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.
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