay down their arms and embrace democracy instead.
The hold-outs initially looked like a pathetic ragbag, expertly mocked by the Northern Irish comedian Patrick Kielty: "There's the Real IRA, the Surreal IRA, the Continuity IRA, the Official IRA, the Low Fat IRA, the I Can't Believe It's Not the IRA..."
Nobody was laughing, however, when the Real IRA's Omagh bomb murdered 29 people in 1998. Or when its members shot dead two British soldiers outside a barracks in Co Antrim in 2009.
Dubliners got a taste of this organisation's sick antics at a Donaghmede funeral in 2012, where masked thugs blocked off roads and fired shots over the coffin of Alan Ryan.
While the Real IRA might have virtually no public support, it is certainly not short of cash.
According to a recent report based on data from the US State Department, it is actually the world's ninth richest terrorist organisation - with a nest egg of almost €45m.
Most of that comes from alcohol, cigarette and diesel smuggling, which are all big businesses around certain parts of the border.
execution
This week's garda crackdown deserves praise but it will take a lot more than one operation to put the Real IRA out of action.
The overwhelming majority of Irish people will give Prince Charles a cead mile failte next week, just as they did to his mother in 2011.
On the other hand, opinion polls show that roughly 20pc of us support Sinn Fein - a political party that still believes the IRA "execution" of Lord Mountbatten was fully justified.
Gerry Adams could only say, "he knew the danger involved", while one of Mountbatten's convicted killers openly canvassed for the party in last year's European elections.
When Prince Charles touches down here next Tuesday, gardai plan to put "a ring of steel" around him. They are absolutely right to do so.
As the great Irish politician John Philpot Curran once said: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
It appears that we are going to need that vigilance in Ireland for a long time to come.
Psycho suspected of Gilligan shooting 'getting more powerful.
KEN FOY – 18 MAY 2015 03:00 AM
The chief suspect in the shooting of veteran crimelord John Gilligan last year is continuing to expand his gang activities in north Dublin.
The psychopathic Finglas criminal, who is facing serious charges before the courts, is suspected of firing four shots at Gilligan in a botched hit in the 63-year-old's brother's home in Clondalkin on March 1, 2014.
That incident happened less than three months after the same Finglas criminal is suspected of having entered the Halfway House pub on the Navan Road armed with a 9mm handgun looking for the gangster in December, 2013.
While Gilligan fled the country a fortnight after the attempted murder in Clondalkin, his arch-enemy has stayed in the capital and sources say his gang are "growing in power all the time".
"He is closely associated with around 20 fellas and they are into all kinds of crime including drug dealing, armed robberies and aggravated burglaries," a source said.
SEIZURES
"In the last few weeks this crew have been linked to up to four armed robberies and two significant drug seizures. They are a violent crew but none of them are as violent as the Gilligan suspect.
"Their power-base is in the Ratoath area of Finglas and there seems to be no stopping them at the moment."
Sources say gardai have been investigating whether the same mob were responsible for a horrific aggravated burglary on Filipino nationals at Cappagh Road, Finglas, at around 10.30pm last January 15.
A 13-year-old girl was tied up with cable-ties and two couples were threatened at gunpoint in a terrifying ordeal in what gardai believe was a case of mistaken identity.
"This crew are well capable of using the extreme violence that was used in that crime," a source said.
The "Get Gilligan" criminal was previously handed a lengthy jail sentence for a terrifying armed robbery.
It was while serving this sentence that he first met and clashed with Gilligan, and sources say he has held a major grudge against him since then.
SHOT
He was previously closely associated with Kevin Ledwidge, a 27-year-old Finglas criminal who was shot dead in July 2007.
It is understood that gardai informed the feared criminal of an active threat against his life in February of last year, and the thug decided the threat was coming from Gilligan and his associates.
Sources say he decided to strike first, but Gilligan had an extremely lucky escape and survived despite being shot four times at point-blank range in the Clondalkin attack.
Gilligan fled Ireland a fortnight later, 24 hours after his close associate and driver Stephen 'Dougie' Moran was shot dead at his home in Lucan.
Moran, originally from Limerick and related to the notorious McCarthy-Dundon gang, had acted as Gilligan's driver and bodyguard following his release from prison.
The Finglas gangster was also investigated for this murder but there have been no arrests so far in that case.
Irish republican detained for calling armed attacks 'legitimate' Dee Fennell, a prominent dissident, is in custody after condoning violence in an inflammatory speech to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising
A prominent dissident Irish republican has been arrested in connection with a speech he made at Easter supporting “armed struggle”. The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed on Monday that they had detained a 33-year old-man after a raid on his home in the Ardoyne district of north Belfast. The man in custody is Dee Fennell, who told hardline republicans at a gathering in Lurgan on Easter Sunday that “armed struggle must be a contributory factor to a wider struggle”.
Fennell also described armed attacks as legitimate during his speech to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising. He said: “The use of arms prior to 1916 was legitimate. The use of arms in Easter 1916 was legitimate. The use of arms after 1916 was totally legitimate.
“In the existing political context of partition, illegal occupation and the denial of national self-determination, armed struggle, in 2015, remains a legitimate act of resistance.” Unionists have been demanding that Fennell be arrested, with the Ulster Unionist party election candidate in Upper Bann, Jo-Anne Dobson, describing his remarks as disgusting. A PSNI spokesman said the suspect had been taken for questioning at the police’s serious crime suite, at Antrim. Det Supt Karen Baxter , from the serious crime branch, said: “Detectives are also searching a property in north Belfast and one in Lurgan as part of the same investigation. Our enquiries are continuing.” Fennell is one of the most prominent dissident republican spokesmen and also represents a residents’ group opposed to a contentious Orange Order march past the Ardoyne area, where he lives.
Irishman in court charged over €200m Hatton Heist in London Thursday 21st May 2015.
An Irishman is among eight people who will appear in court today charged in connection with the Hatton Garden jewellery heist in London last month.
Hugh Doyle (48), who is originally from Dublin, was arrested in connection with the audacious heist at the beginning of April.
advertisement
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad have also charged Terry Perkins, 67, Daniel Jones, 58, both of Enfield, and William Lincoln, 59, of Bethnal Green, east London, and John Collins, 74, of Islington, north London.
Brian Reader, 76, and Paul Reader, 50, both of Dartford Road, Dartford, and Carl Wood, 58, of Elderbeck Close, Cheshunt, also face the same charge.
All eight have been remanded in custody to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court today. A ninth man has been bailed pending further inquiries.
Doyle, 48, of Riverside Gardens, Enfield, was described by neighbours yesterday as "always willing to lend a hand."
An elderly neighbour, who didn't wish to be named, told MailOnline she had never seen 'anything of this sort' in her 46 years of living in his street.
"They [the police] were there when I came to open the gate to the dustman at 8.30 this morning," the neighbour said.
"Everyone knows him. The local pub knows him very well. He was not a bad man, he was a helpful person always willing to lend a hand. I am just very surprised. We are shocked.
"The neighbour, who lives just a few doors down, said: 'It's terrible when I see that people are such nice people, and then you come across these sorts of things. He has two lovely kids."
Doyle, a married father-of-two, is understood to run a heating and plumbing business, Associated Response and a high powered motorcycle, bearing the firm’s livery was parked outside the house, where police continued to carry out searches earlier this week.
A Facebook page linked to the firm shows Mr Doyle in happier times piloting a variety of small aircraft and also crewing a yacht with friends.
Earlier, the Met apologised after facing criticism over is handling of the break-in at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London's jewellery quarter.
It emerged that a call from a security firm about an intruder alert at the company shortly after midnight on Good Friday was deemed not to require a response. Officers believe they entered the building, which houses a number of businesses, through a communal entrance before disabling the lift so they could climb down the lift shaft to the basement.
It is thought that they then forced open shutter doors and used a drill to bore a hole 20in deep, 10in high and 18in into the vault wall.
Once inside, the thieves ransacked 72 safety deposit boxes, taking millions of pounds worth of goods.
Detectives from the Flying Squad apologised after confirming that alarm response procedures had not been followed, but rejected the suggestion that they were bungling "Keystone Cops".
Commander Peter Spindler said: "On this occasion, the systems and processes that we have in place with the alarm companies weren't followed and, as a result of that, officers did not attend the premises when, in fact, they probably should have done and for that I want to apologise."
A more detailed investigation into the defeat of the alarm system is continuing and Scotland Yard says it will share any lessons learnt.
It is unknown exactly how much the robbers took in the heist but reports suggest it could total over €300 million.
Terror boss Davy ‘Whitecap’ Miller broke the UVF ceasefire last week when he ordered an alleged drug dealer to be shot.
The Sunday World understands the UVF’s commander in Mount Vernon personally ordered a punishment shooting on a man in the north Belfast estate last Tuesday evening.
advertisement
Reliable sources in the area claim the victim had a lucky escape after he was forced to the ground by two masked men, only for the gun to jam.
Miller has been creaming thousands of pounds from drug dealers in the estate in recent months. One man claimed the UVF boss demanded £10,000 from him in return for to be allowed to trade without sanction.
Last week’s target was on his way through the estate when he was accosted by the two men.
Sources have told us he was forced to the ground and told he was to be shot in the legs.
The gun jammed twice before the punishment squad panicked and fled the scene.
The Sunday World understands the handgun used had been a re-activated gun, previously decommissioned.
“These guns are notoriously unreliable,” said our source. “Nine times out of ten they jam, if they don’t clear second time round you may forget it.”
There has been little reaction to the shooting which constitutes a breach of the UVF ceasefire.
“The UVF are bringing guns on to the street, Is that not a breach of the ceasefire?”
Miller has come under increasing pressure in the recent weeks. Last month he was detained and questioned by the PSNI in relation to a punishment beating dished out to former UVF comrade Darren Moore.
One time jailbird Moore is believed to have made a statement to cops alleging Miller was involved in the attack which left him with two broken arms and legs.
This latest punishment attack comes as Miller and the UVF in Mount Vernon target drug dealers. Miller himself has developed a major cocaine habit and is regarded by many as being out of control.
His orders to shoot someone will be viewed with alarm by the UVF leadership and it’s not the first time the terror group has used a previously decommissioned weapon.
In October 2000 UDA chief Tommy English was fatally shot at his home in Ballyfore Gardens, on the Ballyduff estate in Newtownabbey by a group of four men.
His three children were inside the house at the time of about 18.30 when the men entered through the back door as his wife, Doreen was preparing food for a Halloween party. She called out to her husband and attempted to close the door but they pushed past her, one of the men shouting “Get out of the f*****g way, Doreen”. The murder was carried out by the UVF at the height of the loyalist feud.
The Sunday World understands the murder weapon was a re-activated pistol, although one of the men was also armed with a shotgun – back up should the pistol fail.
A number of prominent loyalists were charged with the English murder, including one time Mount Vernon commander Mark Haddock. All walked free after the trial collapsed.
Miller, South East Antrim Brigadier Den Elliott and former lifer Billy McCartney from north Belfast were all scooped last month on the word of former pal Moore.
No was charged but the move caused anxiety in loyalist circles.
There has been growing speculation in recent months that former Mount Vernon goon Moore has agreed to become a supergrass, ready to give evidence against his terrorist comrades in return for a new identity and light sentence.
This latest development is being seen as the first step along that road.
Moore was furious at his treatment at the hands of the UVF two years ago. He had been lured to a meeting at the Monkstown club in Glengormley on the pretence of discussing allegations of drug dealing .
Once there he was dragged outside and hammered by five baseball bat wielding thugs. Battered and broken , he was dumped in the grounds of a primary school. The loyalist heavy needed metal pins inserted into his arms and legs. The punishment style attack wasn’t sanctioned by the UVF leadership on the Shankill but despite pleas from Moore the organisation refused to move against their Mount Vernon team.
Miller is believed to have taken in after cops called at his Mount Vernon home.
Keith O'Neill, 40, from Lissadell Drive, Drimnagh in Dublin had pleaded not guilty to murdering John Wilson, 35, on 28 September, 2012 at his home on Cloverhill Road, Ballyfermot Dublin 10.
John Wilson was shot twice in the hallway of his house more than two years ago.
The two-week trial heard that the daughter of the deceased told Gardai in a statement: "I just heard 'bang bang bang' - I could see my dad rolling around. I feel a little bit sad and a little happy because my dad is away from the bad boys now".
The Central Criminal Court heard that the deceased had driven to his home with his seven-year-old daughter and a friend when a gunman entered his house through the open front door and shot him from behind.
The Dublin man received two gunshot wounds to the left arm and to the chest, fatally injuring internal organs.
Conor Devally SC prosecuting today confirmed with Detective Inspector Colm O'Malley of Clondalkin Garda Station that a vehicle drew up outside Mr Wilsons house on 28 September.
"A person came out of the newly arrived vehicle who in the eyes of Mr Wilsons daughter appeared to have some form of coverage on his face. A weapon was discharged six times hitting Mr Wilson twice - one of those shots caused massive blood loss," he said.
"The gunman made good his escape, jumping into the back of a vehicle. Items were found in a nearby burnt out vehicle which included items that had been purchased by the accused," he said.
"Shortly thereafter the accused, having shed one garment, got a lift back to Ballyfermot where he joined his family in a local chipper. He then went to Liffey Valley shopping centre - having changed in the shopping centre, when he got home he endeavoured to dispose of runners, jeans and socks and was seen disposing of them in a skip," continued Mr Devally.
"Examination affirmed there was gunshot residue on the jeans. There was evidence that there was petrol vapour emanating from the socks. Mr O'Neill was detained and he denied his involvement," he said.
The jury were shown CCTV footage of what Gardaí identified as both the accused man and the deceased at a shop on Cherry Orchard Avenue hours before the shooting.
Neighbour of the deceased, Robert McHugh previously described hearing the gunshots.
"I remember hearing gunshots - I looked out the window and seen a hooded figure come out the door. I couldn't see his face - his face was covered," he said.
"I made my way towards the house - his daughter was trying to get into the house. She was upset and I stopped her going into the house. John was lying on the ground struggling to breath," he said.
The court heard that Dublin Fire Brigade attended and an advanced paramedic from the HSE took over. Resuscitation was continuous for over an hour and when there was no change, it was decided to cease resuscitation.
Taking to the stand State Pathologist, Professor Marie Cassidy told Conor Devally that the fatal injury was the gunshot wound to the chest which injured internal organs.
The jury of five women and seven men deliberated for three hours thirty-nine minutes over two days before reaching a unanimous verdict.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt told the jury he would make no observations on their verdict.
"It is entirely sensible based on the evidence I heard. I am not going to speculate as to what the background of this case is," he said.
"I will proceed to pass the mandatory life sentence and express sincere sympathy and condolences to the family and friends of Mr Wilson and in particular his daughter."
Armed gardai ram gangster Zambra off road to foil shooting.
KEN FOY AND ROBIN SCHILLER – 30 MAY 2015 08:00 AM
Notorious criminal Paul Zambra has been arrested on his way to carry out a suspected gangland hit.
A BMW driven by Zambra in Clonshaugh Avenue on Dublin's northside was rammed off the road by a garda vehicle at lunchtime yesterday.
Armed detectives surrounded the car, weapons drawn and shouting at the occupants to get out.
"It was like something out of a warzone. I've never seen anything like it. There were guns everywhere," one witness told the Herald.
Two loaded handguns were found in the BMW, and Zambra was arrested by officers from the Emergency Response Unit (ERU).
swerved
Sources believe the target of the hit was Dubliner Dean Russell (44), the brother of Anthony Russell who was shot dead in an Artane pub in 2008.
The heavily armed ERU were joined by members of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, with up to 10 different garda units employed in the operation.
"It was all very quiet, like it normally is on the road, when all hell broke lose," another witness said.
"This car was driving up the road and out of nowhere a 4x4 swerved in front to block it. Then a load of unmarked and marked cars showed up.
"It was well-organised because they were there in a flash."
Another resident of the avenue said: "There were armed gardai, guns out, running towards the vehicle screaming at the occupants to get out of the car.
"They took the driver out and put him in handcuffs. They then searched the boot and pulled out what looked like guns. There were dozens of gardai everywhere."
Zambra, who is in his late 30s, was arrested and remained in custody in Coolock Garda Station last night.
At around the same time yesterday afternoon, gardai stopped a van in nearby Clonshaugh Road and another man, aged 44, was arrested and was also being quizzed overnight.
Ballyfermot man Zambra was cleared of a gangland murder in 2012.
He had pleaded not guilty to murdering Sean McMahon (36) at his Tallaght home in 2007.
stabbed
During the trial, the jury was sent away while all sides dealt with a legal issue.
When they returned, the prosecutor said he was not offering any further evidence and the judge acceded to a defence request to direct the jury to acquit.
Zambra has a number of previous convictions, including a 10-year stretch handed down in July 1997 for an incident in which he stabbed three prison officers with a syringe filled with his hepatitis C-infected blood while trying to escape from the Mater Hospital.
He admitted a number of armed robberies in March, July and August 1996.
The brother of the suspected target in yesterday's incident, Anthony Russell, was gunned down in the Arlea Inn, Artane, in April 2008.
The dead man was a close associate of paedophile north inner city gang boss Christy Griffin.
One theory last night on yesterday's suspected attempted murder is that it might be linked to a dispute with a Coolock criminal who has just been released from jail.
Hit's not me: Gangster Russell says mob pair were not sent to take him out.
The gangster believed to have been the target of a hit foiled by gardai has denied he is involved in a feud, saying: “If they wanted to kill me there are easier ways to do it.”
On Friday afternoon, heavily-armed officers dramatically arrested armed robber Paul Zambra and convicted criminal Anthony ‘the Giant’ Callaghan on Clonshaugh Avenue in north Dublin.
Two firearms were found in a BMW being driven by Zambra, while O’Callaghan was arrested in a nearby van.
It is believed the pair were on their way to the home of one of north Dublin’s most notorious criminal figures, CAB target Dean Russell (46).
Gardai are investigating if they foiled a hit on Russell, whose brother Anthony was shot dead as part of the Sheriff Street feud in Artane in 2008. However,
Russell told the Sunday World he does not believe he was the target.
“The police knocked up to my house after they arrested them and my daughter was there. They said they were checking under the car for pipe bombs, but they haven’t come back since and I haven’t been informed my life is in danger.” “This is nothing to do with me. I wasn’t even in the country yesterday. I only got back to the house at 6.15am today. If they wanted to kill me there are plenty of easier ways to do it.”
He said gardai did call to his home after the arrests and checked under a car in the driveway.
“The police knocked up to my house after they arrested them and my daughter was there. They said they were checking under the car for pipe bombs, but they haven’t come back since and I haven’t been informed my life is in danger.”
It is believed gardai also checked under the vehicle for a tracking device, but Russell said he is unaware if they found one.
Russell, who has a number or convictions, including one for armed robbery, said he is no longer invovled in crime and can see no reason why anyone would target him.
“I don’t have dealings with criminals. I keep a close set of friends, I don’t have any enemies. I’m not involved in feuding, I don’t owe any money, I don’t know Zambra or Callaghan. I don’t even know what they look like.”
“I’ve got letters before five or six times saying my life is in danger. My brother got a letter the day he was killed and he went out that day and he was killed.
I haven’t got any letters recently and the police haven’t been up to my house since.”
He added that there are two other feuds going on in the area and it may be related to them.
“I’m adamant it was nothing to do with me. Unless it’s something I don’t know about and I normally have a good idea.”
Gardai foiled a previous hit attempt on Russell in 2009. Criminals from the north inner city were involved in that plot.
Anthony Russell.
Russell said all he wanted to do was get on with his life and that the publicity has upset him.
“I’m only interested in raising my kids and my grandkids and being invovled in Kilmore Celtic.
“And, you know, it has not only upset me, but it has also upset all of my family. I’m disgusted that this is all in the papers and the neighbours are all hearing about this.”
“I just want to be left alone. I don’t know why my name is getting dragged into all of this again.”
Russell has a number of convictions and CAB secured a €400,000 judgement against him in 2014. Judge George Bermingham said Russell had “a prolonged and deep history” with criminality.
Russell said that people have an impression he’s a “multi-millionaire gangster”, but that isn’t the case.
“The houses are all repossessed, other than the family home I’m living in for 20 years. I have had dealings with CAB, but that’s over stuff going back years.
Witnesses to the latest incident said they were shocked when gardai moved in to make their arrests.
“There was a car driving down the road and out of nowhere a two jeeps came along and blocked it in. Suddenly there were unmarked cars everywhere,” said a witness.
Armed officers from the Emergency Response Unit along with the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and other units were involved in the operation.
They had the suspects under surveillance as part of an intelligence-led operation and moved in to prevent the shooting taking place.
A source said: “They were being monitored in the run-up to Friday and there was information they were planning to carry out the attack.”
Sources said a tracking device had been placed on Russell’s car in the lead-up to Friday.
It is understood gardai had the criminals under electronic and physical surveillance and it is hoped as well as possession of firearms they may be charged with conspiracy to murder.
Zambra, from Ballyfermot, was cleared of a gangland shooting three years ago. He had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Sean McMahon (36), who was shot dead in Tallaght in 2007.
There was a legal argument during the trial and afterwards the prosecution said they were not offering any more evidence. As a result the judge directed the jury to acquit Zambra.
He has several previous convictions, including a 10-year sentence for stabbing three prison officers with a syringe filled with hepatitis C-infected blood when he tried to escape from the Mater Hospital.
Gardai believe they may have foiled a hit.
He also has convictions for a number of armed robberies and has been arrested numerous times for major gangland crimes.
His associates were linked to the murders of Brian Downes (40) and Edward Ward (24), in Crumlin in October 2007 and career criminal John Berney in March 2008.
Callaghan, with an address in Clonee, west Dublin, is a drug dealer who recently served an eight-year sentence for the attempted armed robbery of a bookmaker coming back from the Irish Grand National. Gardai foiled the robbery after receiving intelligence that Callaghan and four other men had planned to hold up John Carthy of Chronicle Bookmakers on April 17, 2006.
The gang armed with weapons approached Mr Carthy, but didn’t realise there was a detective hidden in the back of a jeep and more gardai watching the group.
The Criminal Assets Bureau secured a €1.3m judgement against Callaghan in 2009
Gardai previously foiled another hit attempt on Russell’s life in January 2009. Gardai spotted Gerard Byrne (25) and Paul Beatty (28) in a stolen Audi A5 on Russell’s Road on January 21, 2009.
A Magnum revolver, two petrol cans and latex gloves were found in the car. Beatty later told a prison officer he had been on a “mission” to “whack” someone.
Byrne was previously questioned by gardai over the murder of Gavin McCarthy (22) who was shot dead on Sheriff Street in October 2008. Byrne was 17 at the time of the killing.
Sean Scully shooting: Man quizzed over gun attack which left schoolboy paralysed.
The man in his 30s was taken into custody in Courtown, Co Wexford, on Saturday and questioned over the shooting last year.
The main suspect in the shooting of schoolboy Sean Scully has been arrested and quizzed by gardai, we can reveal.
The man in his 30s was taken into custody in Courtown, Co Wexford on Saturday and questioned over the shooting last year.
The suspect was later released without charge and a file is being prepared for the DPP.
Sean, 6, suffered permanent damage to his spinal cord after being hit below the neck by a stray bullet outside his family home.
He had been playing with friends in Croftwood Gardens in Ballyfermot, West Dublin , on June 13 when a row broke out between a relative and two brothers who live in the area.
The men left but returned with a handgun.
The intended victim ran when the attacker fired and the shots missed him but hit Sean – one bullet went through his body above his collarbone and ruptured nerves in his neck.
Sean’s uncle, Keith Lyons, was later arrested but was not a suspect for the shooting.
He was questioned by detectives about withholding information but was later released without charge.
Gardai have identified a “suspect or suspects” in their investigation.
Sean Scully Despite the awful news that Sean will never walk again his parents Karl and Gillian are grateful he is still alive and has retained his personality.
They are also hopeful he will be able to return to school at St Ultans sometime in the future but recognise the rehab is going to be a long process.
Sean is doing rehabilitation and education at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.
At the time of his shooting, Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald vowed to bring those responsible for Sean’s shooting to justice.
Ms Fitzgerald said: “ An Garda Siochana is determined to bring to justice those involved and I am sure they have full support in identifying the perpetrators.”
Last year, Sean’s mum describing the horrifying attack on radio and said it was “bedlam” when her son was shot.
She added: “Sean was on the ground and was asking, ‘Help me up’. He didn’t know what had happened.
“They operated on the Sunday and got the bullet out but it damaged the top of his spine.”
A garda spokesman confirmed the arrest of a male over the weekend in relation to Sean’s shooting.
The spokesman said: “Gardai investigating the shooting of Sean Scully in Ballyfermot on June 13th 2014 have arrested a male in his 30’s in the Courtown area of Co Wexford on Sat 30th May 2015.
“He has since been released without charge and a file is being prepared for the DPP.
Man to be prosecuted for murder of Jean McConville.
The prosecution of a veteran republican accused of involvement in the murder of Belfast mother of 10 Jean McConville is to proceed.
After a number of court extensions to consider their case, prosecutors had been given a final deadline of today to indicate whether they would be pursuing the case against Ivor Bell.
advertisement
A lawyer for the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) ended mounting public uncertainty around the case this morning when he told judge George Connor it would be proceeding.
"A decision has now been taken to prosecute this defendant," he said.
Bell, 78, from Ramoan Gardens in west Belfast, was arrested and charged in March last year.
He is charged with aiding and abetting the murder of the widow who was abducted from her home in west Belfast in 1972.
He is further accused of IRA membership.
Bell, wearing a dark grey shirt, sat impassively in the dock of Belfast Magistrates' Court during the short hearing.
Two of Mrs McConville's children, Michael and Suzanna, watched proceedings from the public gallery.
Part of the Crown's case against Bell is based on a tape police secured from an oral history archive collated by Boston College.
The college interviewed a series of former paramilitaries on the understanding their accounts would remain unpublished until their deaths.
But that undertaking was rendered meaningless when the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) won a court battle in the US to secure the recordings.
Detectives claim one of the interviews was given by Bell - a claim the defendant denies.
A voice analyst has been assigned to the case.
Mrs McConville was dragged from her home in the Divis flats by an IRA gang of up to 12 men and women after being accused of passing information to the British Army in Belfast - an allegation discredited by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.
She was shot in the back of the head and buried 50 miles from her home.
The IRA did not admit her murder until 1999 when information was passed to police in the Irish Republic.
She became one of the "Disappeared'' and it was not until August 2003 that her remains were eventually found on Shelling Hill beach, Co Louth.
No-one has been convicted of her murder.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was last year arrested and questioned as part of the police investigation into Mrs McConville's death.
The Louth TD has consistently rejected allegations made to Boston College by former republican colleagues including Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price that he had a role in ordering her death.
The PPS continues to review a file on Mr Adams.
Bell is due back in court in six weeks' time when a date will be set for a preliminary inquiry to establish whether the case will proceed to trial in the Crown Court.
In Dublin’s south inner city officers made 26 arrests as part of ‘Operation Tempest’, targeting one of the biggest heroin dealing gangs in the country.
Reports indicate that some of those arrested have connections to heroin kingpin Greg Lynch, who survived an attempt on his life in 2013 when he was blasted with a shotgun in a botched hit.
Greg Lynch
As well as Dublin criminals 25 people were charged in Cork city and seven in Wexford.
Of the seven, five are from the one family; mother and father Billy and Margaret Connors and their three sons Paddy, Johnny and James.
All five appeared in Wexford district court on Tuesday.
In Cork gardai under ‘Operation Emerson’ made 25 arrests, nine of whom were women.
In total more than 100 garda raids were conducted in less than 48 hours.
Searches were carried out on more than 50 residential addresses by drug unit personal supported by Regional Support Units, Detective units, Dog Units and the Drug and Organised Crime Bureau.
The unusual thing was the drugs were discovered concealed in a consignment of soap A large amount of cannabis has been seized by Customs Officers in Dublin city.
As part of an intelligence-led operation involving Revenue’s Customs Service and An Garda Síochána today, officers seized approximately 50 kilos of herbal cannabis.
The unusual thing was the drugs were discovered concealed in a consignment of soap.
The drugs were seized following a controlled delivery in Dublin city centre.
The consignment is estimated to be worth approximately €1 million.
Three Irish men, aged between 24 and 34 years, were arrested and are being detained at Mountjoy Garda Station, a spokesperson said.
Investigations are ongoing and Gardai are said to be happy the streets are a little cleaner.
"These operations use advanced analytical and intelligence methods to disrupt criminals and dismantle their networks," a Gardai spokesperson said.
"Drug seizures play a critical role in targeting the livelihood of criminals and reducing their ability to carry out illegal activities. Drug seizures also help protect communities from the devastating impact of drugs and the associated criminality."
Gardai have arrested a man for the fatal shooting of an innocent man in Clonsilla last night.
Gardai in Blanchardstown investigating the fatal shooting of a male Shelerin Road, Clonsilla on the 12th June 2015 have arrested a 32-year-old man.
The man was arrested in Meath earlier this morning and he is being detained at Blanchardstown Garda station under the provisions of section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 1997.
advertisement Keith Walker (36), died instantly when he was shot in the daylight gangland hit as he was delivering birds to a pigeon club on Shelerin Road, Blanchardstown.
It is understood that Mr Walker was an innocent victim of mistaken identity after he got out of a car linked to the intended target.
Amid the mayhem, an innocent taxi driver was also shot twice in the arm. His injuries are not too serious.
The dead man, from Clondalkin, was described last night as an innocent man who had no previous criminal convictions.
A notorious hitman who was a former senior member of the infamous Westies gang was the intended target. It is understood that Mr Walker had simply been doing him a favour by visiting the pigeon club.
The intended target previously had been savagely assaulted by slain Real IRA figure Alan Ryan's gang.
He is also the chief suspect for the gangland murder of Lithuanian crime boss Gintaras Zelvys (43) at a business park in Rathcoole in May 2013.
Dissident godfather Damien McKenna has declared war on drugs barons.
We unmask him today as the ‘main man’ who has vowed to ‘clean up’ the drugs trade in the gang heartlands of Lurgan and Portadown – once the crime fiefdom of the loyalist LVF and its blood brothers, Billy and Drew ‘The Piper’ King.
But today we reveal that Damien McKenna is the new head of the Continuity IRA gang that has local drug gangs in their sights.
And we expose how his avowed violent campaign, driven by desperation to gain credibility for his terrorist outfit, is set to spark a blood-soaked dissident/criminal feud that could even see dissident factions turn their guns upon each other.
For the Sunday World can reveal McKenna has already targeted a drug dealing gang headed by a family member of Colin Duffy’s most trusted associate.
Tensions have been growing in recent weeks after the CIRA declared their intention to purge nationalist estates in the Lurgan, Craigavon and Portadown areas of drug dealing criminals who are prepared to fight to the bitter end, desperate to protect their lucrative trade.
One of the main gangs in CIRA’s line of fire, who have dubbed themselves ‘The Firm’, is headed up by the 24-year-old son of one of Duffy’s closest comrades.
While Duffy has no involvement in the drug trade his associate’s son has been freely using Duffy’s name as a ‘free pass’ to deal drugs, believing this is his ‘passport’ to protection.
Up until now this has worked, with both him and ‘The Firm’ raking in thousands of pounds every week. Now, however, the CIRA have vowed that the clock is ticking and ‘The Firm’s’ drug dealing empire is set to be crushed.
“The Continuity IRA has effectively declared all-out war against the drug gangs in the area though they seem to have made drugs pushers in the Kilwilkie Estate their priority. The police aren’t the only ones to be watching these developments closely; this could explode at any minute. Extreme violence and murder is imminent,” said a security source.
The Sunday World can also reveal members of the New IRA have visited members of the CIRA to warn them off from targeting the Lurgan drug dealer.
However the drugs dealers ‘minders’, the New IRA, have been told he will not be protected because of his well-known connection to Duffy.
This has also been seen by some as a direct snub to Duffy, the CIRA making it clear they have no respect for his alleged seniority in the dissident world.
Last month it was reported locally that the gang leader’s home had been shot at. Police are understood to have received no reports of the incident.
But the Sunday World can reveal a CIRA ‘hit squad’ arrived at the house armed, but their target was not at home.
Last weekend the same CIRA ‘team’ also ambushed a home belonging to another member of ‘The Firm’ during a house party.
They failed to gain entry yet a confrontation later turned to violence with members of both sides receiving injuries.
“One of the CIRA team was sliced and one of the druggies ended up with a busted arm. It’s getting out of control and now you have elements of the New IRA involved trying to flex their muscles in order to protect one of their own’s son,” said one well-placed local source.
“The CIRA have already turned up at the drug bosses home armed with a gun however he was not on the premises. CIRA, dubbed locally as the Contos, are determined to wipe out ‘The Firm’. They don’t give a f**k who he is related to or who he knows,” the source said
The drugs godfather in CIRA’s sights -- his identity is known to this newspaper but we can’t name him, at present, for legal reasons -- has recently bought a gun from the LVF for £400 for his own protection. “He bought it from the King brothers for 400 quid and he wants everyone to know he has it. Though dealing with the LVF is only going to make matters worse.
“He knows his life is in danger and the Contos mean business. If he is taken out there will be all-out war, Duffy’s mate will make sure of it,” he added.
The Sunday World understands that, unlike other dissident gangs like Oglaigh na hEireann, the CIRA in Armagh are not extorting the dealers for money or taking back- handers to turn a blind eye to their activities.
The CIRA have recently staged regular patrols in the Lurgan area. A statement which accompanied the recent pictures reads : ‘Volunteers from the Continuity Irish Republican Army pictured patrolling the streets of Lurgan, Co. Armagh on the lookout England’s armed colonial police, the RUC/PSNI and undercover British soldiers who are operating unwanted across occupied Ireland’.
In 2009 Damien McKenna was jailed for 15 years for his role in a plot to kill police officers with a mortar bomb in Lurgan.
McKenna, alongside Gary Toman and Sean McConville pleaded guilty.
Gary Toman
The police said they believed the men were members of the Continuity IRA.
The mortar was designed to be fired horizontally into a passing police or Army vehicle.
The men were being watched by members of an Army Special Forces unit in March 2007 with McKenna being under observation for up to six months.
Dissident sources say he has risen up the ranks of the CIRA since his release from jail.
The CIRA is now active only in North Armagh and Limerick.
REPUBLICANS dressed in full military attire took part in a broad daylight march down a busy Dublin road this afternoon.
The march was by a group called the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) - considered the political wing of the outlawed Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).
Eight men dressed in black military uniforms with berets and sunglasses led the march.
They carried flags and banners as part of the procession down the busy Bohernabreena Road in Tallaght in south Dublin, causing some traffic disruption.
It was part of a commemoration for former INLA member John Morris who was shot dead by armed gardai while taking part in an attempted robbery of a premises in 1997.
Promoted Articles
Recommended by The march, which was made up of around 60 people including women and young children, began at around 2pm.
It continued to the grave of John Morris at Bohernabreena cemetery where a wreath was laid and a member of the organisation gave an address.
He said Morris' death was an act of "cold-blooded murder".
He called on those gathered to "follow his example" and to continue to oppose austerity and water charges.
The slain INLA member's family took part in the march and placed a card on his grave.
Plain-clothes gardai were present and combed the gathered crowd beforehand taking the names and addresses of many of those in attendance.
It's understood there were at least two convicted members of the INLA in attendance at the event.
Sources added the event passed off peacefully without incident.
---------------------------------------
THE case against a teenager accused of possession of an estimated €70,000 worth of cocaine could be struck out if forensic analysis is not completed, a court heard.
Lee McCarthy (19) is charged with having the drug in west Dublin four months ago.
The case against him was adjourned after Blanchardstown District Court heard the directions of the DPP are still not available.
Mr McCarthy, of Foxdene Gardens, Clondalkin, is charged with possession of cocaine for sale or supply at Neilstown Gardens last February 7.
Sgt Mary Doherty said a certificate of analysis and the directions of the DPP were still outstanding.
There was a “large quantity” concerned, and Sgt Doherty told Judge Alan Mitchell the approximate value was estimated to be €70,000.
She said the prosecution was seeking further time.
The DPP’s directions state whether a case can be dealt with summarily at district court level or should be sent for trial to the circuit criminal court.
certificates
Defence solicitor Thomasina Connell asked how long the DPP’s directions would take.
Sgt Doherty said certificates of analysis took some time and there were delays at the Forensic Science Laboratory.
Judge Mitchell marked the adjournment peremptory against the State, meaning the charges could be struck out if directions are not available on the next day.
Innocent: Keith Walker A notorious Dublin gang boss who is suspected of being behind the shooting dead of innocent dad Keith Walker has been arrested by gardaí.
The 38-year-old, who was once head of the Westies gang, was arrested by gardaí investigating Friday's attack which saw Mr Walker (36) gunned down in broad daylight.
Mr Walker died after he was shot repeatedly by a gunman dressed as a woman on Sherwin Road, Clonsilla, in what gardaí believe to be a case of mistaken identity.
Last night gardaí were questioning the notorious Dublin criminal, who was a close associate of slain crime bosses Eamon 'The Don' Dunne and Michael 'Micka' Kelly, about the murder, the Herald reports.
It is thought that the intended target of Friday's shooting, Jay O'Connor, was behind a 2012 attack on the gang boss's life.
Both O'Connor and the chief suspect in this latest attack were both members of the Westies gang but fell out some years ago.
O'Connor was suspected of being linked to an attack which saw the mobster shot six times as he sat in a car in Hartstown in 2012. Sources say that the feud has been ongoing for some time.
This is not the first time that O'Connor has been caught up in a dispute with former associates.
The Clondalkin-based gangster previously fell foul of the Real IRA and had one of his fingers chopped off at the direction of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan.
He was tortured and beaten at Fairview Park in north Dublin, where one of his severed fingers was later found.
O'Connor was also a suspect in the murder of a Lithuanian crime boss in 2013. Gintaras Zelvys was shot twice in the body with a handgun as he arrived with his wife to open up his 'cash for clothes' business in the Greenogue industrial estate, Rathcoole, west Dublin.
It is believed that Mr Walker, a father-of-two, was shot because he arrived at a pigeon club in a car linked to O'Connor. The pair were friends, though Mr Walker - who was due to wed his fiancée shortly - had no ties to criminal activity.
Mr Walker was very active in his local community in Clondalkin and refereed underage football matches.
Two other men are being questioned in connection with the murder investigation. One man was arrested on Saturday morning in Meath. The final two arrests took place following a series of raids on Saturday evening.
Retribution: Walker and O'Connor were friends The intended target of a fatal shooting that left a father-of-two dead has declared: 'There's going to be war'.
Innocent man Keith Walker (36) was gunned down in broad daylight on Shelerin Road, Clonsilla on Friday afternoon.
He died after he was shot repeatedly by a gunman dressed as a woman, in what gardaí believe to be a case of mistaken identity.
A notorious Dublin gang boss who is suspected of being behind the shooting dead of the innocent dad has been arrested by gardaí.
The 38-year-old notorious criminal was once head of the Westies gang and was a close associate of slain crime bosses Eamon 'The Don' Dunne and Michael 'Micka' Kelly.
Now, the intended target of the attack, believed to be Jay O'Connor, who is believed to have been behind a 2012 attack on the gang boss's life, has spoken out.
Speaking to the Irish Sun, he said of his rivals: "They won't see the end of the week".
Both O'Connor and the chief suspect in this latest attack were both members of the Westies gang but fell out some years ago.
O'Connor was suspected of being linked to an attack which saw the mobster shot six times as he sat in a car in Hartstown in 2012. Sources say that the feud has been ongoing for some time.
O'Connor has reacted with a foul-mouthed tirade to the Irish Sun newspaper this morning.
"I'll tell you a story, there's going to be a f***ing war in Blanchardstown - they are f***ing dead, stone f***ing dead," he said.
This is not the first time that O'Connor has been caught up in a dispute with former associates.
The Clondalkin-based gangster previously fell foul of the Real IRA and had one of his fingers chopped off at the direction of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan.
He was tortured and beaten at Fairview Park in north Dublin, where one of his severed fingers was later found.
O'Connor was also a suspect in the murder of a Lithuanian crime boss in 2013. Gintaras Zelvys was shot twice in the body with a handgun as he arrived with his wife to open up his 'cash for clothes' business in the Greenogue industrial estate, Rathcoole, west Dublin,
It is believed that Mr Walker, a father-of-two, was shot because he arrived at a pigeon club in a car linked to O'Connor. The pair were friends, though Mr Walker - who was due to wed his fiancée shortly - had no ties to criminal activity.
Mr Walker was very active in his local community in Clondalkin and refereed underage football matches.
Two other men are being questioned in connection with the murder investigation. One man was arrested on Saturday morning in Meath. The final two arrests took place following a series of raids on Saturday evening.
Definitive confirmation is being sought that the Government’s new anti-extremism measures will cover dissident republicans in Northern Ireland.
David McNarry revealed that he had written to both the Prime Minister and Home Secretary in May, asking them to include such groups within a list of organisations to be targeted.
He has since received a reply saying “all forms of extremism” will be covered by the Government’s new strategy.
However, Mr McNarry still aims to obtain a concrete assurance that dissident groups will be mentioned explicitly.
The Strangford MLA, who is Ukip’s leader in Northern Ireland, said: “I asked the Prime Minister and Home Secretary to include Irish republican organisations, particularly republican dissident organisations, in the list of extreme roups to be targeted.
“I explained that the dissident threat was a major problem in this part of the UK and is already a major pressure on police resources here.
“I reminded them that it was equally a problem on the mainland.”
He then received a response from Lord Ahmad, the minister in charge of tackling extremism.
Lord Ahmad’s letter, dated June 8, said new legislation will be drawn up to help the Government ban extremist groups and close venues connected to extremist activity.
Lord Ahmad wrote: “In her speech on March 23, the Home Secretary has set out a range of measures to tackle extremism and stand up for British values.
“These will form part of a new comprehensive strategy to defeat all forms of extremism: violent and non-violent, neo-Nazi and Islamist.”
The last paragraph is essentially a word-for-word echo of a line from the Home Secretary’s March 23 speech itself.
In this speech, she had mentioned Islam or Muslims more than 20 times.
However, there had been no mention of republicans, loyalists, the IRA, UVF, INLA or UDA – or anything connected with Northern Ireland.
Lord Ahmad said before the new counter-extremism strategy is published, the Government will “engage widely across the country”.
Mr McNarry said: “It must be the case that in the course of ‘engaging widely across the country’ includes Northern Ireland and the issues I have raised.”
He reiterated his call that “‘all forms of extremism’ must not exclude Irish republican dissidents”.
The Home Office said that its counter-extremism strategy will be published “in due course”.
Limerick biker killing: Gardai recover shotgun and car as part of murder probe.
Killed: Andrew “Odd” O’Donoghue who was blasted to death yesterday
Gardai have recovered a sawn-off shotgun and a car as part of their investigation into the murder of biker Andrew O’Donoghue.
And it is believed a shooting at an apartment on the Dublin Road outside Limerick city on Sunday is linked to the murder.
Four men, aged in their 40s and 20s, are been detained over the killing. They can be held for seven days before either been released or charged.
Mr O’Donoghue, a long serving member of the Road Tramp MC “brotherhood” was shot in the face around 3pm Saturday, and died two hours later from his injuries in hospital.
It is believed the father of one, known as “Odd” to pals, was an innocent victim.
A source said: “Anyone who was at the clubhouse when the gunman opened fire could have been hurt. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The source added: “Tensions were growing anyway over the past few weeks and different things were happening in the weeks leading up to this.”.
Mr O’Donoghue, also known as “Dennis”, was originally from Lynwood Park in Limerick city, but had been living in Murroe with his partner Catherine Danaher.
The loving biker couple had lived in New York for a period, and returned home a number of years ago following the birth of their only daughter, Ava in the States.
The source added: “The fallout will be interesting because this is one of the first incidents of its kind here involving bikers.
“If one biker shoots another biker, it’s like shooting a brother.”
“Mr O’Donoghue was not known to gardai and his motorcycle club has been operating for a good few years in Murroe and had never previously come to any adverse publicity.”
Paddy Farrelly, a friend of the victim, described the gun attack as “a senseless killing carried out by a coward”.
Mr O’Donoghue’s body will be reposing at Cross’s Funeral Home, in Ballyneety, Co Limerick today from 5pm, before being removed to Road Tramps MC Ireland clubhouse at 7pm.
His funeral will take place in Murroe Church tomorrow at 11.30am, followed by burial afterwards in Abington Cemetery, Murroe.
THIS is the stash of cocaine and cannabis seized last night in Dublin.
The drug dealing gang, targeted by a specialist garda unit, were caught red-handed last night with a stash of cocaine and cannabis.
The seized drugs are estimated to be worth €150,000.
The seizure and arrests came after officers forced a car to stop on the Belgard Road in Tallaght just after 6pm.
A Gardaí spokesperson said that officers attached to the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau arrested three men.
“A large quantity of cocaine was seized in this vehicle and during a follow up search in the Tallaght area, further quantities of cocaine and cannabis herb were recovered with a total estimated street value of €150,000,” it was added.
“Three males aged 34, 32 and 18 remain in custody at Tallaght Garda station under the provisions of Section 2- Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996,” said the press officer.
Former INLA leader Declan 'Whacker' Duffy has been arrested by gardai. Duffy's arrest took place just before midday. He is now being detained in Clontarf Garda Station.
It's understood he was arrested in connection to allegations of extortion.
Duffy's arrest comes just three days after the Herald revealed that Duffy and Dessie 'Border Fox' O'Hare were among a group of men involved in two incidents.
Gardai in Rathcoole are probing the incidents, which occurred just 15 minutes apart at an estate in the Citywest area.
A businesssman and a security guard were the victims of an assault. Both refused to make a complaint to gardai - and the security guard was subjected to a serious assault which left him hospitalised.
Gardai believe the assaults are linked to INLA extortion activities in the capital and are trying to establish which dissident figures were involved in the savage attacks.
It is not clear whether Duffy's arrest was in connection to this incident.
However, sources say that "reliable information" has come in that both Duffy and O'Hare were present along with a feared Tallaght criminal.
In April, the Herald revealed that gardai were looking to speak to Duffy after a Mercedes car owned by a 68-year-old businessman was burnt out by associates of the gangland thug in the Glasnevin area of the capital.
Originally from Armagh, Duffy is now spending his time between two addresses in south inner city and an address north of the border.
He joined the INLA in the 1980s and was still a teenager when he was involved in the murder of Sergeant Michael Newman in Derby, England in 1992.
It was not until July 2010 that he was convicted and received a life sentence for the murder of the unarmed police officer.
Like Duffy, O' Hare was also released under the Good Friday Agreement after being given a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and mutilating Dublin dentist John O'Grady in 1987 and was linked to multiple murders during the Troubles.
The feared Christy Kinahan crime cartel has teamed up with a notorious gang controlled by a multi-millionaire Traveller crime boss. The gang, which specialises in high end car theft, is believed to be based out of Meath.
Sources say that the gang have been providing the Kinahan mob with top class motors.
"These include top-of-the range Audis, BMW's and Range Rovers which have been either shipped out of the country in containers or simply driven out by people paid to do this.
"The Traveller gang are actually doing a lot of business with the Kinahan network in terms of drugs trafficking, so it is an arrangement that seems to be working very well," a source told the Herald.
The Traveller gang are reported to be involved in car theft, drug dealing, armed robberies and cash-in-transit robberies.
A notorious Meath-based Traveller criminal who is originally from Finglas has been acting as a "middle man" between the two gangs.
Aside from serving numbers spells in Irish prisons the Traveller thug who is aged in his 40s was recently hit with a huge bill by Criminal Assets Bureau.
As well as being connected with foreign and Traveller gangs, he is also a close associate of jailed Finglas gangland figure Alan 'Fatpuss' Bradley.
Gardai have established that dozens of high-end cars that have been stolen here over the past year have been moved out of the country hidden in ship containers underneath scrap, tyres and discarded computers and even disguised in bigger vehicles on cargo ships from Dublin Port.
Sources told The Herald that a number of 'kingpins' have been identified, including a Nigerian criminal who moves between Dublin and London and a Lithuanian crimelord based in the Tyrrelstown area of west Dublin.
Gardai are closing in on the criminals responsible for the horrific assaults on Amy and Nicole Rice in May. The sisters came forward back in May to tell the story of how they were brutally attacked by two men they met on Facebook in a 20-hour ordeal in Newbridge.
The two men responsible, who Gardai believe are from Crumlin and Tallaght, fled overseas after the incident but it is believed they are back in the country and on the brink of arrest.
"It would be best if these individuals gave themselves up so that detectives can speak to them and get to hear what they have to say about this matter," a senior source pointed out to independent.ie.
"These are heavy duty fellas with links to drugs gangs in south Dublin," the source said.
"They have significant criminal connections and gardai have been monitoring the safety of the injured parties in this case."
The source added that the property where the assaults happened has been forensically examined by gardai and key evidence has been obtained.
The sisters told the Herald about their horrendous experience on the night of May 14.
The pair agreed to meet with two men who they initially spoke to through Facebook in April.
Amy said the pair seemed nice, and they arranged to travel to Newbridge, Co Kildare for a drink. They met the two men, aged 25 and 30, at a bus stop and were brought to an apartment in Newbridge town centre shortly after 7.30pm.
Soon after, Amy said one of the men, who is originally from Crumlin, started “acting weird”.
“His demeanour changed and he started talking about how he had been in jail before,” she said.
“They started to get aggressive, and my sister got up to leave at about 8pm. One of them pulled her hair, pushed her to the ground and started kicking her in the head.”
The brave young woman attempted to intervene to save her younger sister but the other man started to pummel her in a frenzied attack.
“They tied us up with rags and put them on our mouths and just kept laughing and laughing as they beat us up,” Amy said.
The sisters say the men worked themselves into a frenzy and asked them to ring “someone with money to pay a ransom” which would set them free.
But when the sisters said they didn’t have any money in their family, they were beaten further.
“They thought it was hilarious, they started ringing this woman and had her on loudspeaker and she kept saying ‘let me hear them scream’.
“Nicole made a run to the corridor outside and fell on the stairs trying to get away and passed out at the bottom.
“They thought she was dead and started ringing people on the phone and saying they needed to dig holes in the Wicklow mountains as they didn’t know what to do with these girls.”
Amy says the last thing she remembered was her sister’s body lying at the bottom of the stairs before she blacked out during another beating.
“I was so scared,” said brave Amy. “I thought we were going to die, I was full sure they were going to kill us.”
Nicole woke up hours later in bed beside her sister. She said as she was not tied up she tried to untie her sister but the men, who were sleeping beside them, woke and the assaults started again.
“They started lining us up against the wall and taking pictures and sending to friends what they had done to us. They were really proud of it.
“They eventually let us go at about 3pm in the afternoon and said if we went to the guards they would kill us and our family.
“They had rung people and found out information about us – they knew our dad was in hospital and everything.”
Covered in blood, the sisters ran out of the apartment and a man, driving by with two children, stopped and took them straight to hospital.
The sisters said they were still receiving threats from the men in hospital. The pair took a number of tests and scans and they believe they may have been drugged on the night of their ordeal.
Amy suffered a suspected fractured jaw. Nicole received a broken nose.
Both siblings suffered severe head and facial injuries.
Two hitmen fired handguns at Christy Keane as he was sitting in his car
CRIME boss Christy Keane’s deadly rivals struck at their arch enemy at his weakest point in years. The infamous Limerick gangster is lucky to have survived the gun attack this week as his bitter enemies in the McCarthy faction took their chance to settle old scores.
Four of his key men, including two convicted killers, are on bail and currently banned from entering the city.
Also his loose-cannon son Liam is still behind bars and not due for release until next year.
The Keane faction is currently outgunned by the McCarthy mob whose leaders are the prime suspects behind the attack.
“They’ve taken their eye off the ball, they’re not as interested in the feud,” said a Sunday World source this week. The Keanes were previously backed by the Collopys but the two families are no longer aligned with each other. The crime gang’s power base has been seriously weakened, according to sources.
“The Island Field isn’t what is used to be for them. They have people who do things for them but they’re only kids,” said a source.
“The Keanes have no one behind them, they don’t have anyone who’d be able to go into the heart of Moyross,” our source added.
Christy Keane
We can reveal that the man arrested in connection with the shooting used to work as a baker for the father of Owen Tracey, who is closely aligned with the Keanes.
Noel Price is also well-known to gardaí but is low down on the underworld’s pecking order.
The 37-year-old was recently released from jail after serving time for hijacking a car which he drove away with a toddler still in the vehicle. He is not thought to have been the gunman but he has feud-related convictions and served a ten-year sentence for a petrol bomb attack on a house in Clonlara in County Clare.
The target of the arson attack was the home of Philip Tracey whose son Owen survived the 2003 ambush in which Kieran Keane was killed to avenge Eddie Ryan’s murder.
A woman was also arrested this week by investigating gardaí and there is nothing to suggest at this stage that anyone quizzed had any involvement in the bid to kill Keane.
The early-morning ambush has shattered the fragile peace in the city that last saw a gangland murder in 2012.
But there is little doubt among the underworld and gardaí alike that the Keane faction won’t let the gun attack go unpunished. Hours after the gunmen’s assault, one Sunday World source said bluntly: “The feud is back on.”
Gardaí are working to track down the two gunmen who attacked Keane last Monday in the grounds of the University of Limerick.
Keane has a lot of enemies and there are several gangsters who would be happy to see him dead.
Sunday World sources claim that the McCarthy clan are the likely culprits behind the gun attack. The man regarded as the leader of the clan, ‘Red’ Larry McCarthy, served a long stretch in prison in the UK for possession of guns.
He was caught red-handed in a flat which was described in court as a gun “supermarket.”
Since his return to Limerick in 2011 the soccer-mad gangster has kept a low profile and claims to be no longer involved in crime.
Christy Keane had been waiting to start a gym session when the gunmen approached his Nissan Navara shooting their handguns last Monday morning.
Sources say he had been a regular at the gym parking in the same place every morning before his work-out.
“There was no sense of taking any personal security precautions – he was a sitting duck,” said a source. However, Keane’s fitness levels helped save his life.
The veteran gangster managed to run from his attackers and reached a running track 100 metres away where an off-duty nurse exercising gave him vital first aid.
He was operated on to repair bullet damage to an artery in his chest while another round clipped a lung.
Two other rounds fired by the would-be assassins hit him in the arms, according to Sunday World sources.
Although regarded as being clear of immediate danger he was later treated in the high dependency unit of the University Hospital Limerick. He has since been moved to hospital in Cork.
Ironically the lethal gang warfare started with another failed attack on Keane in 2000 when his former enforcer Eddie Ryan tried to shoot him.
His gun jammed but Ryan’s fate was sealed and two years later he was gunned down in a hail of automatic gunfire in the Moose Bar.
Ryan was the first to die in the feud that has since claimed at least 18 lives and left dozens languishing in prison.
The Dundon brothers, three of whom are serving life in jail, were once the most violent gang in Limerick. While Ger Dundon is reported to be re-establishing the family business between the UK and Limerick they are not suspected of being behind the attack.
In the past gangland assassinations in Limerick have been marked by wild parties, bonfires and gloating graffiti.
Despite the relative calm of recent years trouble has been brewing between the criminal factions in and tension increased since the start of this year.
Inmates are making a fortune flogging phone in Irish jails where old Nokia mobiles and fetch as much as €450 on the inside. It has emerged that cons can charge as much as €1,100 for an iPhone in Dublin’s high-security Mountjoy Prison.
So far this year 322 phones have been seized in Irish jails compared to 728 last year and 805 in 2013.
The Sun reports that just yesterday the mother of a Dublin lag was nabbed in Mountjoy prison smuggling her son in a mobile phone.
Cell phones have been discovered in secret compartments inside homemade shelves, shows and on one occasion, in a bottle of bleach.
Like Duffy, O' Hare was also released under the Good Friday Agreement after being given a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and mutilating Dublin dentist John O'Grady in 1987 and was linked to multiple murders during the Troubles.
This Good Friday Agreement seems quite a creepy and absurd thing: I mean, releasing convicted cutthroats, imprisoned for specific violent crimes, NOT for their political ideas? WTF?
Like Duffy, O' Hare was also released under the Good Friday Agreement after being given a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and mutilating Dublin dentist John O'Grady in 1987 and was linked to multiple murders during the Troubles.
This Good Friday Agreement seems quite a creepy and absurd thing: I mean, releasing convicted cutthroats, imprisoned for specific violent crimes, NOT for their political ideas? WTF?
Alan Kelly warned by gardaí over dissident republican threat Minister for the Environment says he has received death threats since Irish Water set up.
Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has received a warning from gardaí about threats made to him by dissident republicans. Mr Kelly said he, his family and staff have received death threats since Irish Water was set up. Speaking on RTÉ television’s Saturday Night with Miriam, he said a local Garda superintendent in Tipperary told him he was “under threat from dissident republicans.” A 53-year-old man was arrested on the Dundalk to Ardee road on Saturday night by gardaí investigating the activities of dissident republicans.Man (53) held over dissident republican activity “A couple of weeks ago a local Superintendent had to come up to me and find me and tell me to my face that I’m under threat from dissident republicans,” he said. “It’s a difficult thing to talk about because it’s one thing to have some threats about yourself or nasty stuff about yourself but it’s another thing for stuff to be sent to your family, your wife, your parents but also your staff. “These people just work for me and there’s people ringing them up saying they are going to be killed,” he added. Mr Kelly said he thinks the group of people making the threats are “not really interested in water charges”. “There is a broader issue here. There is a small group of people in this country who just want anarchy.” Mr Kelly said the threats were serious and gardaí had to be involved. “How do you distinguish between something whether it’s serious or not? You don’t know the minds of these people. In other countries people who work for politicians have been killed or injured and it’s completely unacceptable.” When asked how many people have paid their water bills so far, he replied. “I don’t know....that’s being honest with you. I think Irish Water are going to announce it in the coming days.” “There is never a wrong time to do the right thing. I’m not doing this to be popular, obviously, I’m doing it because it’s the right thing. It’s creating an infrastructure to ensure jobs.” Mr Kelly said Irish Water has to have a board meeting before it informs him about the figures. “I think we will be surprised by the volume of people that have paid their bills,” he said. When asked if thought it was “shameful” that he is the Minister presiding over water charges when his family is from a Labour background he said: “I wouldn’t describe it as shameful. I wouldn’t do anything if I didn’t think it was right. I’m a person who’s driven by conviction, [I AM]very strong willed in what I do and what I say. What I say is what I mean and do.” When it was put to Mr Kelly that the establishment of Irish Water was an “omnishambles” he acknowledged mistakes were made. “Yes, there were lots of mistakes made. I’m often told I got one of the largest hospital passes in political history....and I agree, by the way. “Lots of mistakes were made in relation to Irish Water but setting up Irish Water wasn’t a mistake. “Down through history, water infastructure wasn’t invested in [to] the level it needed to be because it was up competing with education, healthcare, social welfare and being honest, it wasn’t sexy enough to get the large scale funding that was required.”
Crime boss Christy Keane loses power in his arm after shooting in gym carpark.
Crime boss Christy Keane has partially lost power in his arm after he was gunned down in a murder attempt in the University of Limerick last month.
eane (54) was lucky to escape with his life after two gunmen fired at him as he was on his way into the gym at the university. He was hit four times, twice in one arm, after 12 rounds were fired at him. Keane managed to flee and survived after a pregnant trauma nurse came to his aid on June 29. READ MORE: Gang member’s home raided as gardai close in on Christy Keane shooter Keane was rushed to Cork University Hospital after the shooting but is now recovering at home in Limerick, according to the Sun on Sunday. Reports have suggested that one of the bullets that hit him in the chest splintered apart, causing complications. He now faces further surgery as he has lost a certain amount of mobility in his upper left arm. READ MORE: Heroin-user arrested after bid to murder crime boss Christy Keane There were fears that the shooting of the veteran gangster would reignite a decade-long feud in Limerick. The chief suspects are a gang of young thugs with close links to the McCarthy/Dundon gang. Two people arrested and questioned over the botched hit have since been released without charge. Both handguns used in the attack were found in a burned-out vehicle. READ MORE: Three criminal gangs in pact to kill Christy Keane Detectives from Henry Street Garda Station are now hoping to interview Keane, now that he is recovering at home, over the emergence of a new alliance of crime gangs bidding to control the drugs market in Limerick. Students at UL have also been asked to come forward with information following the attempted murder. Anyone with information about the shooting is being asked to contact Henry Street Garda Station.
New UVF boss is a notorious sheep rustler Roly Poly terror chief Paul Gray has been replaced as UVF boss of Ballymena by a notorious sheep rustler, we can reveal. The Sunday World has learnt that a well-known Ballymena criminal has taken over the reins.
But already things have started to go wrong for the crook, who earned a reputation for house break-ins and stealing farm machinery and livestock.
advertisement
Ad: 00:00 We can’t name the man for legal reasons but we can reveal he was convicted of a string of gun charges a decade ago that were linked to the UVF.
Sources have told the Sunday World the new boss is already unpopular with the rank and file after he started throwing his weight about.
And in one embarrassing incident he made a fool of himself when he tried to intimidate a young former UVF member.
“He made a fool of himself when he went round the houses demanding ‘dues’ from anyone who had anything to do with the UVF or YCV,” said a source.
“One 19-year-old lad told him he wasn’t paying him and that he wasn’t in the UVF anymore so he turned up at the wee lad’s house with two car loads of UVF men.
“He got out of the car and the wee lad came out with a bat of some kind. The wee lad was game as f**k and beat the boss all round his front garden.
“The lads in the cars didn’t get out to help and drove off. One of the cars ran out of petrol half way up the road. It was keystone cops kind of stuff.”
And the source says the new leader is so unpopular there have been some men asking for Paul Gray to come back as boss.
Like Gray there have also been rumours circulating that he has pocketed money on the sly behind the back of his UVF bosses on the Shankill.
Paul Gray
“He’s not well liked,” said the source. “He made his name from stealing everything he could get his hands on. He stole guns for the UVF. But thieving farm machinery and livestock was his big thing. Tractors, cattle and sheep – you name something on a farm and he’s stolen it.”
Paul Gray was finally stood down permanently from the UVF last year 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.
Local UVF members in Ballymena were rounded up and told that if they were prepared to spill the beans on the nefarious activities of Gray and O’Neill, then they would have nothing to fear.
However that image does not seem to have been improved with the appointment of the new boss.
EXCLUSIVE: We’ve foiled six murders this year, Garda speak out Part 1 AN ELITE Garda unit has stepped in to foil six imminent murders in recent months, its boss reveals today.
“Half a dozen plots have been thwarted through the proactivity of this unit. If we didn’t do what we did there would be people dead,” Detective Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan tells The Irish Daily Star Online.
And he also says that most of the targets are blissfully unaware that his unit — the anti-gang Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau — has stepped in to save them.
In a hard-hitting two-part interview — the first since the unit was formed on 9 March — Mr O’Sullivan also reveals: Gunmen are becoming increasingly volatile because they are taking cocaine to psych themselves up before shootings; That leads to increased risks of them shooting the wrong person; He is concerned at how violent younger crime gangs are — and how ready they are to use firearms; Criminals are renting out guns to use in robberies and murders — for just a few thousand euro; Gangsters who receive official Garda notification that their lives are in danger often abuse the officers sent to warn them, and: The average crime boss is only at the top for a few years — before either gardai put him in jail or other criminals destroy him.
CRIME FIGHTER: Chief Superintendent Michael O Sullivan in his office in Dublin Castle. Date:29/07/2015 Photo:Mick O'Neill. Michael o'toole CRIME FIGHTER: Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan in his office in Dublin Castle describing the tough new approach to crime in Ireland. Force
Mr O’Sullivan — who has more than 30 years’ experience in the war on crime — was handpicked by Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan to head up the Bureau in March, when it was formed from the merger of two separate organisations: the National Drug Unit and the Organised Crime Unit.
Mr O’Sullivan said the merger was needed because criminals are changing their strategies — and the force needs to keep up with the estimated 25 major gangs operating here.
“Whatever criminals do, we have to develop a strategy and a structure and a process to target them,” he told The Star — adding that younger criminals’ willingness to use extreme violence is a huge concern.
He said: “Whereas before you may have one guy with a grudge against another guy, now they might go that extra step and say, ‘Well I am not going to give that fella a hiding, I am going to shoot him in the leg’ — invariably he misses, or he shoots a passerby.
“There is a greater propensity for violence among younger criminals — that is the bottom line.”
He said the use of cocaine by gunmen is a big problem too, with them often shooting the wrong person — such as the 2009 murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan.
Mr Geoghegan (28) was gunned down in a case of mistaken identity in Limerick by McCarthy-Dundon killer Barry Doyle — who was supposed to kill one of their rivals.
Picture Shows.Irish Daly Star crime Corresponder interviewing Chief Superintendent Michael D O‚ÄôSullivan in his office in Dublin Castle. Date:29/07/2015 Photo:Mick O'Neill. Michael o'toole WORKING: Chief Superintendent O’Sullivan says the Garda’s new anti-gang Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau has hit the ground running foiling six murders. Risk
Chief Supt O’Sullivan said: “Some people will take coke to do a shooting to give themselves the confidence and sometimes it blurs their thought process and they could end up doing very stupid things — getting the wrong person and getting caught.
“These people are not as organised as we might think they are.”
The senior detective said the use of cocaine by gunmen is also putting gardai at risk.
“Every garda that goes out on the beat, you don’t know what they are going to come across, you don’t know what is going to happen,” he said.
“It is only a matter of time [before] they come across something and are at risk — so all gardai are at risk.
“[Anytime] anyone picks up a gun, the public are at risk. We are very conscious about trying to seize as many guns as possible and to close down avenues where people are trying to shoot people and to investigate them thoroughly and to put people who do this sort of thing behind bars.
“Somebody who goes and picks up a gun, he does not have a lot of principles — or a lot of training. He doesn’t care a lot as to what he is going to do.”
Chief Supt O’Sullivan also said he does not believe there are more than a handful of expert, experienced hitmen in Ireland — but also said gangs don’t use drug addicts to carry out shootings as they can’t be trusted.
Instead, he said, gang bosses’ lieutenants carry out most shootings.
He said: “It would be people that you would trust to do it and it takes a lot to go and shoot somebody and keep your head afterwards.”
Gardai have officially warned hundreds of criminals over the past few years that they are under imminent threat of death — but Chief Supt
O’Sullivan says in many cases the warnings are met with derision.
The people they are trying to save verbally abuse officers giving the warnings — officially called GIM forms — he said.
“Frequently gardai go to criminals and give them warnings to say, ‘We have information that you are being targeted, people are trying to kill you’.
Gardai could go and give a GIM form to somebody and be abused by him, because they always abuse gardai,” he said.
“That is the nature of the culture of criminals who spend their time abusing gardai because it is part of their image, this macho thing.”
CLEAN UP: Limerick is the heart of Ireland's gangland and one of the focus cities for the new crime unit. CLEAN UP: Limerick is the heart of Ireland’s gangland and one of the focus cities for the new crime unit. Plots
The Bureau has been hugely active and has seized around 10 firearms since it was created — and Mr O’Sullivan says his officers have saved at least six lives.
He said: “You could look at the number of guns seized, you could look at the number of people en route to shoot someone who were stopped.
“I certainly believe several attempts on lives have been thwarted by our actions and a number of lives have definitely been saved by our seizure of firearms and drugs — of that there is no doubt.
“If we didn’t do what we did there would be people dead. Half a dozen plots have been thwarted through the proactivity of this unit. That’s what we do — it’s our job.
“[The public] might never hear of it. A car could be stopped and a guy could be caught with a gun, it may not even get into a newspaper.
“Somebody having his tea doesn’t realise he was almost going to get killed… There are people who are alive today who may or may not know we saved their lives, but we certainly have saved their lives.”
Mr O’Sullivan also said crime bosses can make a lot of money — but are rarely around to enjoy it for long.
He said: “They don’t have a great life expectancy. I don’t mean they will all get shot. I mean if someone is running high in the year 2000, by the year 2004 he could either be shot or lose everything because the Gardai arrested him and took his money and his drugs. Or he can fall off his perch and someone else comes along.
“There are very few criminals who go from A to Z and remain top of the heap with the whole thing intact… They could make quite a lot of money for a short period of time, but they don’t tend to have longevity.
“Sometimes these guys believe their own propaganda and they think they are invincible — they aren’t.”
Chief Supt O’Sullivan also said it was extremely difficult for gangs to get their hands on guns — which often come in as part of drugs shipments.
“Firearms are difficult to get and we would like to keep it that way,” he said.
“It is not easy to get firearms. They sometimes come in in shipments and sometimes we get them coming in, sometimes we get them after they come in and sometimes we get them before they come in.
Robbery
“Sometimes they would only want to rent a gun because if they buy a gun it becomes a liability.
“So if they do a robbery, they might say, ‘If you give me a couple of grand out of that robbery, I will give you the gun’, sometimes that happens. “They might buy a sawn-off shotgun — it is the easiest thing to do.
“Guns are so hard to get that people who manage to get them into the country are very reluctant to hand it out willy-nilly.”
Pick up tomorrow’s Irish Daily Star to read part 2 of our interview — drugs crime in Ireland.
EXCLUSIVE: Cocaine comeback as garda detective speaks out part 2
IRISH punters are flocking back to cocaine because they have money in their pockets again, the Gardai’s top anti-drugs detective warns today.
In the second part of his exclusive interview with The Irish Daily Star Online, Detective Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan says people are snorting the dangerous party drug in huge numbers as the economy gets back to near boom times.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan leads the 120-strong recently formed Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau that is tasked with taking down crime lords and drugs barons.
Cocaine was at its height in Ireland during the heyday of the Celtic Tiger around 2007 —when the country was swamped with the drug.
But the economic crash of 2008 led to a slump in use of the drug, as people simply could not afford €80 or €100 for a night’s supply.
Gardai noticed users seemed to be deserting coke in favour of cheaper drugs like cannabis.
But as the economy appears to be back on its feet, the Garda annual report showed domestic seizures of the drug jumping from €3.6 million in 2013 to €7.6m last year.
Sources say this shows cocaine bosses like ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan (57) are targeting Ireland again from Spanish boltholes.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan — who warned in yesterday’s Irish Daily Star Online that gunmen are becoming increasingly unstable because they take cocaine before going on their hits — says there is no doubt coke is becoming more popular again.
Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 18.02.31Exotic
He said: “The increased cash flow will result in the increased use of cocaine. It can mirror the economy. Disposable income will mirror it, flash cars will mirror it, exotic holidays will mirror it — as will cocaine.”
The cocaine used in Ireland is largely produced by narco-terrorists in Colombia and imported here by vicious crime gangs, like those headed by banged up Limerick boss Wayne Dundon.
Both the Colombian cartels and the Irish gangs who sell their wares here have been behind countless murders — and coke users here are directly feeding both groups.
The top detective said: “People are funnelling money to criminal groups at home and abroad. If people are going to a nightclub and they get a gram of cocaine, they don’t particularly care that somebody got shot out of it.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan was speaking in his first major interview since the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau was formed by Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan on 9 March.
That squad sprang from the merger of the force’s two main crime fighting organisations — the Organised Crime Unit (OCU) and the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU).
Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 18.07.11 JOINT POLICING: As well as taking on the gangs in Ireland, the new bureau deals with international policing agencies like the US DEA, to build better intelligence. Target
We revealed yesterday that the chief believes his team has already directly prevented six gun murders since March in its anti-gangland role, but it is also the force’s main focal point in the war on drugs.
OCU was tasked with taking down major crime gangs, while GNDU was going after significant importers of drugs — but the lines between the two are now so blurred that the force needs one organisation to fight them.
Chief Supt O’Sullivan said: “If you look back at it historically, crime has changed hugely in the country… whatever criminals do, we have to develop a strategy and a structure and a process to target them. Going back, you could divide groups years ago to those who dealt in drugs and those who did bank robberies. Rarely did they overlap.
“But then the Celtic Tiger came along, cocaine came along, it was acceptable to sell drugs because people then knew what they were doing when they were buying and selling drugs.
“Armed robbers weren’t dealing with drugs because they didn’t understand them… heroin dealers only sold heroin because they had an understanding of it.
“There was a demarcation line — the demarcation line has stopped. Guys who are doing armed robberies also see profits in getting drugs in.”
Just one kilo of cocaine has the capacity to earn a gang more than €200,000 in turnover in Ireland. It costs around €5,000 to buy in South America and it is then sent to Europe, where Irish gangsters buy it in bulk for around €25,000 a kilo.
That kilo is itself worth some €210,000 in Ireland. Although a kilo costs some €70,000, each imported kilo is high in purity and is normally cut with other white powder to stretch it out to two or three kilos on the street.
Mr O’Sullivan also said young Irish criminals are attracted to cocaine because they use it and realise its massive profits.
He said: “They see the connections and say, ‘Well, look, if we got 20 grand here we could send somebody out or we could get stuff from Colombia or Spain or wherever else’.
“Over the years people become multi-skilled and have contacts in the drugs business and they have contacts in the armed robbery business. They are in the melting pot in Mountjoy and they are all talking to each other.
“It depends whether they go into tiger kidnapping and put their profits into drugs.
“Whatever makes money they are going to do. They see buying and selling drugs as a legitimate means of making money.”
Mr O’Sullivan said gangs are moving away from importing cannabis resin to smuggling cocaine — and growing their own cannabis plants here.
As well as targeting cocaine importers, Mr O’Sullivan’s unit has led the hugely successful Operation Nitrogen, a nationwide crackdown on cannabis growhouses — that has seen them seize more than 40,000 plants since 2013, worth €35 million.
And one of the main reasons for the upsurge in growhouses, he said, was that it meant not having to deal with outside criminals.
He said: “The thing to get your hands on years ago was slabs of hash, kilos of cannabis resin. You would get it in from Holland, or Spain.
“Whereas now the price of cannabis resin has dropped and the price of cannabis grass has gone up.
“You cut out the middle men, you cut out truck drivers and foreign criminals and foreign customs — and you can grow your own stuff and the potency of it is increasing.
“Things change all the time. Years ago there were no growhouses, there was very little cocaine… the market has changed.”
Mr O’Sullivan also said Irish people have been caught in the past trying to smuggle cocaine directly from South America to Europe — such as
Tyrone mule Michaella McCollum Connolly (22) — but most of the drug destined for this country was sourced in Spain, as it was simply easier to organise.
He also said modern communications meant it had never been easier to secure a cocaine consignment to smuggle into this country.
He said: “To us it is academic whether they are going out there or not. In Colombia, you can buy cocaine very cheaply.
Exto BUST: Chief Supt O’Sullivan says, “Why reinvent the wheel, why just not talk to somebody that you know who is in Spain who knows a guy who knows a Colombian who can get you 10 kilos of this, or 20 kilos or half a tonne?” Market
“Whether you contact a guy in Amsterdam who knows a Colombian in Amsterdam who knows a guy attached to a cartel… with modern communications, you are a stone’s throw from picking up a phone to a guy in La Paz… or a guy in Amsterdam, or a guy in Ukraine or a guy in Istanbul.
“Gangs will go anywhere to get cocaine. There are a lot of Irish people living in Spain, a lot of UK criminals living in Spain.
He also warned that cartels would demand payment for cocaine shipments they send to Ireland — even if gardai intercept them.
“Somebody has to pay it and it has to be the Irish guys — or it depends on their credit. But somebody, somewhere, has to pay it and that frequently leads to difficulties,” he said.
Although there is much focus on major importers like Kinahan and George ‘The Penguin’ Mitchell — whom gardai believe both smuggle large amounts of drugs into Ireland – Mr O’Sullivan said Irish criminals will get their cocaine from whatever source they can.
He said: “There is a lot of play on somebody being the main player; people will go and make money on drugs with or without main players.
“You might not know the main player or you might not want to know him or you don’t trust him — and anyway, you want to do your market independently.
“Pockets of criminals will go and do what they see as profit. If the cash is there, they will try and leverage that cash by bringing in drugs — with or without a central main player.”
He also said some small-time gangs were smuggling in relatively minor amounts of cocaine, adding: “There are people like that who try to do it under the radar. Sometimes they get away with it, sometimes they don’t – they are taking a big risk.”
He added: “They want to increase their 10 grand; they are not going to go to a guy who is bringing in a big shipment because they think they will be ripped off.
“They keep it simple… you have to know what you are at and you have to have the contacts. But you have to understand the trade. They have to have a degree of experience and they have to have somebody who knows the ropes — somebody who has been caught in the past, somebody who can give them advice.
“Starting off in the business and [you think], ‘I know nothing about it, but I have 20 grand and I am going to do it’ — you won’t last.
SAFE TO USE CRIMINAL: Chief Supt O’Sullivan said, “It’s a way of life. It’s not uncommon to find the grandchildren of people who were active in the 1970s and 1980s selling drugs. Risks
“There are risks, it is fraught with difficulty. You could be sold a powder that’s not coke.”
The chief also said there were now drug dealers whose parents and grandparents had also been involved in the trade – especially heroin.
He said: “I’ve done fellas and I knew their grandfathers. There are people in certain parts of the city who are using heroin and their parents may have died from it, their grandparents may have died from it.
“It is unusual to see that — you would think children of addicts would have learned.”as economy recovers, more people turning to white powder without realising consequences
Armed with guns, knives and bombs two Traveller gangs have issued a stream of video threats against each other. The videos, one issued from a Dublin-based gang, the other by a gang from another part of Leinster, appeared this week and threats of serious harm were issued by both sides.
There has been an ongoing feud between both gangs that has resulted in assaults but this latest pair of videos shows that the dispute may be entering a new, far more serious, phase.
The first part of the below video shows a group of men with a large arsenal of firearms, including shotguns, automatic weapons and ammunition.
They name a person before saying 'You said six weeks ago it was only a matter of time (that) you would get your brothers-in-law involved... They are involved and make the best of them.
'You send your young fellas acting like men - we will treat them like men.
'You come to our road - prepare for what you're seeing'.
The other gang responded days later, with an equally chilling clip, which is also included below.
A masked man, brandishing a machete, says: 'You are threatening that you are going to shoot again. My friend, this is what is waiting for you. We will end this once and for all.
'If we see you around the shops you will get that', he adds, waving the weapon.
'If we see you in a pub, any pub, you will get that,' he says, holding a shotgun and cartridges.
Masked raiders tried to nail Paul Harbinson’s feet to the floor in a ghoulish ‘crucifixion.’ The 23-year-old was still reeling from the horror of having 10-inch nails hammered through the palms of his hands as his attackers attempted to pin him to kitchen floor of his home.
The barbaric attack has plumbed new depths in a community numbed by decades of paramilitary-style attacks.
Dragged from the sofa of his home at Florence Walk in north Belfast on Thursday evening by a gang of masked men, he was beaten, held down and forced to lay his hands palms up on the kitchen counter as 10-inch nails were driven through both hands.
Not content with the cruelty inflicted, the gang leader then ordered for the Shankill man’s shoes and socks to be removed as they set about a repeat performance on his feet.
Today the Sunday World reveals the full extent of the attack.
Speaking exclusively from a secret location outside Belfast the father of one spoke of his horrific ordeal and revealed how he managed to escape a full crucifixion.
“I was in shock, adrenalin running through me so I didn’t really feel anything,” he said.
“But when I heard him saying about my socks and shoes I realised they were going to hammer my feet to the floor as well and that’s when I reacted. I tried to pull my hands from the counter, but they were nailed tight,” Paul told the Sunday World.
“They started beating the f**k out of me so I pulled my head in and just kept jumping around the place trying to make sure they couldn’t get my feet, and they gave up.”
Paul, whose family is from the Shankill area, had just returned from staying at his girlfriend’s house when the monsters pounced.
“We had just sat down after putting the child to bed when the back door came flying in,” he recalled.
“The next thing I know I am dragged off the settee. Someone was screaming ‘get into the f**king kitchen’.
“I hadn’t a clue what was going on, I was asking them what I was supposed to have done, but they just kept screaming. They told me to put my hands out and when I refused he told me if I didn’t he would put the hammer right through my face.
“When I saw the bag of nails I knew, the next thing the nails were getting hammered through my hands and for some reason I couldn’t feel a thing, I just watched. It didn’t hurt, it was the adrenaline. I can feel them now though, the pain is bad.”
Paul’s new girlfriend Amy was dragged into the hall and forced to sit on the stairs while a member of the gang watched over her.
They tried to take her from the house, but she pleaded with them to let her stay as she had a one-year-old son sleeping upstairs.
“I was terrified, but I was trying not to cry or scream,” she said.
“I sat with my head in my hands as I heard them beating Paul. When I heard them saying about taking his shoes off I knew what they were doing to him and there was nothing I could do. I was terrified for him and my wee one”
Paul was nailed to the kitchen counter for almost one hour until the fire service came to his rescue.
One of the 10-inch nails was removed from the kitchen worktop by industrial clippers. The other, which had been embedded in the cupboard below, had to be electrically sawn off .
“I am just glad that my girlfriend was there with me because I wouldn’t have been able to call for help. I would have been there for I don’t know how long before someone came to help.
“I genuinely don’t know why this has been done to me. I have done nothing to deserve this and they have given me no reason for the attack. The people who did this to me are sick.”
In the wake of the sickening attack, local sources laid the blame on the UDA in the Lower Shankill area, headed up by thugs Mo Courtney and Matt Kincaid.
Loyalist sources also claim that the UDA have since accused Paul of drug dealing and breaking into people’s houses, stating this is the reason he was assaulted and that he had received a warning three weeks ago.
Paul denies all of their claims.
“I have never sold drugs or meth in my life,” he declared.
“I used to buy the illegal high 4CMC of the internet, but I never sold to anyone, they were for me and my mates and that was about a year ago. As for housebreaking, never, I just wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t steal.
“To be honest I don’t know who attacked me because I haven’t been back and my phone was taken. UVF or UDA, it doesn’t matter to me at this stage because no-one should do something like this to anyone. It’s sick.”
He said the truth about the attack will emerge.
“I genuinely don’t know why this was done to me, I have always kept myself to myself in the Shankill, I never socialised there or anything and I only moved back. I really have no idea but I will find out, it’s only a matter of time before someone spills,” he explained.
Paul, who has no criminal convictions, has insisted he will never return to the area he was born and raised.
“Whoever did this can go f**k themselves, the lot of them can. I will never be back, what way is that to live? I just wish my family would leave too.”
Gangster Fat Freddie Thompson is in hiding after gardai warned of a threat on his life following his release from prison last week. Thompson was released from Mountjoy Prison last Saturday but before he left the jail, Gardai informed him that that his life was in danger.
The 35-year is said to be 'paranoid and terrified' by the threat and there are conflicting reports regarding his whereabouts, with Dublin and Birmingham both mentioned as possible locations for his hideout.
Several factions may want to kill Thompson, with his gang at the centre of the feud in Crumlin that has claimed 15 lives since 2000.
Christy Kinihan's associates may also want to target Thompson as they dislike the fact that his high profile attracts unwanted Garda attention.
Thompson was behind bars for an attack on a man in a pub on Cork Street in the city in 2013. He was extradited from the Netherlands in May of 2014 and was immediately placed in custody before being hit with a 20-month sentence for his involvement in the pub brawl.
Gangland target Jay O’Connor has fled to Spain where he is in hiding after a rival gang launched a plot to kill him. 37-year-old O’Connor was due to return to Dublin from the UK last Thursday but instead chose to remain hiding.
The long-running dispute between Jason 'Jay' O'Connor and rival gangster David 'Gully' Goulding has already claimed one live so far this year.
The two former friends were both part of the Westies mob which wreaked havoc in west Dublin in the 1990s.
When the gang imploded the two men went their separate ways, Goulding linked up with a Coolock-based faction of the gang while O’Connor remained loyal to the Glennons.
Following the murder of an innocent man in a case of mistaken identity earlier this year tensions have reached fever pitch with gardai working overtime in an attempt to quell tensions in west Dublin.
O’Connor became aware of a threat on his life on the 12th of June this year and has been keeping a low profile ever since.
A source told the Sun that “There has been no sign of O’Connor but his enemies are driving around without a care in the world.
“He was meant to come back last week, but he’s now decided to stay away because there is a serious threat against him at the moment.
“People might think O’Connor is terrified of someone targeting him but the reality is he has a very good alibi if he’s out of the country and one of his enemies is taken out.”
The Sun reports that the gangster has been staying at his heavily fortified, Whitestown home which boasts CCTV and bulletproof windows.
O’Connor has a number of high profile allies in Dublin, including Fat Freddy Thompson’s south inner-city mob and gardai fear that the hood could call in certain “favours” from these associates.
Gardai find €60,000 of drugs at house after landlord reports burglary
Gardai in Palmerstown discovered €60,000 of drugs after being called to a house to investigate a burglary. The bizarre incident unfolded in the early hours of the morning in Palmerstown, west Dublin, on Friday when the landlord called gardai after becoming suspicious that someone had broken into his house where he was sub-letting a room.
When officers from Ballyfermot Garda Station entered the room which the landlord had thought had been broken into, gardai discovered paraphernalia linked to drug dealing and obtained a search warrant which they later executed.
Gardai searched the room and discovered the large drugs haul.
In a follow-up operation on Friday afternoon, a Ballyfermot man aged in his early 20s was arrested.
The suspect was released without charge over the weekend and a file will now be prepared for the DPP.
"The landlord in this case had nothing to do with the drugs at all. He became suspicious that a burglary had taken place in his property.
"The officers at the scene quickly established that no one had broken into the room that he was concerned about but quickly realised that there were drugs in the room and then acted in a prompt manner and now these drugs are off the street," a source explained.
A masked gunman on a BMX bike shot a man dead as part of a long-running gang feud. The gun attack took place in the Greenhills area of Athy shortly after 5pm yesterday and a suspect was arrested shortly afterwards.
The victim was been named locally as Jason Doogue (22) who is from Athy, Co Kildare. His mother, Mary, was killed in 1995.
advertisement
The victim was sitting on a wall with up to four friends when the assailant approached him on a BMX bike. The gunman was wearing a balaclava.
He opened fire at close range with a handgun and shot Doogue once, who collapsed over the wall. The gunman, in front of horrified onlookers, then leant in over the wall and discharged a further two shots at his target before fleeing.
Doogue struggled to his feet and collapsed at the entrance of a nearby house. A woman attempted to cradle him and neighbours said the dying man cried out "get me help, get me help" as he lay bleeding on the doorstep.
The victim was critically ill when the emergency services arrived and he was rushed to Naas hospital.
He died from his wounds about an hour and a half later.
Gardaí carried out a series of searches in the town in the immediate wake of the shooting and arrested a suspect, who is in his 40s and from the Athy area.
He can be held without charge for up to seven days.
The Offices of the State Pathologist have been notified and a post mortem examination is expected to take place today.
A motive for the gun slaying has not yet been established, but one theory being investigated is that the killing was part of a drugs feud in the Kildare town.
Doogue was known to gardaí for public order offences.
The scene of the gun attack remained sealed off overnight as investigations led by officers based in Athy garda station continued.
A group of young women wept openly near the scene.
A 22-year-old friend, fighting back her tears, said: "Jason was just waiting to go into his friend's house and have a shower before going on a date with his girlfriend. It's terrible what happened him. He had a hard life."
Prior to yesterday's murder, there had been a number of recent pipe bomb and gun attacks on homes in Athy. Garda resources had been increased in recent weeks as fears grew about an upsurge in violence.
A series of incidents in the town, including one in which shots were fired, stemmed from a feud between two groups, suspected of being involved in drug trafficking and other crimes.
In 1995, Jason Doogue's mother - Mary (30) - was kicked to death by her ex-lover Stephen Davis (20) in a jealous rage following a night out. He was later found guilty of her murder. He spent more than 15 years in prison before being released on licence.
FAT’ Freddie Thompson is hiding out in England under threat from the Kinahan Cartel for pocketing cash he was supposed to collect on behalf of the crime organisation. The Dublin thug left Ireland shortly after his release from prison earlier this month.
It is believed Thompson travelled to Alicante and collected money owed to him by other criminal figures based there, but has since gone to the U.K.
advertisement
It is understood he has been in London and Birmingham since returning from Spain.
He’s believed to be in Birmingham at the moment and is afraid to return to Dublin,” said a source.
The Sunday World has learnt that some of Thompson’s former associates in the Kinahan Cartel fell out with him over money and he now fears they will come after him as a result.
“Thompson’s crew were supposed to collect money for the Kinahans in Ireland, but the Kinahans got word that they were pocketing some of the cash,” said a source.
Thompson is also believed to have been isolated by two former close associates who wrongly suspected him of giving information to gardai which led to the two major drug seizures.
Another man who survived a number of assassination attempts has also been leading a whispering campaign against Thompson.
Thompson was extradited from Amsterdam to Ireland in May 2014 on charges of violent disorder, following an attack on a man in Morrissey’s Pub in Cork Street in January 2013.
He served a 15-month sentence over the brawl and was released earlier this month. Gardai visited Thompson in Mountjoy a day before his released and told him they had intelligence there was a credible threat to his life.
He was released from prison a few days early to give him time to get out of the country.
While Thompson fell out with the Kinahan Cartel, his cousin Liam Byrne still remains close to the gang. Byrne met up with Daniel and Christy Kinahan Jnr on a recent visit to Dublin for a boxing event.
Gardai believe Byrne and his associates are key links in a chain of drug and weapons shipments into Ireland for the Kinahan mob.
The fact that Thompson was previously close to the Kinahan Cartel offers him little protection. The gang are believed to be responsible for murdering their former associate Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh in the Costa del Sol last year and his brother Paul Kavanagh in Drumcondra, north Dublin, earlier this year.
Criminal figures including Christopher ‘Git’ Russell were among those who owed money to the gang. Russell had been repeatedly targeted by Hatchet and Paul Rice over the debt, but the Kinahan operation learned Russell had been paying back the money.
Tallaght criminal Rice was once a key figure in the cartel, but sources say he fears he will be whacked ever since Hatchet was gunned down in Spain last September.
Sources say Rice had been under serious pressure from the cartel to force Paul Kavanagh to pay back what he owed or else he would be killed. He has been laying low since Paul Kavanagh’s murder, only occasionally returning to Dublin.
Northern Ireland man jailed for 1970s loyalist paramilitary firearms offences Samuel Tweed, 74, sentenced to two and half years in prison after spending 40 years on the run, despite a plea for leniency from first minister Peter Robinson
A 74-year-old man who had been on the run for 40 years for firearms offences related to the Troubles has been jailed in Belfast.
Despite a plea for clemency from Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland’s first minister, Samuel Tweed from Newtownards, Co Down, was sentenced on Friday to two and a half years in prison.
He was arrested in April 1974 after the house he had been seen driving towards in East Belfast was searched. Inside the property in Jocelyn Avenue, police found an arsenal of weapons to be used by loyalist paramilitaries.
The cache included six .45 calibre revolvers, two .22 calibre pistols and and a 12 bore sawn-off shotgun.
Tweed escaped custody the following month, when a group of teenagers burst into Belfast magistrates court claiming there was a bomb in the building. In the panic and confusion he managed to give his prison warders the slip and flee.
He went into hiding and eluded justice until 2012, when lawyers representing him asked the Police Service of Northern Ireland if there were any outstanding charges against their client.
The PSNI later arrested and charged Tweed, sparking a political campaign by unionists, including Robinson, to win leniency. A number of letters were read out in court pleading for Tweed not to be jailed.
Judge Philip Babington, however, told the former loyalist paramilitary: “These were, and are, serious offences. Albeit you were younger but that does not diminish the seriousness of the offences in any way at all.
“I am satisfied that you have lived a lawful and law-abiding life over the last 40 years. However, that does not mean that the offences are any less serious. Far from it.”
Now all guns must fall silent - loyalists must pay for crimes too If there is to be a balanced approach in dealing with 'hangover violence' from the Troubles, all the parties will have to address continued loyalist criminality, says Henry McDonald.
Internal housekeeping - that notoriously cynical phrase invented by one of Dr Mo Mowlam's Northern Ireland Office officials back in the day - doesn't only apply to the activities of the Provisional IRA and other republican paramilitary groups.
The notion that keeping your organisation quiet and anti-social elements in your community under control by effectively "killing for the peace process" has for the last two decades been prevalent on the loyalist side of the divide.
SHARE While unionist politicians point to the chief constable's admission that the IRA in some form still exists (hardly a major surprise for those who study paramilitarism), there appears to be little focus on the way the UVF and UDA have remained "busy" in certain working-class communities across Northern Ireland.
Among ordinary nationalists such lack of attention to murder, maiming, arson attacks, extortion and blackmail by loyalist terror groups smacks of hypocrisy. Indeed, this perception is only heightened when nationalists look on at the case last week of Sammy Tweed, the 74-year-old who spent four decades on the run after escaping court in 1974.
While there is a strong argument against jailing an elderly man for offences committed so long ago - especially given the legions of killers and bombers released under the Good Friday Agreement's de facto amnesty - the families of UDA victims are at least entitled to point to double standards.
As some unionists call for licenses to be revoked and certain IRA prisoners put back in jail due to recent alleged IRA actions, including the Kevin McGuigan murder, some of these same unionist politicians were lobbying the court not to jail Tweed over the arms charges he faced in the mid-1970s.
Perhaps those who petitioned on the loyalist fugitive's behalf can argue that Tweed is today a changed man who regrets his violent past and, therefore, nothing is to be served by putting an old man into prison. Yet such an argument undermines the clamour from the likes of the DUP that a response to alleged IRA murder is to scoop up republican ex-prisoners and dump them back behind bars as some kind of sanction against Sinn Fein.
The UVF alone has killed 32 people since the October 1994 loyalist ceasefires - 29 of them Protestants. A number of these victims lost their lives in feuds with the UDA and the LVF, although quite a few were shot dead because of personal disputes with the organisation.
For the majority of the last two decades, once the Drumcree disputes petered out and the IRA ceasefire finally bedded down after the Canary Wharf hiatus, all the loyalist paramilitaries have turned their gunsights away from the republican/nationalist community and onto perceived internal enemies within their own.
Of course, it has to be acknowledged that the loyalists did listen to reason and did not react at times of grave instability - most notably following the 1998 Omagh bomb massacre.
Clearly, the leaderships of the UDA and UVF made a strategic calculation that it would be more politically astute to leave the battle against the disparate forces of dissident anti-peace process republicans to the PSNI as well as the beefed-up ranks of MI5 in the province rather than re-engage in sectarian murder and mayhem.
Like so many of their IRA - and indeed INLA - counterparts/old enemies in republican redoubts, some former loyalists have moved into benign community activism, such as the ex-UDA members in Lisburn who run one of the most innovative anti-racist integration projects anywhere in Northern Ireland.
Just as it is in areas from where the IRA and INLA emerged, some of these loyalist ex-prisoners and former armed operatives appear happy to have put their violent days behind them and are moving on with their lives.
Yet even those committed to peace building cannot deny that within the ranks of the organisations they once belonged to there are also those who terrorise their neighbours and enrich themselves using the three capital lettered names of their "movements".
These elements are prepared to go as far as murder to maintain their authority and protect their positions as "made-men" in their respective areas.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister Lord Trimble is not alone in suggesting the resurrection of the Independent Monitoring Commission as one means of restoring confidence among those, not only within the unionist community, who are deeply troubled over alleged ongoing Provisional IRA activity up to and including murder.
He - and now it seems the DUP - believe the "son of IMC" might also act as a deterrent to any further breaches of faith and ceasefires in the near future, so long, of course, as the IMC Mark II has the ability to impose sanctions on those who cross the line.
Inevitably this crisis will ultimately bring in the two key power-players of the peace process from the Downing Street Declaration in 1993 onwards - the British and Irish governments.
If there is to be a balanced approach in dealing with "hangover violence" from the conflict, including morally revolting revenge-motive murders likes those of Gerard Davison and Kevin McGuigan, then the two governments, as well as the parties, have to finally address continued loyalist paramilitary intimidation and terror as well.
One way to deal with that particular problem is to revive yet another body which was made redundant towards the latter years of the peace process. This organisation didn't so much monitor but rather targeted something that continues to oil the paramilitary machines: criminal assets.
As well as IMC Mark II, maybe the only way to counter the stubborn refusal of some (though definitely not all) loyalist paramilitary "commanders" to move away from serial violence and criminality is via ARA Mark II.
A revived Assets Recovery Agency, which goes after the ill-gotten gains of those making a fortune out of terrorising their own people, is arguably the ultimate deterrent in loyalist working-class communities living under their yoke.
Political sanctions, or the threat of political sanctions, have brought republicans to their senses in the near past, whereas going after the money is surely a far more potent weapon to finally loosen the grip of those loyalists who still think they have a divine right to rule their mini-fiefdoms.
Because, if nothing is done in relation to the latter, then "internal housekeeping" will go on in deprived loyalist districts - even long after the hardest of hardline DUP, or UUP, politicians eventually agrees that the IRA has finally gone out of business.
Dapper Don Kinahan bids to be €1 billion cocaine king Wednesday 16th September 2015.
Dapper Don Christy Kinahan has dreams of becoming a modern-day Pablo Escobar and has vowed that his Costa-based mob will one day turn him into Ireland’s first cocaine billionaire. An army of his bulked-up lieutenants are being sent out to take over territories by any means necessary and there is a ‘shoot to kill’ policy on anyone who gets in the way.
The drug tsar (57), is running one of the biggest wholesale cocaine operations in Spain and his lieutenants are snapping up lucrative drug turf across the U.K. and Scotland while expanding all the time back home in Ireland, north and south of the border.
advertisement
Cocaine Inc. is run like a multinational. Kinahan’s closest associates make up his executive, with regional CEOs operating throughout the U.K. and Ireland. Each has their own transport, logistic, quality and even communications officers working alongside an army of enforcers and underworld accountants.
Gardai believe that Kinahan’s global operation, which spans Europe, now employees at least 100 directly and hundreds more down the ladder, eventually ending at the foot soldiers who sell grammes of Charlie on the streets, in nightclubs and even in college campuses around the country.
He is shipping massive consignments of cocaine directly from Colombia into mainland Europe, through Spain and Holland, and then transporting it to Dublin, Limerick,
Belfast, Liverpool, Birmingham and now Glasgow in huge loads.
The Irish mob is also dealing cannabis sourced in Morocco and Holland, heroin sourced in Afghanistan and ecstasy pills which are made across Europe. They are shipped into Ireland and the U.K. using legitimate front companies importing anything from frozen chickens to consignments of paving stones to hide their stash.
They also have a network of car dealers across the U.K. and Ireland which they are using to move the drugs. In Dublin they have set up a courier firm which delivers the drugs to a network of customers around the city.
Sources say that Kinahan’s insatiable greed is the driving force behind a colossal expansion that he hopes will rival Russian, Eastern European and South American cartels on the Costa.
In Puerto Banus, where his mob is based, the Dapper Don has seized control of one of the most lucrative drug markets in Spain. His dealers have sewn up trade in the port town, which is a playground of millionaires and celebrities.
Kinahan dreams of being the King of the Costa.
When gardai first caught him with more than €100,000 worth of heroin in a Dublin apartment back in the late 1980s, they couldn’t have imagined just how big he would become.
He served his time here and headed first for Holland and then Belgium, where he built contacts and an expertise in money laundering between stints in prison. By the time he reached the Costa del Crime in 2003 he was destined for the big time.
He quickly established a business based on the structure of a multinational company, with key roles for associates and a highly organised network of fixers throughout Europe.
In 2006 his sons Daniel and Christopher Jnr went out to join their dad and within a few short years gardai estimate they were turning over around €100million a year.
By 2008 a multi-agency offensive had been launched in a number of countries against Kinahan, his sidekick John Cunningham and a wide circle of their associates in Ireland, the U.K. and Spain.
Officers said monitoring the gang was almost impossible as they had all been trained in counter-surveillance techniques and changed cars and phones, sometimes three or four times a week. All were encouraged to speak in code.
In May 2010 the highly publicised Operation Shovel resulted in the arrest of 22 people – many of whom were key members of the mob.
Garda sources say that the operation was never going to succeed as a surprise bust on Kinahan, as so many officers from different police forces were informed of it days in advance at a high-powered Europol meeting.
While the dawn raid targeted the seizure of key pieces of evidence, drugs or documents, it seemed the Kinahans had already cleared out their homes of much incriminating evidence.
Since then a magistrate has continued to investigate the gang, but is now concentrating on gang membership and money laundering.
Still, the raids did cause a major cash flow issue for Kinahan and €500m in Brazilian assets and €160m in Spanish assets and companies were all frozen.
But the Dapper Don wasn’t long getting back on his feet. This time, however, he warned his enforcers to be more aggressive than ever.
In the last five years, while the Spanish investigation trudges along, Kinahan has managed to expand his operation to far greater proportions than ever before.
Last year he made an alliance with a Limerick mob determined to take over the Dundons’ trampled empire.
He flew into Ireland and met key members of the Keane gang, who had lost their turf to the notorious Dundons during a murderous decade.
Christy Keane himself survived a shooting incident earlier this summer and has vowed revenge against an alliance of smaller gangs who have got together to challenge his takeover bid.
.
Christy Keane
Kinahan has made huge strides into Scotland in recent years and is believed to have gone to war with a rival Glasgow gang.
Cops there are investigating Kinahan’s links to Scotland’s most wanted man, who was recently reported to be working as an enforcer for the Irish mob and hiding out in Spain.
Murder suspect Derek ‘Deco’ Ferguson fled Scotland after a barman was shot dead in Glasgow in 2007 and his fellow suspect Billy Bates was found dead weeks later.
Police believe Bates was killed before he could give himself up and they are keen to speak to Ferguson about what happened to him. Kinahan is understood to have recruited Ferguson two years ago.
The Irish drug tsar is also believed to be at loggerheads with the infamous Adams family from London, who have controlled much of the city’s drug needs for decades.
In Liverpool he has key lieutenants, making sure he is getting as big a cut as he can from the Merseyside territory.
And in Birmingham a senior lieutenant from Ireland operates as the region boss while transporting drugs through a second-hand car racket into Ireland.
Daniel and Christopher Jnr are the heirs to their father’s throne and both live in gated mansions and look after the day-to-day running of the enormous drugs, weapons and money laundering operation.
The Kinahans are believed to be responsible for up to 90 per cent of all drugs that are sold in Ireland and act as wholesalers for dangerous gangs all over the country.
In fact, a drugs outfit can measure its success or failure on its relationship with the Kinahan gang. On the Costa they are becoming equal in power to Russian and Colombian cartels based there.
Tensions in the capital are high as the latest gangland victim is to be laid to rest.
Gary Hutch, gunned down in Spain on 24 September, is to be buried tomorrow following the repatriation of his body last week.
The gangland figure, a nephew to 'The Monk', was shot a number of times by a masked gunman at an apartment complex on the Costa del Sol.
It is believed he was targeted by former associates after escaping two previous assassination attempts.
Sources say tensions in Dublin are high, and that armed gardai will be deployed on the streets of the north-inner city for the ceremony.
"The situation is on a knife-edge, with associates of Hutch furious that he may have been executed on the orders of his one-time boss Christy Kinahan," the source told the Herald.
His funeral takes place at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean McDermott Street, at 11am tomorrow.
Gardai will be watching the ceremony closely and armed members of the force will be present on the streets as a precaution.
"Tensions are currently at a high which hasn't been seen in the area for the last number years, so gardai are taking extra preventative measures," a source added.
A number of Dublin's most notorious gangland figures are expected to pay their respects.
However, this may not include notorious criminal 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.
The latter may be forced to avoid the ceremony as reports suggest he is a marked man.
Gardai will patrol the city's streets throughout the funeral, while plain clothed detectives are expected to keep a discreet eye on the ceremony itself.
-----------------------------------------------
Gardai on high alert as 'nasty' thug is released from prison
A major garda alert has been issued after a dangerous criminal who specialises in preying on and stealing from vulnerable OAPs was released from prison.
Anthony Connors was released from jail last week after he served a 10-year sentence for terrorising 13 pensioners in their homes, including assaulting and falsely imprisoning some of them.
"Gardai across Dublin and beyond have been notified that Connors is back on the streets," a senior source explained.
"There is major concern about this prolific burglar, whose modus operandi has always been to specifically target older people.
"Connors, unlike many of the burglary criminals active nowadays, travels everywhere on foot. He is a nasty criminal," the source added.
His sentencing hearing at Dublin Circuit Court in December, 2009, heard that Connors (40) targeted victims living in accommodation for the elderly. He would call at their door and ask them a question before pushing past them and ransacking their house.
He was on early release from prison at the time and committed several of the offences while on bail.
Sometimes he assaulted the victim and on other occasions he locked them in a room as he escaped. Nearly all his victims were over 70.
Connors, of Tulip Court in Darndale, north Dublin, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of burglary, three counts of false imprisonment, two counts of robbery, one of assault and one of handling stolen property.
The offences occurred in Donnybrook, Dun Laoghaire, Ringsend, Blackrock, Phibsboro, Ranelagh and in the city centre between November 2007 and March 2008.
Before being sentenced in 2009, chronic drug addict Connors was previously handed an eight-year term for another string of burglaries, including the robbery of a 100-year-old woman, but was given early release.
Most of Connors' victims lived alone.
Many later told gardai that they still suffered from nightmares and were afraid to leave the house.
GANGSTER’s moll turned State witness April Collins no longer has full-time armed Garda protection stationed outside her Limerick home.
A decision was made to withdraw the armed officers after she deliberately gave them the slip several times, according to sources.
The unmarked Garda car with armed officers has been a feature on Hyde Road, where the ex-girlfriend of Ger Dundon lives, for the last few years.
She was a key witness in the murder case against John Dundon, who was convicted of the murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan.
“Basically she was suiting herself, heading off without telling anyone and then calling them up when she felt she wanted them there again,” a source told the Sunday World.
Sources said she had been seen exiting the back of her property over a garden wall without informing officers.
April Collins and Ger Dundon
Although the static protection has been withdrawn, a ‘floating’ car with armed officers will stay in the area where she lives, said Sunday World sources.
April, who has three children with Ger Dundon, also gave evidence in court saying she had been threatened by John and Wayne Dundon when Ger was in prison.
Collins also has a daughter with convicted sex attacker Thomas O’Neill, who is serving a three-and-a-half year sentence over a violent robbery.
In 2013 she helped bring down the notorious Dundon gang when she became a State witness in the Shane Geoghegan murder trial.
The dad-of-one was killed after being shot in a case of mistaken identity as he returned home in November 2008.
Ger Dundon’s brother John had put out a hit on a man named John ‘Pitchfork’ McNamara, but hired killer Barry Doyle shot the wrong man.
It was her evidence against the Dundon gang boss that resulted in a guilty verdict at the murder trial and Dundon getting a life sentence.
She also gave evidence against Wayne when he was convicted of the murder of businessman Roy Collins.
April gave evidence against John Dundon
The relationship with her ex-partner and his brothers soured when Ger was in jail in 2010.
Her father, ‘Fat’ Jimmy Collins, had also fallen out with the Dundons as the gang began to fall apart, while her brother Gareth was being blamed for a fire a Wayne Dundon’s house in Hyde Road in 2010.
When she stopped bringing the children to visit their father in jail, she said that she was threatened by Wayne and John.
In evidence, she told how Wayne Dundon was “very angry” when he called to her home in March, 2011.
She said that Dundon told her: “If anything happens to my brother over you, I will kill you over it.”
At the same time, she had started a relationship with O’Neill, with whom she has since had a child.
Three of the Dundon brothers Wayne, John and Dessie are serving life for murder with April’s ex Ger the only one of the four gangster brothers a free man.
The Dundons had forged a terrifying reputation for threatening and intimidating witnesses and backed up verbal threats with bullets on more than one occasion.
A prominent republican has pleaded not guilty to nine tax offences in the Irish Republic.
Thomas "Slab" Murphy, who owns a farm in Co Louth straddling the border with Northern Ireland, appeared before the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin.
The charges relate to the alleged failure to comply with tax laws by not furnishing authorities with a return of income, profits or gains or the sources of them over an eight year period from 1996 to 2004.
The trial was adjourned until Thursday to allow defence and prosecution lawyers to discuss material being disclosed for the trial.
Murphy appeared in court to enter the pleas wearing a pink open neck shirt and brown jacket, almost eight years since he was arrested as part of a tax investigation.
The 66-year-old from Ballybinaby, Hackballscross was remanded on continuing bail with the court ruling that the requirements for him to sign on at a Garda station are to be removed on any date he is in court.
The three-judge court heard a disc containing thousands of pages of documents has not been thoroughly examined by defence lawyers ahead of the trial.
Judge Paul Butler, presiding, told the court he was surprised the defence and prosecution lawyers had not held talks on the disclosure of material ahead of the trial.
"It's astounding, and we can't attribute blame, but it's astounding that both sides have not spoken until today," he said.
"We are dealing with a Revenue case here. We have people in custody waiting for their cases to he held. We need to get on with this."
The trial is scheduled to last two to three weeks.
Crime figure 'Mr Big' is almost completely broke and becoming increasingly isolated as pressure grows on all sides, sources have said.
The north Dublin-based crime lord is becoming increasingly paranoid and hindered following a number of high-profile drug seizures he has been involved with.
Sources told the Herald he has been left "extremely paranoid and frustrated" following the busts.
"He has run out of money because the gardai have managed to intercept at least three major drugs shipments which he was involved with in the last 18 months," a source said.
"Because there is so much of a massive threat on his life, he is unable to get drugs on tick because no one wants to run the risk of losing money if he gets whacked."
It is a volatile and uncertain period and many of his close associates have fled Ireland. This means the Coolock-based figure is becoming increasingly disengaged.
"Not everyone has turned their back on him, he often goes around with a 28-year-old criminal from the Darndale area who is suspected of being involved in a very bad knife attack on a younger man a number of weeks ago.
"This incident had nothing to do with Mr Big, who has really been trying to keep his head down, as he is completely paranoid about being shot dead," the source said.
The criminal, who is in his early 30s, is also being monitored by gardai under his bail conditions. He is facing serious charges in the court and is likely to be jailed.
"He needs to keep a curfew as part of his bail conditions and gardai have been doing a good job of making sure that he is at home when he is meant to be there," the source said.
"This often involves officers knocking at his house at night, which is not something he is very happy about at all."
He is also the subject of a considerable amount of interest from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).
"That gang's involvement in organising the Alan Ryan murder has brought nothing but bad luck to them, it is something they must really regret at this stage," the source said.
"Up until Mr Big got into a feud with the Real IRA he was able to operate in the shadows, but now he is under severe pressure from every direction."
In the meantime, a family-based gang has moved in on his territory and has reportedly made a fortune in recent months.
Gardai have also seized high-powered vehicles from Mr Big as part of their investigation into his finances. As well as making lucrative profits from the drugs trade, Mr Big has made significant amounts from tiger kidnappings and other robberies.
CAB are expected to hit him with a bill believed to be in the region of €1.5 million.
A 53-year-old man is in custody and a quantity of cocaine, cannabis and cash have been seized by gardai in Co. Sligo.
The man was arrested yesterday evening after gardai stopped his car and found more than €24,000 worth of cocaine and cannabis inside it.
Gardai then conducted follow up searches at a number of addresses in Sligo town where they uncovered €91,000 in cash and further, smaller quantities of cocaine and cannabis.
A female aged in her 20s was arrested at the scene. She is currently detained under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 at Ballymote Garda Station.
The arrested man is currently being detained under the provisions of Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Drug Trafficking Act, 1996 at Ballymote Garda Station, where he can be held for up to seven days.
Cannabis Resin with an estimated street value of €45,000 (pending analysis) has been seized by Gardaí in Sligo investigating the sale and supply of controlled drugs.
Cannabis and Cocaine with an estimated value in excess of €70,000 (pending analysis) and €91,000 in cash has been seized during this operation to date.
----------------------------------------------
Gardai to monitor boxing event which could be platform for Hutch murder revenge
The ‘Second Coming’ boxing event, which takes place in November, will be heavily monitored by gardai amid fears of a revenge attack for the murder of Gary Hutch.
The event, which will take place at the national Stadium on Dublin’s South Circular Road, will feature fighters from Macklin’s Gym Marbella (MGM), which members of the feared Christy Kinahan mob travel around the world to support.
It is believed that Kinahan sanctioned the murder of 34-year-old Gary Hutch, who was formerly regarded as one of his most senior lieutenants.
Gary Hutch
Members of the organised crime outfit, including the gangster’s son, Daniel, and other henchmen regularly attend boxing events at the stadium in which their prized fighters take part.
MGM Gym in Spain
Despite calls at Hutch’s funeral for no retaliation, close associates of the deceased are said to be furious over his death and are intent on seeking revenge for their murdered pal.
Surveillance arrangements are expected to be put in place for next month’s fights, with officers from Kevin Street and Sundrive Road Garda Stations expected to liaise with one another before the event.
Yesterday, slain gangland figure Gary Hutch’s mother pleaded for no retaliation for her son’s gun death in Spain, saying, “Let God be our judge.”
Kay Hutch told hundreds of mourners at his funeral that the family does not want to see further violence.
“We don’t want any retaliation. We don’t want any family to feel the pain we are feeling. Our son is gone, so let God be our judge,” she said.
Parish priest Fr Richard Ebejer said “evil does not overcome evil” and told the congregation they were not there to judge the circumstances of Hutch’s death.
Dubliner Hutch – a nephew of former criminal Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch – was gunned down outside his Spanish apartment as he returned from a morning jog two weeks ago.
His funeral Mass was held yesterday at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, on Sean McDermott Street.
Hutch’s close pal ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson was a noticeable absentee, as were several other of his close associates.
Thompson’s attendance was always in doubt as he is regarded as the next target of the Christy Kinahan gang.
Fr Ebejer called on the “cycle of violence” to be broken by not seeking revenge for Hutch’s violent death. He described Hutch as a “family man” who was “a great dad to his daughter”.
“We are all aware of the circumstances surrounding Gary’s death. We are not here to judge, but to mourn,” he said.
Hutch's funeral
“To those who are here, especially the young, I repeat the words of St Paul: ‘Do not overcome evil by evil, but overcome evil by good’.
A letter was read out on behalf of Hutch’s brother, Derek ‘Del Boy’ Hutch, who is serving a lengthy prison term for manslaughter.
In it, he said he would always cherish the memories of the two of them growing up in Dublin, “me blaming you and you blaming me and ma killing the two of us”.
Del Boy was refused temporary release for the funeral, but was allowed to view his brother’s body at a funeral home on Sunday evening.
--------------------------------------------
Gardai responding to gun attack on car are pelted with stones by mob
Gardai responding to an gun attack on a car owned by an innocent man were pelted with stones by a mob of youths.
The officers had been originally responding to reports that four blasts from a shotgun had been fired into a car parked outside its owner’s home. The gardai then had to call for back-up.
It is understood that a large rock was thrown at their marked patrol car and the windscreen of the vehicle was smashed-in.
Back-up was called in as the gardai were unable to secure the scene of the shooting, but when additional officers arrived the mob dispersed.
The incident unfolded at around 8pm on Monday in Kippure Park in Finglas, north Dublin.
The owner of the car – a dad-of-two in his 40s – has no involvement in crime and lives in the property with his wife and two sons, aged 23 and nine.
Sources have revealed that the family have become targets for local criminals after being falsely blamed for an incident that happened in the area during the summer.
“The incident – which this family had absolutely nothing to do with – was a threatening behaviour incident which is linked to a boy-racer club.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with them,” a source said.
“This is very much a local issue and it is a cause of great concern that this has happened,” the source added.
Officers from Finglas Garda Station rushed to the scene of the shooting on Monday night.
However, as soon as they got to the location in Kippure Park, a mob of local youths threw stones and screamed abuse at the responding officers. The culprits are not suspected of being involved in the shooting.
Gardai eventually managed to preserve the scene and a technical examination took place.
There have been no arrests in relation to either incident, but sources said that gardai were following a definite line of enquiry.
The car which was shot-up was removed by gardai, who examined the vehicle yesterday.
Last month, figures released by the Central Statistics Office revealed that possession of a firearm was up by 21pc to 214 recorded incidents of this type of crime during the 12 months up to the end of June this year.
However, despite more guns being recovered by gardai the statistics also revealed the number of those firing an illegal weapon dropped by 2pc in that time period.
Gardai are appealing for information on the callous gun murder of a young Dublin man seven years ago. Investigating Gardaí at Store Street are renewing their appeal for any member of the public with information in relation to the murder of Gavin McCarthy (21) in 2008.
On the evening of 19 October, Gavin was in the company of his younger brother, Daniel, and others standing outside a fast food outlet on Lower Sheriff Street.
He was approached by a male on a bicycle who fired a handgun from close range into Gavin’s face and upper body causing him to fall immediately to the ground.
This man then fled the scene, via Crinan Strand, through a lane running between the Sheriff Football Club and the artificial football pitch beside it, onto Commons Street, turning left in the direction of North Wall Quay and the IFSC.
"Gavin was well known and liked in the Sheriff Street community and he left behind his parents, two sisters, two brothers along with extended family when he was murdered," gardai said.
"Investigating Gardaí believe that persons, living within the North Wall Community and in possession of specific information in relation to this murder, are in a position to progress enquires and are appealing directly to them to come forward.
"In particular we would appeal to those who weren’t in a position to give information at the time, due to relationships and associations they had seven years ago, but who may now feel more at ease in coming forward."
Anyone with information should contact Store Street Garda Station on 01 666 8000 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 10/20/1501:43 AM
Grenade attack on police being treated as attempted murder pic host
Police in Northern Ireland are treating a failed dissident republican grenade attack on its officers as attempted murder.
A senior officer said it was only "good fortune" that lives were not lost in Friday night's bomb bid in east Belfast, revealing that the military-grade weapon landed at the feet of three officers but failed to detonate.
The grenade was hurled from an alleyway in the republican Short Strand area.
The murder bid came just over 24 hours after a failed under-car booby trap bomb attack on a person with connections to the armed forces in north Belfast.
The sophisticated tilt switch bomb fell off the vehicle in the Linden Gardens area on Thursday and did not detonate. A young boy apparently kicked it as it lay on the street.
Both attacks have been blamed on dissident republicans opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Police officers were responding to reports from local residents of anti-social behaviour when the grenade was thrown at around 10.15pm in the vicinity of Pottingers Quay in the Short Strand.
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Temporary Superintendent Bobby Singleton said he believed the calls to police to attend the area were genuine and were not a bid to lure officers into danger. He revealed how near the three officers came to death or serious injury.
"The device was thrown and landed very close to the officers, basically at their feet," he said. "Those who carried out this attack showed a total disregard for the safety of the local community and worryingly, for the second time in as many days, young people were in the vicinity at the time of the attack."
He said the "reckless and senseless" attack was being treated as attempted murder and said the assumption was dissidents were to blame.
The senior officer also hailed the three officers targeted for staying on duty to help evacuate the area in the wake of the attack.
"It is only by sheer good fortune that we do not have a fatality on our hands as this attack occurred in a built-up residential area," he said.
"Police officers join to serve our communities and work tirelessly to keep them safe.
"In contrast to the irresponsible actions of those behind the attack, the officers targeted insisted on remaining at the scene to assist in keeping local residents and their colleagues safe."
PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton branded the attack an "act of madness".
He tweeted: "Device thrown at local police in Short Strand last night was an act of madness that could have killed or injured police or local residents."
The security operation in the Short Strand area continued on Saturday with roads closed to traffic.
Sinn Fein councillor in the Short Strand Niall O Donnghaile insisted the perpetrators had no community support.
"I strongly condemn those involved in this incident which has served only to cause disruption to the local community," he said.
"Clearly somebody could have been killed or injured in this attack.
"I will say this clearly, there is no justification, rationale nor support in this community for violent attacks on the police.
"In successive elections people in this community have overwhelmingly voted for Sinn Fein and endorsed the peace strategy.
"Through tough and prolonged negotiations Sinn Fein have secured a peaceful democratic path to a united Ireland and a new Republic.
"The actions of those who would attempt to undermine that path by futile armed actions do so against the wishes of this community.
"I challenge those responsible to explain their actions to this community, something I am sure that once again they will fail to do."
A massive €300,000 cash haul seized by gardai after a major surveillance operation is suspected to belong to close associates of Brian O'Reilly, the best pal of slain gang boss Eamon 'The Don' Dunne .
Sources have revealed that the cash - in both euro and sterling - is linked to a key associate of north Dublin criminal O'Reilly (46) who has survived two assassination attempts, most recently in a shooting in Balbriggan in June 2014. He has since recovered from his injuries.
The Herald also reveals that a criminal tried to claim the cash sum - which was the subject of a court case last week - back from gardai.
He claimed that he needed the money as it had been set aside to pay part of a seven-figure bill to the Criminal Assets Bureau. The €300,000-plus sum was ultimately confiscated by the State as part of last week's court proceedings.
The confiscation order was made by Judge Martin Nolan at the sentencing hearing of another O'Reilly associate, William Trimble (57), in the Dublin Circuit Court.
Trimble, of Edenmore Drive, Coolock was jailed for four-and -a-half years after being caught with more than €290,000 and £12,000.
He had pleaded guilty to a sample count of possessing €243,000, knowing or believing it to be the proceeds of criminal conduct, at a Kinsealy apartment on July 21, 2014.
Detectives set up surveillance and arrested Trimble leaving the property with a vacuum pack machine.
They found €24,000 hidden in a false compartment at the back of his jeep and €23,000 in a fake wardrobe compartment in the apartment.
Gardai found four packages containing €50,000 in a safe at Edenmore Drive, as well as a smaller package with €15,000 and a pink bag holding €5,850.
A further €6,750 was found in a bedroom, along with €16,000 in envelopes in the garden shed as well as the £12,000.
The cash bust was the second major seizure against the gang in the space of just three months last year. Previously, more than €250,000 in cash was seized in a raid in Coolock.
Sources say that the fact that the group continue to be active despite over €500,000 being seized from them is an indication of the levels of cash they have been making from drugs trafficking.
"They were able to absorb whatever blow the loss of this cash was to them and continue as normal," a source explained.
IRELAND’S burglary gangs have created climate of fear across Ireland with round-the-clock thefts, breaks-ins and raids. Some of the most prolific burglary gangs come from within the traveller community who use their lifestyle to cover their activities. But other criminals have also been getting in on the act using cash from robberies to fund drugs and cigarette smuggling rackets.
Operation Fiacla by the Gardaí succeeded in putting some of the best-known suspects behind bars, but the crime wave has continued. Both urban and rural are being targeted with farms also being singled out by well-organised crime gangs stealing machinery and metal.
The distance covered by the organised gangs and their expertise means that huge garda resources have to be deployed to catch them in action.
Organisers were stunned when 2,000 people showed up at a public meeting in Thurles this week to vent their anger at the growing epidemic of burglaries and break-ins in country areas.
“We were hoping for maybe 900 people but 2,000 showed up,” said farmer Robert O’Shea, who was raided twice in one week last year losing €15,000 of tools he had built up over decades.
“Between 60 and 70 per cent of those who attended were victims of crime and when we asked in a straw poll if they knew anyone who had been robbed it was 100 per cent.
“We have had enough. People are living in fear and isolation. It is time the laws were changed on trespass and bail which allow these criminals to roam the countryside.”
He said the new organisation, Save Our Community, would now be demanding talks with Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.
“People power is the only thing that that will make the government sit up and take notice. Laws have to be changed,” said Mr O’Shea
The Gangs:
The Subaru Gang
This loose of alliance of gangsters from among the traveller community has been one of the country’s most prolific burglary outfits in the country for decades. A leading member Andy ‘Cock’ Wall was released from jail last year after serving time for a Longford break-in.
He was caught red-handed with jewellery taken from a private house during a night-time raid. The have been responsible for targeting the valuables held by homeowners in expertly executed raids in almost every single county in Ireland.
Other members were caught after raid in Co Kerry following a surveillance operation that started in Dublin. The gang got it’s nickname from their preference for using stolen high-powered cars to make their getaway.
The Sulky Bandits
Based in Limerick city and surrounding towns members of this group from the travelling community have connections across Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry and Cork. Individuals are suspected to use their sulky racing activities as cover for their criminal operation spotting potential targets in remote rural locations.
An unauthorised stable in east Limerick was burned down by vigilantes who blamed its presence for sparking a crime wave in the area. Members of the gang are now use violence and pose a danger to innocent road-users with high-risk driving to escape the attention of the gardaí.
The thieves who carry out raids have access to well-connected scrap metal dealers and criminals who can off-load other goods for cash. They carry out raids day or night and are not intimidated by the presence of Gardaí.
The Romanian Gang
A gang of violent criminals from Romania, based in Ireland targets gold and jewellery in burglaries. They are suspected to be behind dozens of thefts all over the country and regularly fly in criminals from outside the jurisdiction to carry out jobs.
They also operated outside of Ireland and much of their ill-gotten gains are quickly shipped out of the country. Electronic goods and smart phones have netted the gang bosses hundreds of thousands of euro.
This week armed gardaí arrested five suspects in north Dublin seizing a number of mobile phones and laptops. They are thought to have been behind one robbery in which €200,000 worth of jewellery was snatched from a shop in Co Kildare.
Many of the individual criminals operate under strict hierarchy with bulk of the profits gong to bosses based outside Ireland.
Rubber Reillys
Violent thug Patrick Rubber Og O’Reilly (below) was released last year after serving his time for his part in violent feud attack. While he was inside his son ‘Rubber Beag’ was one of the targets of Operation Fiacla launched in 2012 which saw 300 people charged with offences.
Other members of the clan are professional criminals involved in break-ins and distraction thefts.
A number of relatives have previously been investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau attempting to launder their cash through car deals. Sunday World sources claim Rubber Og Reilly’s arrival in areas such as Kildare, south Armagh and Donegal since his release has coincided with a spate of burglaries.
A number of women are also active as key criminal members of the gang.
The Pale Connors Gang
Slain gang boss Fat Andy Connors had dozens of convictions for burglary and continued carrying out break-ins himself despite his millions. There are more than a dozen members of this outfit have who have continued carrying out break-ins all over Dublin and Leinster despite his murder.
Gang members are experts at what they do, jamming alarm systems or simply ignoring them as they quickly search a house and escape. They have also been suspected of using children as young as 11 to carry out burglaries.
They also like to target elderly or vulnerable people for raids knowing they won’t face any resistance.
The M1 Gang
This collective of professional thieves operate around the north east and the Irish midlands carrying out break-ins, distraction thefts and shop-lifting. Members of this gang would have close connections to the men jailed last week for the horrifying raid on the Corcoran family.
Businessman Mary Corcoran was threatened with extreme violence in front of his traumatised wife Emma and their young kids. Another member of the gang, Matthew Fahy, hit the headlines when he was blasted in the arm by a farmer when he tried to raid the property.
Fahy, who is serving time in jail, has been credited with being among the first to start using a fishing rod to steal car-keys through letter boxes.
eports in today’s Irish Independent reveal that Adrian Crevan Mackin had been buying guns from the US online and bringing them into Ireland.
The republican thug had been purchasing decommissioned weapons which he then reactivated and sold on.
Adrian Crevan Mackin
US authorities tipped off Garda Special Branch who searched the violent cop killer’s home in Omeath in January and found two of the re-purposed guns and components for bomb-making but there was not enough evidence to prefer a charge for possession of the items.
He was already well-known to gardaí and the PSNI for his involvement in a breakaway faction of the Real IRA and had been spotted regularly in the company of "major players".
Crevan Mackin was charged with membership of the IRA and was on bail when he murdered Gda Golden and shot Siobhán Phillips before turning the gun on himself.
Garda Tony Golden
Meanwhile, it has also emerged that the terror suspect had threatened the lives of two female officials from social services in Northern Ireland who were investigating him for domestic abuse.
The thug was caught with extreme animal porn when he was arrested for a previous assault on Ms Phillips.
Ms Phillips had suffered severe physical abuse and was living in fear. Last Friday night she had been subjected to a prolonged overnight attack during which he threatened to kill her and her entire family.
Her family reported the incident to gardaí on Saturday and on Sunday afternoon she went with her father, Sean, to Omeath Garda station where she gave a statement to Gda Golden.
Gda Golden escorted Siobhán to the house so that she could collect her things and return to her family home.
Thousands of mourners are expected at today's State funeral at Blackrock, Co Louth, today.
The Church has seats for just 300 people which will be reserved for family members and the official dignitaries. Gardaí are closing roads into the village from 10am until after 2pm.
wo dangerous crime families caught up in Limerick’s underworld are on the brink of all-out war after a tense stand-off at a funeral.
Members of the Curtin and Collopy clans clashed recently in a confrontation that threatened to break out into serious violence.
“Two individuals got into each other’s faces and it got to the point where guns were going to be pulled,” according to a source.
However, since the incident occurred last month, both sides backed off and the gangsters have observed an uneasy truce.
Convicted gangster Paul Curtin was caught up in the incident along with Jonathon Collopy, in a stand-off that threatened to spill over into a wider feud.
Curtin has previously been jailed for his part in a shooting incident in which a young girl was accidentally hit with shotgun pellets.
His brother Christopher, who was also jailed in the same incident, operates a significant criminal gang in the city.
Collopy also has convictions for drugs offences and was arrested in Bulgaria in 2012 at a Black Sea resort before retuning to Limerick.
Sources said the row between the clans started a number of years ago over claims that one side didn’t pay for a consignment of drugs.
Christy Curtin and Brian Collopy once fought each other in the visiting room in Limerick jail over the same dispute.
The latest tension comes as Gardaí continue their investigation into the attempted murder of mob boss Christy Keane, who survived being shot four times last June.
Senior figures in the infamous McCarthy clan are suspected to have ordered the hit on their old rival after years of relative calm.
Fears remain the attempted killing could reignite the lethal feud between the Keane and McCarthy factions.
The Collopys have previously been aligned with the Keanes, but the bond has loosened in recent years, even though one of the brothers is married to Christy Keane’s daughter.
In recent times a number of significant players from the crime clan have been arrested and charged with separate offences and are currently on remand behind bars.
The Collopys were also weakened by the death of gang enforcer Philip, who accidentally shot himself in 2009 while showing off a 9mm Glock pistol.
The 29-year-old, who was obsessed with guns, was the family hardman.
Despite their reputation, the Collopys would be foolhardy to take on a feud with the Curtin family, according to sources.
Christopher Curtin is well-known as being a serious gangster who once did business with the McCarthy-Dundons.
Two years ago members of the clan were the targets of a huge operation by Gardaí in a series of raids on the city’s outskirts.
A number of drug caches seized by Gardaí, each worth in excess of €200,000, have been linked to criminal members of the Curtin clan.
A former Westies gang member involved in a feud that has already claimed one life this year has teamed up with a psychopath who is suspected of twice trying to murder crime lord John Gilligan. Sources said David 'Gully' Goulding (38) has been frequently spotted in the company of the Finglas-based criminal.
The psychopath is the chief suspect in the two botched assassination attempts on Gilligan in December 2013 and March of last year.
"Goulding has been spending a lot of time at the Gilligan shooter's house and there's concern that the other man may now take an active part in the feud that Goulding is involved in," a source said.
Gardai are monitoring the bitter disagreement between Goulding and his former pal Jason 'Jay' O' Connor (37) as they are aware of a series of tit-for-tat threats that continue to be passed between associates of both men
The Finglas thug who has aligned himself with Goulding is a convicted armed robber who previously subjected Gilligan to a savage beating in Portlaoise Prison.
He is said to have a "pathological hatred" of the veteran criminal who fled Ireland after the latest attempt on his life at his brother's home in Clondalkin.
He is also suspected of entering the Halfway House pub on the Navan Road armed with a 9mm handgun and looking for Gilligan in December 2013.
The extremely volatile criminal was previously associated with Kevin Ledwidge, a 27-year-old Finglas criminal who was shot dead in July, 2007, as well as convicted killer David Cully (24) who was jailed for life in July for the gun murder of his uncle in December 2013.
The extremely volatile criminal was previously associated with Kevin Ledwidge, a 27-year-old Finglas criminal who was shot dead in July, 2007, as well as convicted killer David Cully (24) who was jailed for life in July for the gun murder of his uncle in December 2013.
"The fact that Goulding and this individual are spending a lot of time together is being viewed as a serious matter and is being looked at closely," the source said.
Goulding was recently released without charge after being arrested following a high-speed motorway chase.
The feud between him and O'Connor stems from a deadly falling-out between former associates in the Westies gang when the north Dublin mob imploded more than a decade ago.
Sources say that associates of O'Connor are suspected of being linked to an attack in which Goulding was shot six times as he sat in a car in Hartstown in January, 2012.
There has never been an arrest in that case, which led to a number of tit-for-tat feud incidents including a murder earlier this year and the on- going threats.
Republicans say they will 'paint the streets red' after the 25-year-old was stabbed in Dublin city centre on Thursday
Real IRA chiefs have vowed to start an all out war with criminal gangs after a brother of slain Alan Ryan was stabbed in the face in broad daylight.
Vinnie Ryan, 25, suffered serious injuries on Dublin’s Parnell Street on Thursday, sparking outrage amongst associates of his murdered brother.
Republicans in the capital have sworn to “paint the streets red” with the blood of the criminal gangs who are responsible for the attacks.
A statement purporting to be from the newly-reformed RIRA said there will be all out war on the streets of the capital.
It read: “The recent knife attack on a well known republican has sparked out rage among the newly reformed RIRA in Dublin.
“The RIRA have sworn to paint the streets red with the blood of the crime gang that attacked and nearly killed this well known republican they have also sworn to flush out members of the so called new IRA that have been passing information onto this crime gang about republicans.
“Republican groups up and down the country have lost total confidence in the new IRA because of there links to criminality and their utter cowardly failure to address the murder of republican Alan Ryan.
“The RIRA in the north of Ireland and Dublin have regrouped and have amassed a stock pile of weapons which will be used against the crime gang that have been responsible for the murder of Alan Ryan and the attacks on republicans.”
Gardai confirmed they are investigating an incident on Parnell Street.
A spokesman said: “ Gardai in Mountjoy are investigating a serious stabbing incident which occurred on Parnell Sq North, Thursday shortly before 4pm.
“A male, 25, received serious injuries to his face as he was walking on Parnell Sq north.
“He was accompanied by a female who was uninjured in the incident.
“He made his way to Temple St Children’s hospital and was transferred by ambulance shortly afterwards to the Mater hospital, where his injuries are described as non life threatening.
Cache of high-powered guns and drugs seized by gardai.
Gardai have released images of a number of firearms along with a huge amount of heroin which were seized yesterday evening in the Dublin area. Officers from the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, with the assistance of Gardai from the Tallaght Drugs Unit, stopped a car on Greenhills Road in Tallaght and discovered the cache of weapons.
The recovered firearms include an AK 47 assault rifle and ammunition, two .22 rifles and ammunition, and a loaded pump action shotgun along with silencers and telescope sights.
The latest haul is the second such seizure in the Dublin area this year.
In February, a Steyr AUG machine gun, two Heckler & Koch MP-5 sub machine guns, a Beretta 9mm and a SIG Sauer P220 were confiscated by gardai.
Cocaine and heroin worth €4.9 million, a handgun, and ammunition were also seized at a location in the Bluebell Industrial estate.
"These operations use advanced analytical and intelligence methods to disrupt criminals and dismantle their networks," gardai said.
"Drug seizures play a critical role in targeting the livelihood of criminals and reducing their ability to carry out illegal activities.
"Drug seizures also help protect communities from the devastating impact of drugs and the associated criminality."
Gardai are investigating whether a sinister pipe bomb incident in which a 42-year-old council employee was targeted is linked to his work on exposing an illegal dumping site.
The shocking incident led to a number of houses being evacuated at Pearse Avenue in Sallynoggin late on Thursday night after the viable bomb was discovered attached to the man's vehicle.
Bomb squad was called in Bomb squad was called in The Herald has learned that the victim has been the subject of a terrifying campaign of harassment for almost three months due to his work.
This has involved threats being made to him by people who have called to his house - which was reported to gardai in September - as well as instances of the respected man being followed on the street.
However, the discovery of a bomb attached to the council employee's vehicle at around 11pm on Thursday is considered a major escalation of the campaign against the Dubliner.
Gardai in Dun Laoghaire are investigating the bomb incident and no arrests have been made so far.
However, sources said that officers who have been aware of threats against the Sallynoggin man never expected the dispute to escalate like it had this week.
The pipe bomb was discovered by a relative of the intended target, who immediately became suspicious and called gardai, who in turn contacted the Army Bomb Squad.
The suspected target declined to comment on the incident but sources said they believed the pipe-bomb attack was a direct result of his work as a litter warden.
There are a number of lines of inquiry, including an alleged illegal dumping incident in south Dublin.
The victim has been on sick leave from work for a number of weeks after an incident where he was threatened, and gardai believe the latest attack is related to that previous incident.
Safe
Neighbours said gardai closed Pearse Avenue at both ends on Thursday night while the Army dealt with the device, which proved to be viable.
"There were three squad cars, and the Army truck as well, but we were told to either leave or homes or stay in the back of them until the area was made safe," said one neighbour.
"It was a terrible thing to happen, and very upsetting for the family," they added.
Fat' Freddie's cousin escapes botched hit as gun jams.
Liam Roe (36), a cousin of gangland figure 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, was said to have been standing outside the Red Cow hotel in west Dublin having a cigarette when the attempt on his life was made.
Gardai believe the attempted murder was carried out by a north inner city hit team.
Sources said that detectives have received intelligence that associates of slain drug dealer Gary Hutch have decided to murder "anyone they can get" who has links to Christy Kinahan.
Recognised
"They went for Roe for no particular reason, just that they recognised him. It is not as if Roe had anything to do with Hutch's murder," a source said last night.
Detectives have been probing reports that the hit team had been stalking anyone connected to the Kinahan cartel over the past four days after members of the mob met up in the capital for the weekend's boxing event.
Last night, tensions remained high as gardai believe Hutch's associates have access to numerous stolen cars that could be used in a potential assassination.
Gardai were expecting many friends and associates of Kinahan's to be in the city over the weekend as respected professional boxer Jamie Kavanagh, who is the son of slain notorious gangster Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh, was fighting in the National Stadium on Saturday.
While Jamie Kavanagh has no involvement in organised crime, sources said that some of his supporters are linked to the Kinahan mob and other crime groups.
Fundraiser
When news spread of the attempted hit, it is understood that up to 50 of Kinahan's cronies left the hotel in a hurry. Daniel Kinahan, the son of Christy, was led out a back door by pals and driven from the scene.
The group are understood to have been at the hotel because they were attending a boxing fundraiser.
Roe was arrested in 2007 over allegations that he had threatened to kill a bouncer at a pub in Dame Street.
He was also fined €250 after an incident in 2009 for obstructing a garda drugs search.
In 2012, Roe was given a four-month jail sentence after gardai raided his apartment and found stolen designer handbags worth nearly €9,000.
EXCLUSIVE PICS: The weed grinder that caused Mountjoy to go into lockdown.
These exclusive pictures show the cannabis grinder that caused Mountjoy Prison to go into lockdown yesterday. The grinder, which is made to look like the cylinder from a revolver handgun, was discovered on the C wing of the Prison at 12.30pm yesterday.
Following the discovery authorities put the prison on lockdown and carried out a search of the cells.
advertisement
Gardai were also called to the prison.
Following an initial examination it was suspected that the item was part of a gun.
Prisoners were locked in their cells as authorities carried out further searches of the prison complex.
The item was removed by gardai for a forensic examination which later determined it was not part of a firearm.
On Monday, TV3 aired a documentary exposing life behind bars at the Dublin prison.
A criminal closely involved with a dangerous southside drugs gang was lucky to escape with his life when he was slashed in the neck and the head in a brutal prison attack.
Paul Drew, who is originally from Tallaght, is now recovering from his injuries after the incident on the B2 landing in Mountjoy Prison at around midday on Tuesday.
Drew (31) was rushed to the Mater Hospital after it was initially feared that an artery in his neck had been severed because of the amount of blood loss he suffered in the attack.
However, after receiving detailed medical help he was fit enough to return to the jail and is now in a 'protection regime' in the prison.
It has not yet been established what kind of blade was used to attack Drew but prison bosses have identified several suspects in the case.
Sources say that the attack on Drew may be linked to the illegal narcotics trade in the prison and may have been carried out by the same mob suspected of issuing death threats to gangland figure Paschal Kelly (50) last week.
Kelly was forced to move off the same landing that Drew was attacked on.
Kelly, who was a key member the gang that ordered the murder of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan in September 2012, has since been moved to Wheatfield Prison for his own protection.
Drew - who had been living in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, when he was sent to jail in 2009 - is serving sentences totalling 13 years for heroin trafficking and the separate theft of 1,280 plasma TV's with a value of €250,000.
Before he was locked up, Drew was a major target for the Garda Organised Crime Unit because of his involvement in a Clondalkin and Tallaght-based gang. He is not due for release from prison until 2017.
He was handed a three-year consecutive sentence at Naas Circuit Court for handling stolen property in relation to the massive TV haul.
He was earlier given a ten-year sentence after he was caught with €2m worth of heroin following a garda surveillance operation in Saggart.
The suspicious pallet was intercepted by custom officers in January 2008.
Gardai organised a controlled delivery of the pallet, which had originated in Belgium.
A large cache of weapons and ammunition discovered in a wooded area was believed to have been in the hands to the Provisional IRA after being stolen a number of years ago.
The search was launched in the Scotstown area of Co Monaghan, near the border with Northern Ireland, after a 43-year-old man was arrested last Wednesday and subsequently charged with IRA membership.
Gardai said the arms dump contained AK47s, detonators, detonating cord and components for making improvised explosive devices. Three mortars were also discovered during the operation. The searches are continuing.
A number of weapons were discovered in hides, while some were found buried underground in plastic.
An Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team arrived on scene at 2.45pm last Thursday, where they remained until Monday afternoon.
"All items discovered were made safe and handed over to An Garda Síochána to assist them with their investigation," a spokesman added.
Gardai said the operation involved officers from its anti-terror division, the special detective unit, dog handlers and its armed emergency response unit as well as local officers.
The searches followed the arrest of Jim Smyth, from Aghalissabeagh, Scotstown, a rural area about a mile from the border. He was charged with IRA membership at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on Saturday evening.
He was remanded in custody until Wednesday morning, when a bail application is expected to be heard.
Gardaí are satisfied that the haul was not currently in the possession of any particular dissident republican organisation but are concerned the cache was to be used in the run-up to Christmas.
Anti-terrorist officers are now trying to establish the identity of the 'quartermaster' who was in charge of the arsenal during the Provisional war of terror in Northern Ireland.
NOTORIOUS gangster Paschal Kelly was forced to seek protection from prison authorities after a major falling out with the equally notorious Sligo drug dealer Patrick Irwin.
Sources have confirmed to the Sunday World that Kelly went to prison officers on Saturday last after an inmate entered his cell and warned him: “You can either walk off the wing or be carted off it.”
Kelly (50) – who was a key member of the gang that ordered the murder of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan in September 2012 – was then moved to Mountjoy’s C-Base on Saturday afternoon after pleading with jail bosses for protection.
“There had been a power play on the wing between Irwin and Kelly going on for several weeks,” a source told The Star.
“Irwin heard talk that Kelly was planning some kind of move against him and wouldn’t stand for it. Irwin is a genuine hard-man – he’s not the kind that would have sent someone else after Kelly, he’s the kind that would have went up to his cell himself.
“Kelly would have been regarded on the outside and on the inside as one of the biggest players out there.
Read: Notorious gangster placed in protection in Mountjoy Prison.
“But he didn’t feel safe enough to leave his cell for a number of days after word went out that Irwin was after him.”
It's understood authorities are now considering rehousing Kelly in Wheatfield prison.
Both Irwin (pictured below) and Kelly are viewed as two of the biggest orchestrators of the drugs trade within the prison system.
Kelly has been suspected of involvement in the drugs trade in prison ever since he was remanded in custody in October of last year.
That happened after heavily-armed gardaí tracked him to a rural hideout in Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath after years on the run.
Kelly – who has 47 previous convictions – was jailed for four-and-a-half years last March for tax evasion, threats to kill a CAB officer and serious driving offences. Last year, he also had his Co. Cavan home, €14k cash and a 4x4 vehicle seized by CAB.
Sligo drug dealer Patrick Irwin (33), is currently serving a three-year sentence for a horrific attack on a garda, alongside a seven-year sentence for drug-dealing.
In June of 2013, a court heard how Irwin was out on bail for possession of €67,000 worth of cocaine when he savagely attacked a garda, leaving the officer with a broken jaw.
In 2012, the CAB seized Irwin’s home in Dromahair, Co. Leitrim.
The court heard how Irwin’s partner, Avril Boland (pictured above), had a hairdresser’s salary of €300 per week, but had a luxurious lifestyle living in a high-quality house and taking foreign holidays.
Her bank account was in effect used to launder Irwin’s criminal funds, Judge Kevin Feeney said.
Sources confirmed that prison authorities are satisfied the threat to Kelly stems from the falling out with Irwin and that Irwin is backed up by a convicted arsonist from a notorious Dublin crime family who is serving a six-year sentence for arson.
The drugs trafficking situation in Bray is largely controlled by a ruthless gang who are led by a convicted killer.
Senior sources say this mob source their drugs from a number of different supplier including directly from the Christy Kinahan cartel as well as having a "long standing relationship" with associates of gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.
"This gang are a very serious outfit and they were involved in two serious shooting incidents in the town of Bray last year," a source said.
"They are extremely protective of their own turf and they have a structure which involves one main man who has four other lieutenants underneath him and then a number of smaller level dealers.
"The gang are the biggest drug suppliers in north Wicklow and even into parts of south Dublin."
They are involved in everything from heroin to cannabis distribution, and have been active for over a decade.
Sources point out that the key men involved in the gang rarely leave their homes without bullet-proof vests and are extremely paranoid about being shot by rival criminals.
The gang are the chief suspects for the attempted gun murder of career criminal Jonathan Burke, who received serious injuries after being sprayed with shotgun pellets after an attack at a house in the Heatherwood estate in the town in November of last year.
The same gang are suspected of the shooting of Tiernan Stokes, who was shot in the calves in the People's Park, Bray, in August 2014.
A previous member of the gang, Philip 'Philly' O'Toole, was shot dead as part of a different dispute in January 2013.
Another criminal who had close links to the outfit is gangland killer Garrett O'Brien (28) who is serving a life sentence after being convicted of the murder of Shay O'Byrne in Tallaght in March 2009.
Meanwhile, a Wicklow man who is aged in his 40s who has links to the Continuity IRA has also tried to muscle in on the drugs trade.
Sources say that while his power base is more in the south of Co Wicklow, the man still has a growing influence on the drugs trade in the large seaside town.
The "businessman" has a huge property portfolio.
Despite the drugs problem, gardaí have had a number of major successes this year against the traffickers in Bray with some senior figures receiving significant jail sentences.
'Lucky escape' for innocent passers-by as bullets hit car in gang shootout
Innocent passers-by had a lucky escape during a dramatic early morning shootout between rival drug gangs. A man and his passenger miraculously escaped without injury when their car was hit twice with bullets as he passed the scene of the gunfight.
The incident unfolded around 11am on the Farrankelly Road in Greystones, Co Wicklow on Saturday morning.
advertisement
undefined 00:00 The Herald reports that a chase between a 4x4 and a van was under way when occupants from one of the vehicles began shooting at the other.
As the incident unfolded bullets hit the car of the man, who was not connected to the incident.
It is believed that links to drug gangs are being explored, with reports that the shoot-out is connected to gangster Freddie Thompson's inner city Dublin gang.
As we reported at the weekend, locals said they saw two men fighting in the street before the gun battle broke out.
Fianna Fail councillor for the area Gerry Walsh said it was lucky nobody was caught in the crossfire during the dramatic incident.
"It's very disturbing to hear. An innocent person could have been easily injured and that's the worrying thing," he told the Herald last night.
"There was a lot of people out and about, despite the weather."
"I was very surprised when I heard it, it's not the kind of thing you expect to hear in this particular area - or in any area," he added.
Mr Walsh said that the stretch of road was especially busy in the run up to Christmas.
His sentiments were echoed by his colleague on Wicklow County Council, Nicola Lawless.
"It could have been much more serious, luckily no one was hurt," the Sinn Fein councillor said.
The thugs behind the shooting incident fled the scene on foot before gardai arrived.
Gardai in Bray are leading the investigation but no arrests have been made.
"A number of men were involved in the incident. A car belonging to a passing motorist was hit twice but the driver and his passenger escaped injury.
"The technical and forensic teams are now carrying out investigations on the car," a garda spokesman said in a statement.
Man suspected to be Europe's biggest drug kingpin arrested
The man alleged to have been behind a €200m shipment of cocaine to France in 2013 has been arrested in Spain. The man, named in the UK and local media as Robert Dawes, was arrested on November 12 but details have only been released now by Europol for operational reasons.
In a press release the EU's police agency said that the arrest was the result of a two year operation by the French OCRTIS-DCPJ, Spanish Guardia Civil UCO and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).
advertisement
undefined 00:00 Dawes is suspected to be the man behind an enormous shipment of cocaine that was intercepted at Charles de Gaulle airport in September 2013.
French police intercepted 1.3 tonnes of the drug, valued at €200m, hidden in suitcases on a plane that arrived from Venezuela.
The Guardia Civil swooped on a villa in Benalmadena in the Costa del Sol and arrested the 44-year-old. Today he has been extradited to France.
The gang's reach is said to be global and a number of individuals connected to it have been arrested in various countries in recent years.
Spanish authorities say in a release published today that have been monitoring Dawes since 2007 and they allege that he leads the largest criminal organisation in the UK and Europe.
The operation conducted by Europol mirrored the investigation into Dapper Don Christy Kinahan, known as Operation Shovel.
Gardai have taken heroin worth an estimated €420,000 off the streets. Officers from the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau made the bust after they stopped and searched a vehicle in Clondalkin, Dublin yesterday.
A 35-year-old man is in custody and his currently being detained at Lucan Garda station under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996.
Gardai target two rising big players in Dublin drug dealing world
GARDAI are targeting two young drug dealers in Ballymun who have become the main players in the north Dublin suburb. The pals are major targets of Operation Domino, which has been targeting the next generation of dealers.
Sources say the 26-year-old and 29-year-old have a network of youngsters flooding Ballymun with drugs.
One of the men is a 26-year-old from the Poppintree area of Ballymun. He has avoided any major convictions and has risen through the ranks in Ballymun.
He has a network of contacts in the criminal world, helped by his interest in sulky racing, including a close associate of Ballyfermot criminal Derek ‘Dee Dee’ O’Driscoll.
The 26-year-old runs the Ballymun operation with his 29-year-old pal, who has links to one of Ireland’s most notorious prisoners. The prisoner, from Inchicore, can’t be named as he is before the courts.
The 29-year-old was involved in a violent attack on a man in Ballymun three years ago.
Other associates of the Ballymun dealers include convicted drug dealer Dano Doyle, whose house was shot at in Ballymun in November.
That incident is not believed to be connected to Doyle’s links with the Ballymun gang.
The gang have links to criminal figures in Coolock, Finglas and the north inner city.
The 29-year-old also has connections to Stephen ‘Ned’ Kelly who is serving life for the murder of Ian McConnell on December 11, 2005.
The killing sparked a feud in Ballymun between associates of Kelly and Ian’s brother Thomas ‘Nicky’ McConnell, a convicted drug dealer who was released from prison last year.
McConnell was also photographed with businessman Jim Mansfield Jnr in recent months. Mansfield was arrested in December in connection with an alleged assault in Dublin last year. He was released without charge.
Mansfield has been warned by Gardaí over a threat to his life. The threat is understood to be coming from associates of traveller criminal ‘Fat’ Andy Connors, who was shot dead in Dublin in 2014.
Trevor O’Neill was shot dead on the Spanish island of Majorca in the ongoing Kinahan/Hutch feud. It’s believed he and his family were socialising at the time of his death with a figure affiliated with the Hutch family.
Kinahan gunmen failed for a second time to kill The Monk's brother Johnny Hutch. One guy was arrested, who has been linked to a number of shootings, including the attack in 2008 on the veteran Dublin criminal The Viper.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 09/06/1609:43 AM
A 46-year-old man, known as 'Flat Cap', wanted in connection with the murder of David Byrne at a boxing weigh-in was arrested in Northern Ireland. He was picked up on foot of a European Arrest Warrant and will face murder and firearm charges.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 09/14/1608:43 AM
Gardaí are carrying out a number of searches in Dublin city and county on Wednesday morning as part of an intelligence-led operation relating to the Kinahan cartel. Spain’s La Guardia Civil is supporting the operation.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 10/30/1611:33 AM
Tommy 'The Zombie' Savage survived an assassination attempt on Friday. Possibly linked to the Kinahan/Hutch feud. Savage had been an associate of George 'The Penguin' Mitchell. It is understood Mitchell and Hutch met in Amsterdam earlier this year.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 06/08/1704:36 AM
They seem to be always "tracking" members of the Kinahan cartel but never seem to be able to do anything except fine them through CAB raids. Christy Sr taught the sons and top tier well.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/01/1711:31 AM
A member of the Kinahan cartel has been cleared by a Dutch court of the attempted manslaughter of a drug dealer who tried to sell him with baking soda. However Gareth Chubb (29), from Dublin, was jailed for six months for possession of a loaded gun he pulled out at an Amsterdam cafe earlier this year.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/01/1711:38 AM
Originally Posted By: Hollander
A member of the Kinahan cartel has been cleared by a Dutch court of the attempted manslaughter of a drug dealer who tried to sell him with baking soda. However Gareth Chubb (29), from Dublin, was jailed for six months for possession of a loaded gun he pulled out at an Amsterdam cafe earlier this year.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/01/1711:50 AM
Originally Posted By: BillyBrizzi
Originally Posted By: Hollander
A member of the Kinahan cartel has been cleared by a Dutch court of the attempted manslaughter of a drug dealer who tried to sell him with baking soda. However Gareth Chubb (29), from Dublin, was jailed for six months for possession of a loaded gun he pulled out at an Amsterdam cafe earlier this year.
??????!!!!! What the hell is this supposed to mean:
Quote:
Despite being involved in the sickening disposal of Keith Ennis body, the men were cleared of his murder
The judge thinks that somebody killed the guy and walked away, and those 3 just found the body by chance and decided to practice their skills with a chainsaw on the body because they felt like it?
It doesn't make sense Dwalin, they were all there but according to dutch law they must proof who did the actual murder. We saw the same years ago when three Hells Angels were slaughtered in their clubhouse they arrested the whole chapter who were all at the meeting, but couldn't proof who did what so they all walked!
It doesn't make sense Dwalin, they were all there but according to dutch law they must proof who did the actual murder. We saw the same years ago when three Hells Angels were slaughtered in their clubhouse they arrested the whole chapter who were all at the meeting, but couldn't proof who did what so they all walked!
But even if only 1 did it and the other 2 just stood there and didn't move (which is already a non-realistic scenario), the ones who didn't do it, but were present and didn't report the crime, that already makes them accomplices, couldn't they have charged them with complicity to murder at least, if they don't know who played the most active part in the actual killing? The same in the Hells Angels case.
Because, for example in Italy and USA, if a murder is proven to be the result of the Commission meeting (or whatever group of bosses who take a group decision or vote to kill somebody), they all all considered guilty if the meeting where the murder was decided is proven to have taken place, and all the defendants are proven to have been present. Even if somebody voted against the hit, but was overruled by the majority, he is considered guilty at least as an accomplice, because of doing nothing to prevent the crime, not even making an anonymous call to the police. Like Carmine Persico who was supposed to have voted against the Galante hit and was overruled by the other 3 votes, but still got 100 years. I know, recently they said that maybe it was DiBella who voted and not him or that there was no Commission meeting at all, but just Rastelli ordering the hit by himself, but you get my point, what I mean.....If somebody can't be proven as having directly pulled the drigger or personally stabbed somebody, or explicitly said "kill him", there are still ways to link him to the crime as an accomplice, and here they charged them only for dismembering the body....So, if they had just thrown the body into the water, they wouldn't have received even suspended sentences? I don't know the Dutch laws, but it's weird in this case.....
The only equally absurd case that I remember was about a serial killer in some Latin American country (maybe Ecuador or Honduras, I don't remember) who killed hundreds of people, but the maximum penalty allowed for murder by the law was 15 years only, so they released him after serving that!!! No similar murders have been reported after that though, hopefully the police gave a tip to the local people who "made him disappear", don't know....Forgot the bastard's name, only that he was on Wikipedia apart from normal articles, so must be a known one.
Two men with connections to the Hutch mob are being blamed for the Balbutcher murders, according to reports. Associates of Derek 'Bottler' Devoy, who was the intended target, are blaming the killings on an inner city hit squad, reports the Herald. This means that associates do not think the murders are linked to a local feud, as gardai believed. A source told the Herald: "Bottler's crew firmly believe that the fellas that carried out this are from the north inner city. "They don't care what the cops think."
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 09/12/1708:45 AM
Man killed in latest gangland gun attack is named locally as 36-year-old Darragh Nugent. The Herald is reporting that Nugent was a close associate of gangster James 'Nellie' Walsh.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 09/18/1709:34 AM
Attempts by the Kinahan cartel to crack the Australian market have been dealt a significant blow after 20kg of cocaine was seized in a raid on an industrial estate in Geebung, a suburb of Brisbane, earlier this month. Follow-up investigations, carried out by Australian police, have uncovered a sophisticated cocaine supply network which sources say leads directly to the Kinahan crime cartel.
Last night John Gibson, a 28 year-old fitness instructor, was killed after being shot in the head at a Dublin car park. He was a close friend of Darragh Nugent, who was gunned down on his doorstep in Clondalkin earlier this month.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 12/03/1711:17 AM
Brutal scene in the Irish countryside. Man believed to have been blasted to death by Kinahan Cartel in Co Meath had survived previous attempt on his life this year. Not far from the location where recently a number of people have been arrested in connection with cocaine trafficking with the Netherlands.
Police officers investigating the activities of the Kinahan crime cartel believe that they have enough evidence from intrusive surveillance to file charges against Daniel Kinahan, the son of gang founder Christy. The evidence was gathered during an international police inquiry into the activities of Rico Vega, 42, a Chilean drugs trafficker who was arrested at the Hyatt hotel in Santiago shortly after arriving on a flight from Dubai last November. Dutch police are seeking Vega’s extradition from South America to stand trial for serious offences, following investigations into the activities of Moroccan criminals based in Holland, Belgium and Spain. Kinahan’s name is said to feature in hundreds of incriminating emails, texts, telephone calls and conversations secretly recorded and intercepted by Dutch police.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/31/1805:43 AM
Vega was a major player obviously. I don't think charges against Daniel would matter much as long as he stays in Dubai. He's already been seen meeting with a top member of the Ndrangheta in the hotels over there. Most likely replacing the supplier. Wish there was a way to find out what was in those E-Mails, text and telephone calls.
Following the recent murders of Derek Hutch and Jason ‘Buda’ Molyneux and last weekend’s shooting at the National Boxing Stadium in Dublin there is major Garda surveillance of a number of areas, including a boxing event yesterday which featured five fighters from the Kinahan-linked MTK boxing promotion.
MURDER MISSION Motorcyclist who died after he struck a pole was Hutch gang associate Shane Fowler and he was on a mission to whack Kinahan mobster ‘Mr Flashy’ when the accident happened
CHAINSAW BUTCHER Chainsaw mutilator Kenneth Brunell vanishes one year after conviction for chopping up Irish drug dealer’s body and dumping it in canal
CASE CLOSED Innocent gangland victim Martin O’Rourke’s shooter confirmed by gardai as dead Kinahan hitman Glen Clarke with tragic dad’s family saying they forgive killer
Crack is the next big thing in Dublin apparently..
The way some of the papers report on the Kinahan gang and Hutch gang is getting a bit excessive TBH. It's almost like the way they used to write about Gotti!
It's almost glamorizing these scumbags, reporting about how great their lifestyles are.
A lot of youngsters from disadvantaged areas could get enamoured with this kind of shit.
Getting back to drugs, Africans are making inroads in the drug business there.. and they dont play around.
ARSENAL OF DEATH Kinahan cartel has lethal stash of over 100 weapons – including sub-machine guns, revolvers and handguns – for war with Hutch gang
'RIDDLE HIM' Gardai overheard two contract killers for Kinahan cartel who planned to execute Michael Frazer saying ‘head shots or we don’t get f****** paid’
Newly appointed Garda commissioner is a former RUC man who was involved in collusion and withholding facts from Catholic victims of atrocities in the North.
'VERY PLEASANT' Top boxing promoter Frank Warren describes Christy ‘Dapper Don’ Kinahan’s son Daniel as an ‘honourable man’ as exclusive image shows pair at dinner
GANGLAND CRACKDOWN Both sides in Kinahan-Hutch feud ‘still trying to kill people’ as its revealed over 32,000 piece of intelligence on criminals gathered by cops
'OPERATION LAMP' Exiled Kinahan cartel yob Liam Byrne at ‘very top tier’ of underworld as Criminal Assets Bureau outlines his links to mob at Dublin’s High Court
Most of the articles out today have the target of the hit as Gary Hanley, again...he was friends with the slain Jason Molyneaux, not the potential Kinahan shooters who were arrested...those are the guys who killed Molyneaux...sometimes it's interesting how wildly different the various Irish news sources report the same story...
'DIRECTLY FROM TOP' Kinahan cartel gun-for-hire Luke Wilson watched target Gary Hanley and his baby son for weeks after being offered €20,000 to kill him
CHILLING EVIDENCE Kinahan cartel hitman arrested on way to whack gangland rival after gardai monitoring him heard him say ‘Beretta with a pipe’ was arriving
O'KEEFE CAGED Gangland target Caine Kirwan had ‘no idea’ he was under threat when he was stalked by Kinahan cartel gun-for-hire Andrew O’Keefe, it’s claimed
The Irish, British and Dutch ganglands are crazily interconnected. You have underworld figures from Dublin, Liverpool, Glasgow, London, Essex, Amsterdam, Rotterdam...or even North Morocco, Curaçao as well as trailer parks in West Brabant, Limburg, South Holland...forming huge reticular networks. Crime groups from these locations really play a disproportionate role in the European cocaine and synthetic drug trade.
The Irish, British and Dutch ganglands are crazily interconnected. You have underworld figures from Dublin, Liverpool, Glasgow, London, Essex, Amsterdam, Rotterdam...or even North Morocco, Curaçao as well as trailer parks in West Brabant, Limburg, South Holland...forming huge reticular networks. Crime groups from these locations really play a disproportionate role in the European cocaine and synthetic drug trade.
The Irish, British and Dutch ganglands are crazily interconnected. You have underworld figures from Dublin, Liverpool, Glasgow, London, Essex, Amsterdam, Rotterdam...or even North Morocco, Curaçao as well as trailer parks in West Brabant, Limburg, South Holland...forming huge reticular networks. Crime groups from these locations really play a disproportionate role in the European cocaine and synthetic drug trade.
Also the IRA, Turks-Kurds and Lebanese.
The IRA definitely. Even the British groups from the Southeast have connections to them.
The Turks and Kurds do dabble in cocaine, but it isn't really their drug of choice. The Kurds in North London for instance concentrate almost exclusively on heroin. Over here in Belgian Limburg occasionally there is a cocaine shipment destined for a Turkish group, but in general it's mostly Italians involved in this stuff. I'd say the Turks and Turkish Kurds aren't really "the" major players in the cocaine business.
The Lebanese are involved in cocaine as well, among other stuff such as heroin. The thing with the Lebanese is that they're incredibly concentrated in the big German cities and mostly stick to their local environment. I don't think they're major importers of cocaine or other narcotics, even though they do deal in that stuff as well. Organized blue-collar crimes such as extortion, loan-sharking, organized robbery and burglary seem to be more their bread and butter.
TKJ you´re right, I was talking about Mink Kok who is connected to one of the most influential families of Lebanon: his wife is Siba Qoleilat Dalbi. The extended family Qoleilat is prominent in many places in Lebanon and the world, in a legal and illegal way. The DEA considers Ali Qoleilat, a brother-in-law of Kok, as one of the main suspects behind a failed drug transport of 1100 kilos of cocaine that was intercepted in 2011 at an airport in the Dominican Republic. Kok is also connected to Kinahans and in the past the IRA.
TKJ you´re right, I was talking about Mink Kok who is connected to one of the most influential families of Lebanon: his wife is Siba Qoleilat Dalbi. The extended family Qoleilat is prominent in many places in Lebanon and the world, in a legal and illegal way. The DEA considers Ali Qoleilat, a brother-in-law of Kok, as one of the main suspects behind a failed drug transport of 1100 kilos of cocaine that was intercepted in 2011 at an airport in the Dominican Republic. Kok is also connected to Kinahans and in the past the IRA.
Oh yeah, the Koleilats are also rumored to launder a shitload of money for many (non-Lebanese) criminal organizations. Mink Kok is a very smart guy. Well-spoken, always very polite... Basically, he comes across as a likable fellow - but once he thinks you're done, you're done.
TKJ you´re right, I was talking about Mink Kok who is connected to one of the most influential families of Lebanon: his wife is Siba Qoleilat Dalbi. The extended family Qoleilat is prominent in many places in Lebanon and the world, in a legal and illegal way. The DEA considers Ali Qoleilat, a brother-in-law of Kok, as one of the main suspects behind a failed drug transport of 1100 kilos of cocaine that was intercepted in 2011 at an airport in the Dominican Republic. Kok is also connected to Kinahans and in the past the IRA.
Oh yeah, the Koleilats are also rumored to launder a shitload of money for many (non-Lebanese) criminal organizations. Mink Kok is a very smart guy. Well-spoken, always very polite... Basically, he comes across as a likable fellow - but once he thinks you're done, you're done.
The majority of his prison sentence in Lebanon Mink K served in relative luxury. He told an employee of the Dutch embassy about the circumstances in the Roumieh prison. There he served a prison sentence of 4.5 years for cocaine smuggling. K. had in Lebanon - in his own words - disposition of a refrigerator, television, playstation game console and various DVDs. "It was a party for three years," he says to the embassy employee. After those three years, the authorities invaded the prison with a lot of power. Then it was soon over with the fun.
TKJ you´re right, I was talking about Mink Kok who is connected to one of the most influential families of Lebanon: his wife is Siba Qoleilat Dalbi. The extended family Qoleilat is prominent in many places in Lebanon and the world, in a legal and illegal way. The DEA considers Ali Qoleilat, a brother-in-law of Kok, as one of the main suspects behind a failed drug transport of 1100 kilos of cocaine that was intercepted in 2011 at an airport in the Dominican Republic. Kok is also connected to Kinahans and in the past the IRA.
Oh yeah, the Koleilats are also rumored to launder a shitload of money for many (non-Lebanese) criminal organizations. Mink Kok is a very smart guy. Well-spoken, always very polite... Basically, he comes across as a likable fellow - but once he thinks you're done, you're done.
The majority of his prison sentence in Lebanon Mink K served in relative luxury. He told an employee of the Dutch embassy about the circumstances in the Roumieh prison. There he served a prison sentence of 4.5 years for cocaine smuggling. K. had in Lebanon - in his own words - disposition of a refrigerator, television, playstation game console and various DVDs. "It was a party for three years," he says to the embassy employee. After those three years, the authorities invaded the prison with a lot of power. Then it was soon over with the fun.
Yeah I read about his prison stories. He also makes an appearance here 40 minutes in; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDq2T6gl-Os&frags=pl%2Cwn
'FULLY LOADED' Gardai probe possible Kinahan cartel link to weapons stash after workmen find three Glock handguns and assault rifle under shed close to Phoenix Park
DPP DECISION No criminal charges to be brought in relation to death of Martin O’Rourke, 24, shot dead in case of mistaken identity in Kinahan Hutch feud
'TOOK NO CHANCES' Kinahan bagman ‘Mr Flashy’ set up ‘decoy’ funeral for associate due to fears he could be whacked by rival gangster while mourning
THE HOOD OLD DAYS Convicted killer Fat Freddie Thompson’s high life Âand crimes revealed in pictures as thug cemented his Âposition in Kinahan cartel
BIG FAT ZERO Fat Freddie Thompson was targeted by Criminal Assets Bureau but detectives found cartel lieutenant had nothing to show for two decades in crime
FRED'S LONELY PRISON BAWLS Caged killer Fat Freddie Thompson vows to be model prisoner after murder conviction – as fake licence used during reign of terror revealed
53 Conor McGregor fans prevented from travelling from Dublin Airport to attend Las Vegas fight
Including his own brother in law LOL. Good enough for them. The way some of the Irish fans behaved in Las Vegas is embarrassing. It's a pity they couldn't ban all of them.
'DUCK EGG' FAMILY'S GRIEF Daughter of innocent Kinahan cartel victim Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan says he was only targeted after being pictured alongside Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch – and will ‘never forgive’ thug who helped dad’s killers
A man said to be the notorious IRA double agent 'Stakeknife' during the Troubles was back in the news again. The 72-year-old appeared in court in London on animal porn charges.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/28/1912:35 AM
Gardaà are trying to establish if a drive-by shooting at a house in Cabra in north Dublin this weekend was linked to the Kinahan-Hutch feud. Some of the violence in the feud has also unfolded in Cabra.
LID ON HIT Caged Kinahan hitman Johnny Keogh suspected of orchestrating attacks on innocent Hutch family members – as gardai reveal they’ve saved 59 lives over past three years
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/22/1903:24 AM
Good for him. I wonder why the charges were dropped? They had him on video, didnt they? I've kind of been rooting for the Hutches now since the Regency. Underdogs with HUGE FUCKING BALLS. But it started way before that, maybe two years...did Gary Hutch really take the first shot and miss? Gun jam or whatever?
Good for him. I wonder why the charges were dropped? They had him on video, didnt they? I've kind of been rooting for the Hutches now since the Regency. Underdogs with HUGE FUCKING BALLS. But it started way before that, maybe two years...did Gary Hutch really take the first shot and miss? Gun jam or whatever?
It is also said the current feud between the Kinahan and Hutch families goes back to Dublin in the 1980s.
SHOOTIN' THE BREEZE Rush hour horror bagman Lee Boylan pictured partying with innocent son of Kinahan cartel thug Liam Byrne as he flaunts flash designer gear
Why does "Mr. Flashy" get so much anonymity in the press...no pictures, no real name...everyone else on his team or rivals gets mentioned by name with their pictures...victims, shooters, everyone else gets named but he never does...its obviously due to some press freedom law that I dont understand but it seems like it only applies to him? Is his real name known and published historically before some kind of protection due to court cases set in? Thanks in advance for any replies...- mr. white
These Irish gangs are a piece of work......are any of them just gypsy feuds? They have them all the time.
I think all of the major Irish groups are settled from the white working class districts in the bigger cities. Like it's the case with the British groups. I don't think any of the big leaguers are Travellers. Irish Traveller crime largely consists of blue collar frauds and scams, theft and some smaller scale drug dealing.
They're dropping like flies in Dublin. Another lad shot today who was supposedly friends with the last two murder victims. Whoever they messed with is wiping them out one by one it seems.
Anyone know the real name of "Mr. Flashy?" Seems like his group has run up against some real serious players who are not afraid to take out Kinahan-affiliated gangsters...
GANGLAND BOILS OVER Dublin gangland violence spinning out of control as ex-Kinahan foot soldiers run riot and cops believe Daniel Kinahan has lost hold on capital
'NO ANGEL' Wheelchair-bound mob boss believed to have sent failed Kinahan cartel hitman Imre Arakas declares ‘I’m no angel but I don’t traffic or kill’
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 06/21/1912:06 AM
Items seized during searches linked to INLA 20 JUNE 2019 DERRY CITY & STRABANE
Detectives from PSNI’s Organised Crime Unit have carried out six searches in Derry/Londonderry earlier today, in relation to an investigation into INLA criminality.
PSNI were supported by HMRC officers during four of the searches and a number of items were seized including counterfeit clothing, mobile phones, computers and documentation. Over £16,000 in cash was also recovered.
Detective Inspector Tom McClure of the PSNI’s Organised Crime Unit said: “Today’s searches in the city centre, Galliagh and Shantallow areas follow a number of recent operations targeting the INLA and their associated criminality.
“INLA in Derry/Londonderry claim to be protecting their communities from crime however in reality they themselves are heavily involved in a wide range of criminal money-making ‘rackets’ including extortion, supply of controlled drugs, counterfeit goods and money laundering. They bring harm and misery to people in the local area and whilst people who buy counterfeit goods may think this is a victimless crime, ultimately the profits of these items are indirectly funding INLA’s other criminality including dealing harmful drugs which destroy local families.
“Today’s operation demonstrates our commitment to bringing those involved in the criminality associated with Paramilitarism before the courts and we know that the communities most affected by INLA’s drug dealing and violence support our ongoing efforts. I would appeal for anyone with information regarding criminality by paramilitary organisations to contact police on 101. Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.â€
They been trying to kill the Monk’s brother for years now and he takes a fall down the stairs and dies. Hit teams, imported gunmen, the whole deal. You can’t make this shit up.
They been trying to kill the Monk’s brother for years now and he takes a fall down the stairs and dies. Hit teams, imported gunmen, the whole deal. You can’t make this shit up.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/19/1901:51 AM
I slapped a guy in the face three times and made him delete a picture of me doing something at a bar tonight, before emasculating one of his friends by slapping him on the chest as I left. OG Moe. I thought it deserved a post.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/19/1911:39 AM
Originally Posted by Moe_Tilden
I slapped a guy in the face three times and made him delete a picture of me doing something at a bar tonight, before emasculating one of his friends by slapping him on the chest as I left. OG Moe. I thought it deserved a post.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/24/1912:55 AM
A figure from the old school Irish underworld, Martin "The Viper" Foley, 66, was sentenced this week by a Dublin court to pay 738,000 euros in unpaid taxes (plus interest).
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/08/2001:18 AM
Is Johnathan Gill still alive? I remember reading page 1 of this thread back when I first started following Irish OC but unless I missed something that guy has either disappeared off the face of the earth or is still somehow operating while staying out of the headlines. The Ra' was trying to kill him 7 years ago and he was a huge Gardai target.
Is Johnathan Gill still alive? I remember reading page 1 of this thread back when I first started following Irish OC but unless I missed something that guy has either disappeared off the face of the earth or is still somehow operating while staying out of the headlines. The Ra' was trying to kill him 7 years ago and he was a huge Gardai target.
Far as I've heard, Gill is still around. Supposedly there's some sort of connection between him and the current Drogheda feud.
Thanks, that makes sense. The link between Narco and prizefighting, is something that I’ve observed for a long time. Didn’t know about this instance, cool stuff.
I noticed that lately Daniel is often described as the leader, but why, is his father Christy already retired? He isn't that old yet.
Christy's health hasn't been great in 2018 he was hospitalized with heart problems, Danny and Christopher Jr. are running day to day operations but Christy is still the boss the same with other old timers like The Penguin and The Monk.
Well that was bound to happen. Lawlor was a complete psychopath and basically a serial killer with the amount of bodies he had under his belt.
Nothing happens in Belfast without the blessing of the IRA.
This is a big deal, Lawlor was a fucking maniac. I wonder who was behind it.
Probably one of the mobs from North Dublin.
There are different theories. Some say the Kinahans set him up, but that's probably a crock. The Kinahan stronghold is in South Dublin. In the North of the city they got their own outfits that are involved in a gang war.
Weird thing is that he was hit in Ardoyne; I think that's IRA playground up there and they don't really involve themselves in the Dublin drug feuds aside from taxing the drug traffickers that want to operate on their turf. Then again, Lawlor was supposedly heading north to involve himself in an extortion scheme and the IRA do run all of the extortion and strong arm rackets up there so who knows...
My money's on one of the North Dublin mobs who got to him because he was set up by someone close to him. Supposedly he wasn't well liked anymore by his surroundings. Ever since his brother-in-law Richie Carberry (a known player in North Dublin) got whacked, the guy was a loose cannon shooting and carving up anybody with even half a foot in his way and dismembered body parts were showing up in the streets. Only a matter of time before erratic behavior like that gets dealt with.
There are different theories. Some say the Kinahans set him up, but that's probably a crock. The Kinahan stronghold is in South Dublin. In the North of the city they got their own outfits that are involved in a gang war.
Weird thing is that he was hit in Ardoyne; I think that's IRA playground up there and they don't really involve themselves in the Dublin drug feuds aside from taxing the drug traffickers that want to operate on their turf. Then again, Lawlor was supposedly heading north to involve himself in an extortion scheme and the IRA do run all of the extortion and strong arm rackets up there so who knows...
My money's on one of the North Dublin mobs who got to him because he was set up by someone close to him. Supposedly he wasn't well liked anymore by his surroundings. Ever since his brother-in-law Richie Carberry (a known player in North Dublin) got whacked, the guy was a loose cannon shooting and carving up anybody with even half a foot in his way and dismembered body parts were showing up in the streets. Only a matter of time before erratic behavior like that gets dealt with. [/quote]
Great post +1
Has any info come to light on the intended extortion/murder target? A set up feels plausible to draw him out there. That's how they do it after all. Piss off a hot head to get him to pop his head up then bang, or lure them out with a woman or potential score.
Apparently he travelled to Belfast to collect from a drug dealer who owned money for a shipment. He was warned that he had a huge bounty on his head, but carried on his ways anyhow. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, just a complete lunatic.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 04/09/2001:43 AM
It seems Lawlor travelled to Belfast with 3 guys from Limerick connected to the McCarthy-Dundon clan. Those guys have been arrested. Detectives are now investigating whether key members of the ruthless gang set him up to be murdered.
Daniel Kinahan has been appointed as a special advisor to Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa (KHK) Sports in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The international boxing power broker has been involved in the world of combat sports, at the highest levels since his earlier days as one of the original founders of MTK Global before branching away and advising some of the biggest names and organizations in the industry for over a decade.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 06/18/2001:38 AM
Any info of James M Murphy from Boston? He got 80 years or something for a bunch of bank robberies. Pat Nee was his co-defendant. Met him while at Fairton. Solid guy.
There should be more to come out about this story than simple revenge for the Lawlor killing. I'm from West Belfast and the St James area, where Crossan was killed, is not an area where hitmen from Dublin would run around and gun someone down in broad daylight.
Crossan's father Tommy was killed a number of years ago, an alleged dispute within the CIRA. However around the same time Warren was shot in a punishment style shooting and suffered leg wounds, most likely due to involvement with drugs. Whilst the RIRA may have links to drugs I would be pretty certain the CIRA does not, they're a hard-line offshoot of the mainstream PIRA from the 1980s and have very socialist, Marxist leanings.
Warren's attackers are most likely local, which would suggest dissident republicans such as the RIRA, however they are unlikely to be working at the behest of drug gangs from Dublin due to their own feud with the Kinahans over the past number of years. Which is why I believe there is something greater at play. Because of the paramilitaries within Northern Ireland we have been relatively immune from Dublin's drug problems, hopefully that doesn't change.
Kinahan cartel 'on brink of collapse' as Garda leads worldwide police operation Forces across Europe close in on boss Daniel
Paul Williams
July 11 2020 02:30 AM
The once-powerful Kinahan cartel is on the brink of "total collapse" as it continues to be pummelled from all sides in a massive international police operation being spearheaded by the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GDOCB).
According to a senior security source, Daniel Kinahan has been left "not knowing what way to turn" as he "doesn't yet know what evidence the Irish, UK, Spanish and Dutch police have against him".
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 12/22/2001:04 AM
Mob boss Daniel Kinahan hit with 'racketeering' lawsuit in US over boxer tapping up claims Court papers claim the 43-year-old 'criminal and gang lord' funds MTK Global, which is 'using and abusing US law' in 'money-laundering operation'
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/15/2112:20 AM
Daniel Kinahan operating freely in Dubai as he tries to distance himself from crime links EXCLUSIVE: A Sunday Mirror probe today reveals reports of airport suitcases full of money, shady business deals and mafia bosses overseeing killings and extortion
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 02/17/2101:29 AM
Politicians have written to their counterparts in the UAE making them aware he and his cohorts are in the kingdom. Officials in Dubai are also known to have been in contact with Irish and Spanish police. “Things are moving forward,†a source said. “There is increasing confidence Daniel and his crew will be deported – we just don’t know where they will then go. The only thing he is terrified of is being arrested and jailed.â€
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 08/20/2102:15 AM
Dramatic moment police arrest notorious Irish 'mob boss' Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch in front of shocked diners at Costa del Sol restaurant after Regency Airport Hotel murder suspect is tracked by his own mobile phones
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 09/29/2102:30 AM
Large seizure of weapons and narcotics in the west of the island
Montreal police said on Tuesday they had seized a large quantity of narcotics and firearms estimated at 2.4 million in the west of the island, for the second time in a few months. Five searches were carried out and seven suspects were arrested.
According to our information, the network pinned down by the police is linked to Irish organized crime. A total of seven suspects have been arrested before appearing before a judge at the Montreal courthouse in recent days.
ON THE RUN Escaped prisoner had a key role in one of Dublin gangland's bloodiest episodes The Hyland gang were the target of Operation Oak such was the risk they posed to society in the mid-2000s.
Gerry Hutch murder trial could be longest in history of the State The trial is due to start on October 3 next year
ByMichael O'Toole 13:44, 9 OCT 2021UPDATED15:05, 9 OCT 2021
Prosecutors expect the murder trial of Gerry Hutch to last up to three months — which would be the longest ever in the State, it has emerged.
Court documents seen by the Irish Mirror show that 12 weeks have been set aside for the trial of Mr Hutch, who is charged with the murder of Kinahan cartel associate David Byrne.
Mr Hutch is charged with killing Mr Byrne, 33, at the Regency Airport Hotel in north Dublin on February 5 2016.
The trial is due to start on October 3 next year – and if it does last the full 12 weeks, it will bring it into 2023, when the Christmas court holiday is taken into account.
Mr Hutch, 58, is locked up in Dublin’s Wheatfield Prison after he was extradited from Spain last week to appear before the non-jury Special Criminal Court in the city – and is back there later this month.
Four other men are currently before the courts over the murder of Mr Byrne and are due to stand trial at the same time as The Monk – but it is possible Mr Hutch may get his own trial.
His barrister Brendan Grehan SC told the court last week that the defence team was considering an application for a separate trial.
Hutch appeared in court last Wednesday week.
He spoke only to say “yes” when he was asked to confirm his identity.
Hours earlier, he had been extradited from Spain on Air Corps CASA aircraft that landed at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel, south Dublin.
He was arrested in Malaga on the Costa Del Sol in August by a Guardia Civil fugitive unit.
Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch joined by his cousin in secure unit in Dublin prison Prison bosses put him in the special protection unit because he is related to Hutch
Any info of James M Murphy from Boston? He got 80 years or something for a bunch of bank robberies. Pat Nee was his co-defendant. Met him while at Fairton. Solid guy.
Old Post but pat nee was mentioned a few times in the Martorano book. He hooked up with a bunch of bank robbers but got caught on his first job with them and got a massive sentence. Also done some gun running with whitey for the ira. Shipment was caught. Nee was staunch Republican.
Any info of James M Murphy from Boston? He got 80 years or something for a bunch of bank robberies. Pat Nee was his co-defendant. Met him while at Fairton. Solid guy.
Old Post but pat nee was mentioned a few times in the Martorano book. He hooked up with a bunch of bank robbers but got caught on his first job with them and got a massive sentence. Also done some gun running with whitey for the ira. Shipment was caught. Nee was staunch Republican.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/11/2212:37 AM
Just got to part where Allen Ross takes over from Frank dunie Ryan. Have read about these guys a lot a very underrated oc group. Just flooding the country and parts of u.s. with coke and hash by the ton. No American Irish gang even comes close to the power that parts of the west end gang had in the narcotics world.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 11/11/2212:58 AM
Originally Posted by VitoCahill
Just got to part where Allen Ross takes over from Frank dunie Ryan. Have read about these guys a lot a very underrated oc group. Just flooding the country and parts of u.s. with coke and hash by the ton. No American Irish gang even comes close to the power that parts of the west end gang had in the narcotics world.
There were some Dutch bosses who did business with them in the 90s tonnes of hashish from Pakistan.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/26/2305:51 AM
Dissident republicans vow to shut down deadly drugs gang following string of murders We can reveal armed patrols by vigilante-style terror groups have taken place in the republican stronghold of Kilwilkie
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 01/28/2304:45 AM
Wide censorship of Mr Flashy's photo and identity has ended in Ireland as he has been charged with the serious offense of violent disorder. Things have been quiet regarding Mr. Flashy lately, following his second attempted hit. Dubbed 'the gang that can't shoot straight', various thugs are known to be involved. Cops suggest Mr. Flashy's enemies haven't given up.
Re: Irish OC - Thread (Updating Weekly) - 07/08/2301:13 AM
Man tied to West End Gang sentenced for possessing gun and cocaine. Lawrence Cooney, a man who has survived two attempts on his life, was acting as a bodyguard for organized crime figures last summer.
Notorious gangland boss who murdered his aunt and uncle takes own life in prison Carlisle’s conscience finally caught up with him when he killed himself while on remand after trying to set a woman on fire
the previous article a few posts back about larry cooney has peaked my interest. when reading it alleges he was followed for several days between june and july 2022 while he was acting as a bodyguard to organized crime figures in lasalle. cooney has a legit right to be labeled a west end gang member, whatever that may mean at this point in time. but the more recent reports by french media and those in the know claim that and i would agree, the west end gang as it was historically known and recognized does not exist. the police do not say there are no white irish named criminals but that these few remaining individuals in no way constitute what once was a fairly large loosely allied at times warring west end gang. from darcy o'connors great book on them you begin to understand that it was never a top to bottom monolithic group a la mafia. but at its peak about a dozen different cells/families who at times worked together and brought a variety of different criminal talents to the mix. however by the time of the matticks bros massive drug importing most were dead, in jail, gone legit, retired, died of old age, still in the life of crime or some even became authors. my abe simpson ramble aside, who then at least among the very few still active irish oc members or associates would cooney be protecting? who has that much pull and in need of protection at that point in time summer 2022. i can think of none. but pietro d'adamo may have. he has long been mentioned and the only mafia member mentioned to have any links to irish oc. d'adamo has long been named as being in control of lasalle and lachine territory. d'adamo as well was one of a half dozen to be warned of his life being in danger upon raynald desjardins release in may 2021. we also now know that something caused a conflict in 2022 amongst rizzuto-sollecito and the HA mtl chapter.