Fathead' and the mobsters' Millions from drugs and cigs.
30 JANUARY 2014 02:30 PM
CHRISTY Kinahan's crime gang are not the only Irish operators making millions on the Costa-Del-Crime and beyond.
Yesterday we highlighted the dangerous power and evil capability of Kinahan's cartel.
But one of the most prominent Irish gangsters in Spain is a veteran Ballyfermot criminal who controls the illegal smuggling of cigarettes into Ireland.
This is an operation that is believed to be worth well over €10m.
The gangster, a long-term target of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), 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. He cannot be named here for legal reasons.
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."
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.
SHIPMENTS
And members of a north Dublin gang whose leader was murdered by the Ryan mob in September 2011 have also relocated to Spain.
They are suspected of organising vast shipments of drugs into Ireland from Spain.
When Michael 'Micka' Kelly was shot dead by a Real IRA assassination team at the Marrsfield apartment complex at Clongriffin, north Dublin in September, 2011, it was witnessed by his right hand man.
The criminal nicknamed 'The Jew' has spent most of his time in Benalmadena in Spain's Costa-Del-Crime where he linked up with major Irish crime player Paul 'Burger' Walsh from Baldoyle, north Dublin. 'Burger' and 'The Jew' have worked with the Kinahan mob but also worked independently of them, sources say.
'The Jew' has barely any criminal convictions, but on one occasion he had almost €70,000 cash forfeited to the State after a court heard that gardai were satisfied he was friends with drug dealers and the funds were the proceeds of crime. 'Burger' has over 26 criminal convictions here and was targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau in 2007, when the agency confiscated property and cash valued at almost €600,000 from him.
Walsh had begun to build a property portfolio in Dublin, Laois and Wexford, when his drug-dealing activities came to the attention of CAB.
The bureau's investigation found that Walsh was a member of an organised crime gang in Dublin.
A source explained: "These lads have gone mega scale, they are easily importing over 100 kilos of high grade cannabis into Ireland each week but also bringing in cocaine and heroin.
DRUGS
"They are supplying a vast patch which not only includes Dublin but was also the midlands and the west of Ireland."
The Herald has learned that one of the big-scale dealers who is buying drugs from him is a hood known as 'Fathead' who now lives in north Co Dublin.
Despite being on the garda radar for years, he has barely any previous convictions and is said to be an "extremely smart criminal".
Sources say that the Spanish-based mobsters have been supplying a number of other senior criminals based here who use lesser criminals with drug debts to collect and courier drugs for them.
But Spain is not the only major base for serious organised Irish criminals in continental Europe – The Netherlands, and its capital Amsterdam, has been another major hub for our dangerous expat criminal fraternity. And there is no one bigger than George 'the Penguin' Mitchell (64) born in Ballyfermot, west Dublin.
The arch-criminal, who fled Ireland after Veronica Guerin's murder, is a cousin of Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell and is suspected of sending millions of euro of drugs into Ireland every year from his Dutch base.
He has remained an active drugs trafficker for two decades and gardai linked 'The Penguin' to the seizure of over €3m worth of cannabis from an Irish-registered yacht off the Spanish coast in August, 2012.
Mitchell was linked to a spate of gangland hits in the 1990s before he fled to continental Europe. More recently, gardai looked at the possibility that 'The Penguin' was behind the botched assassination attempt on his old drugs trafficking rival John Gilligan in a Castleknock pub, last December.
Another major player who is based in Holland, is Peter 'Fatso' Mitchell, not actually related to 'The Penguin'.
But like George Mitchell, he fled Ireland in the aftermath of the Guerin murder in 1996 because he was feeling the heat from the gardai. He set up base in Spain's Costa Del Sol and was often spotted in the company of 'Fat' Freddie Thompson and other members of the Christy Kinahan gang. However, he had a major disagreement with the Kinahan network which led to him narrowly escaping death, when he was shot a number of times in the summer of 2008.
After that, he fled to Holland and also spends a lot of time in the UK. Gardai believe 'Fatso' is still involved in drugs trafficking from his Dutch base and has connections with Dutch gangs. Peter Mitchell was arrested in Amsterdam in November 2004, with 10kg of cocaine, 3kg of heroin and ammunition but managed to beat the charges.
COCAINE
Another Irish criminal who was arrested in Holland last year, was notorious drug dealer Thomas 'The Boxer' Mullen from Dublin's north inner city as part of an investigation into a huge cocaine trafficking ring.
He is credited with flooding the streets of inner city Dublin with heroin in the 1990s and was handed a 15-year sentence in England for masterminding a £750,000 (€909,000) heroin smuggling operation in Britain in 1997.
But it is not just veteran Irish criminals who have made Amsterdam their home.
Keith Ennis (29) from Walkinstown, south Dublin, was stabbed to death before his dismembered body parts were found in a suitcase in an Amsterdam canal in February, 2009.
A suspect in that case Philip County (30) from Lucan was extradited from Ireland to face charges in 2011, but later got bail from the Dutch authorities and has been spotted with members of Christy Kinahan's mob in the Costa-Del-Crime in recent times.
