KEN FOY, CRIME CORRESPONDENT – 21 NOVEMBER 2013 02:30 PM
A RUTHLESS Dublin gang who murdered a major crimelord were paid €50,000 to carry out the hit.
Evil Gintaras Zelvys was shot dead after he ripped off a senior Irish drugs trafficker based in Amsterdam of €800,000, sources have revealed.
It has now emerged the three man hit-team – including a taxi driver – divided up a bounty of €50,000 after the clinical daylight murder of the Lithuanian gangster.
There has still been no charges in the case of Zelvys (43) who was shot dead in front of his wife in the Greenogue industrial estate in Rathcoole, west Dublin on May 1.
Arrested
However, the trio who detectives believe were involved in the murder have been arrested and a file on them has been sent to the DPP.
"They were well paid for this job but that won't be much use to them if they are charged in this case and there is a good case against them," a source told the Herald.
The trio are made up of a major 35-year-old criminal who is originally from Clonsilla but now lives in the Clondalkin area as well as two men in their 30s from the Blanchardstown area.
The 35-year-old was previously in a major dispute with Alan Ryan's Real IRA crew.
While two of the suspects have multiple previous convictions for offences such as burglary, criminal damage, theft, and motoring offences, one of the suspects is a taxi driver with barely any criminal convictions.
The taxi man is suspected of driving the killers from the scene when they abandoned the silver Audi A3 at the Aylmer Housing estate in Newcastle, Co Dublin, immediately after the murder of the Lithuanian.
The Audi was in Pace Avenue, Little Pace, between March 19 and April 30 and Newcastle Boulevard or Aylmer Road on April 30 and May 1.
Murder victim Zelvys had "known form" for kidnapping, hijacking, extortion, burglary, and extreme violence including rape and other offences.
The Herald previously revealed the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick were so intent on murdering prosecution witnesses to the Shane Geoghegan murder trial, they attempted to source contract killers through Zelvys' underworld contacts.
The Lithuanian gangster became close to members of the Dundon gang in prison after he was jailed for seven years for extorting money with menaces from fellow eastern Europeans in Co Monaghan.
Zelvys had previously been observed by gardai on at least one occasion entering John Dundon's home in Hyde Road, Limerick, where Dundon's girlfriend, Ciara Killeen, was living. At an adjourned inquest into Zelvys' death in August, it emerged that he died from gunshot wounds to the trunk.
He was killed as he arrived with his wife Edita to his "cash-for-clothes" business at the Rathcoole industrial estate.
Identified
Edita told Dublin District Coroner Dr Brian Farrell she and her husband had one son. Her deposition was also read to the court, saying she had identified the body of her husband to a garda at the Adelaide and Meath Hospital on May 1.
