Gang boss celebrates with pals after rival is whacked.
GANGSTER Number One Greg Lynch threw a party to celebrate his mob murdering Michael Devoy, the man who tried to kill him, the Sunday World can reveal.
While the 28-year-old was celebrating the demise of his sworn enemy, the brother of Michael Devoy smashed up his prison cell after learning one of his closest friends was behind the hit.
Devoy (42), was shot dead in Tallaght, south Dublin, last Saturday night and the chief suspect is a former Provo from Dundalk, Co. Louth, who is thought to have accepted a €20,000 contract.
The money was put up by Christy Kinahan’s gang in revenge for the attempted murder of Lynch last October outside a pub on Hanlon’s Corner in Dublin.
However it has emerged that the 40-year-old suspected triggerman was a close pal of Devoy’s brother Derek ‘Bottler’ Devoy.
The pair were involved with a Finglas-based mob led by Martin ‘Marlo’ Hyland and later Eamon ‘the Don’ Dunne. Both worked as enforcers for the gang. They were “inseparable” for years, according to sources. However, the suspected hitman, a former Provo, has now distanced himself from gangs and is operating as a “freelance” hitman.
When Bottler Devoy heard the news on Monday that his former friend had been responsible for killing his beloved brother, he smashed up his cell in Mountjoy Prison, where the 30-year-old is serving a seven-year sentence for armed robbery.
Gardai fear that associates of the Devoys will not take the murder lying down and will attempt to hit back against the Lynch mob.
If Lynch is concerned, then he didn’t show it this week. After months of lying low, the drug dealer finally emerged on Monday night when he was seen by gardai hosting a party in the Fountain Bar on Meath Street in Dublin’s inner city.
Lynch and his criminal father Gerard ‘Bra’ Brady, as well as a host of his lieutenants, spent the night drinking and celebrating the death of his would-be killer.
Sources say that they toasted Devoy’s death and the fact that the threat against Lynch has finally been lifted, although gardai have serious doubts that the feud is over. The Emergency Response Unit is still patrolling the streets of Ballymun on the northside of the capital and the south inner-city this weekend and gardai are paying passing attention to Lynch’s house in Maryland, Dublin 8.
Devoy tried to murder Greg Lynch because the drug dealer, who operates on behalf of Kinahan from the Coombe in the south-inner city, tried to expand his territory into Devoy’s Ballymun patch.
Lynch was shot outside Hanlon’s pub from close range and although he lost half his jaw in the attack, he survived against all the odds.
Ever since that hit bid failed, Devoy was in serious trouble because Lynch is part of the country’s biggest and most feared gang.
The 40-year-old hitman from Dundalk was contacted by a close associate of Greg Lynch following last year’s murder bid and offered cash to murder Michael ‘Mickey’ Devoy.He was stopped by gardai close to Devoy’s home in Ballymun on January 7 and taken to the local station for a search because gardai knew of his reputation as a hired gun.
He was released without charge, but three days later a “highly sophisticated” device was placed under Devoy’s car outside his home but it was spotted before it detonated.
Devoy and a pal were warned that their lives were in danger because the Lynch mob had blamed Devoy for the failed shooting, but the criminal hired his own hitman to lash back. It is unclear whether or not he was paid before Devoy was shot dead.
Greg Lynch and his father were then warned by detectives that they were under threat and sources say they laughed when they were given the news.
Last week, the Sunday World exclusively revealed how Devoy’s life was in serious danger as a result of the €20,000 hit taken out on him by the Lynch gang.
The former Provo hitman caught up with Devoy last Saturday night after he had been freed from prison, having spent three days behind bars for outstanding warrants.
He was shot three times in the head and was in the process of being dumped in a remote field at Bohernabreena in Tallaght when a passing patrol car arrived.
The three-man gang managed to escape following a high-speed chase and gardai found Devoy and the gun used to murder him when they went back to the scene.
Gardai believe they know the identity of the shooters and are hoping to make early arrests in the case.
Devoy was a veteran criminal with more than 70 convictions to his name.
He is the chief suspect in the murder of 30-year-old Mark Byrne in May 2005.
Byrne had just been released from Mountjoy Prison and walked out of a shop after buying phone credit when a gunman shot him dead. The murder was later re-created on RTE drama Love/Hate.
The Ballymun man was arrested over the murder and gardai were hopeful there was enough evidence to charge him, but the DPP disagreed. He associated with major criminals from Finglas and Ballymun who are very unhappy with his murder.
Garda intelligence places Greg Lynch at the head of a 60-strong drugs gang that is responsible for armed robberies and tiger kidnappings.
He is one of the main targets of the new anti-gang unit based at Kevin Street Garda Station in the capital. Gardai class him as one of the city’s biggest drug distributors, despite his relatively young age.
