These chilling messages sprayed on the walls of a housing estate are intended for a brave garda who was the subject of a recent death threat case.
Graffiti in the Hazelwood estate in Bray, Co. Wicklow, tells courageous Detective Garda John O’Reilly “Suck rats c**s stitch up scum” while in nearby Ashlawn the message addressed to him reads “I’m watching you dirty pig”.
The messages mark a sinister escalation in the activity of drug gangs as the first anniversary of 33-year-old murder victim Philip O’Toole approaches.
The latest incidents read like an episode of Love/Hate: A 40-year-old woman missing… a family abducted from their home in the middle of the night… a young man driven up the mountains and forced to kneel as the barrel of a gun is shoved in his mouth… houses full of children riddled with bullets… and now gardaí under threat of death.
Fear and intimidation have become petrifyingly real for the residents of the seaside town and other picturesque villages dotted all over the Garden County as two drug tribes go to war.
‘Philly’ O’Toole had almost 40 convictions when he was shot and dumped in a ravine in Trooperstown, near Laragh, after disappearing on January 7 last year.
His murder remains unsolved, but all hell has broken loose as rival drug gangs have gone to war from within and without ever since.
O’Toole, the dad of a seven-month-old baby, had refused to work for the Puck Ugly gang controlling the drugs scene in Bray, headed by ‘the Gutter Man’ Brendan Kinlan, prior to his jailing in the UK in 2012.
The Pucks have close ties with ‘Fat’ Freddy Thompson’s mob and their drugs are delivered wholesale to the town once a month in a Transit van – the underworld’s terrifying take on operating a professional business.
For attempting to go solo in Arklow, O’Toole became a marked man and in August 2011 an attempt was made to kill him. But the hit failed and he found out exactly who wanted him dead because the gunman told him when he was pulling the trigger: “This is from [named three Puck Ugly kingpins]. Take it like a man”.
After surviving the botched attempt to kill him, O’Toole formed an allegiance with his enemies’ main rival, ‘Mr Big’ – a notorious Wicklow dissident and pimp.
Mr Big has been taking over the drugs supply all along the east coast and he recently bought into a legitimate business, which was firebombed by the Pucks earlier this year.
The paranoid Pucks’ determination to kill O’Toole then went into overdrive, in case he got his revenge strike in first.
The file on the murder has now gone to the DPP. It suggests that for all the enemies he had, Philly O’Toole was in fact shot dead by a trusted friend.
The veteran drug dealer pal – who was associated with the Pucks, but who had known Philly for years – was the only one the slain mobster had been confiding in about his movements.
Detectives believe the murder may have been ordered by Mr Big, the Continuity IRA thug double-crossing O’Toole.
Since the slaying, all hell has been breaking loose. Mr Big has taken over Philly’s patch in Arklow and the Pucks have gone head-to-head with Mr Big – firebombing his business after he attempted to impose a tax on the gang for selling their drugs in Bray.
Another arson attempt on the home of a close relation was never even reported to gardaí.
The Pucks have been asserting their dominance within the gang too.
When a rumour went around that one of their own runners – who is in his twenties – was building contacts of his own with a drugs gang in Tallaght, west Dublin, he was told to collect a €20,000 consignment of cocaine from under a hedge on the Ballywaltrim Road.
But when he got there the stash was gone, and he was blamed for selling it and pocketing the profits.
The man was told he now owed the gang €30,000 – the extra €10,000 was added on as an interest charge.
After he was driven into the mountains and given a warning – a gun was put in his mouth – he was told in no uncertain terms to pay up or he’d be killed.
Members of his family borrowed amounts of €2,000 to pay the debt.
The shooting of a 15-year-old in the foot in Fassaroe in recent weeks is also believed to have been carried out by one of the Pucks. The fear of what the gangsters are capable of is now so overwhelming that several men have been forced out of their homes.
And in April, 40-year-old Jacqueline Smith – who is understood to have lived in terror of the gang – disappeared and was last seen in Carlow.
Meanwhile, the Pucks are also increasingly involved in recruiting new blood.
Gardai have also investigated the links between the abduction of a woman and her two sons from a housing estate in Arklow and those responsible for the murder of Philip O’Toole.
