http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/crime-desk/troy-spy-we-spot-chubby-gangsterTroy spy - we spot chubby gangster.
This is Ireland’s most elusive criminal – the horse dealer who for years grazed out on John Gilligan in more ways than one.
Troy Jordan has been lying low for almost three years since a bounty was put on his head by paramilitaries.
But as our pictures show, Jordan is back out of his hole and is ‘bigger’ than ever.
The chubby gangster has piled on the pounds since he fled to the U.K. in fear of his life after major criminals, including Brian Rattigan and Karl Breen, labelled him a rat, along with paramilitaries who tried to establish themselves as the new RIRA following the murder of Alan Ryan.
Jordan is suspected of much but convicted of little. He has been on the garda radar for over three decades, but has no serious convictions for crime.
In fact, his record is so clean that underworld enemies have suspected he must be a tout.
Even garda sources find it hard to believe he has never been the target of any major operation by the force, despite his alleged associations with many of Ireland’s most-serious criminals and suspicions that he is allegedly a major player in the drug trafficking and weapons supply trades.
Jordan hasn’t been photographed in years, even by garda surveillance, but a Sunday World team was watching as he settled back into life in rural Co. Kildare this week on the eight-acre estate where he lives.
Jordan has been based in the U.K. where he was declared bankrupt last year – a decision which has been recently overturned by the Insolvency Agency there.
Ironically, he returned to Ireland just as his old pal John Gilligan fled to the U.K. in fear for his life.
Jordan has been spotted drinking with old associates and attended the funeral of a brother of his close pal Martin ‘the Viper’ Foley in recent weeks, where our team snapped him.
He is travelling in a high-powered,
U.K. registered car and friends say the father of two is totally paranoid about his security whenever he steps outside the safety of his gated home, where he has installed a top-of-the-range CCTV system.
Our team caught up with him this week as he emerged from his bolthole with a horsebox attached to an old jeep.
But Jordan was in no mood to talk and made frantic phonecalls as we attempted to ask him about his businesses.
Gardai have intelligence that Jordan was linked to John Gilligan’s evil empire after he was jailed following the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.
He had Gilligan’s blessing while he was banged up and was one of the first old contacts the
pint-sized thug tried to contact when he was released from prison last October.
Gilligan believes that Jordan owes him a sizeable profit of his alleged illicit earnings since 1996, following the collapse of his gang.
As our snaps show, Jordan has piled on the pounds and grown fat from the spoils of his ill-gotten wealth, but sources say he has been reluctant to part with any money despite Gilligan’s insistence that he owes him.
Last year Jordan took the bizarre step of filing for bankruptcy in the U.K. but the Sunday World understands that his bankruptcy was ‘annulled’.
His pad ‘Blackthorn Cottage’ in Kildare is not registered in his name. His mother Pearl, who is from from Killinarden in Tallaght, bought it outright in 2000 with no mortgage.
It is understood she has never lived there despite holding the deeds of the property in her name.
Jordan has been known to gardai since he was a teenager growing up in Tallaght, when he was suspected of dealing drugs.
However, during the investigation into the murder of Veronica Guerin, which centred on John Gilligan’s gang, his significance in the underworld became apparent.
When a distribution centre was raided at Greenmount Industrial Estate and a list of customers was found, Jordan’s name was at the top and he was alleged to be buying up to 20 kilos of hash a week.
After the gang was smashed he still had Gilligan’s blessing to become a major wholesale supplier of drugs and firearms.
The Criminal Assets Bureau investigated him and demanded almost e1million from him in unpaid tax.
He was named in the CAB’s 2008 report due to the significance of an appeal against them. It was ruled that it was up to the defendant, not the State, to prove the tax bill was wrong – which was of major legal significance to the CAB’s powers.
Jordan was twice arrested in connection with the murder of mum of two, Baiba Saulite, who was assassinated at the door of her home as her children slept upstairs in 2006.
Jordan was questioned about supplying the gun that was used in her murder, although it is was explained by Gardai at the time that he did not know what his then pal Marlo Hyland wanted it for when he handed it over.
The thug donned his best pin-striped suit when he turned out to offer his sympathies to his one-time business partner and lifelong pal Martin ‘the Viper’ Foley earlier this month. But he looked like any other Kildare farmer last week in a t-shirt and jeans as he worked in the outhouses at his home.
Along with Foley, he helped to found Viper Debt Recovery and Repossession Services in 2005. But he stepped down as a director of the firm in June 2010.
Jordan remained close to Gilligan throughout his time in prison and during her legal battle with CAB over the Jessbrook Equestrian Centre in nearby Enfield Geraldine Gilligan told the High Court in 2008 her only income was €5,000 per annum that she received from Jordan “for grass”. He was described in court as a “stud farmer”.
Gardai suspect it was Jordan who helped Gilligan forge a link with the Dundon gang behind bars. He had been close with Wayne Dundon for years.
It is believed Jordan forked out significant amounts of cash to the IRA when it was being run from Dublin by Alan Ryan.
Ryan’s outfit were believed to be behind the murder of Jordan’s nephew Alan Barry in March 2012.
Barry (30), was shot dead in a house in Kildare along with his pal Zilvinas Varnauskas (31).
It is believed that Barry worked as an enforcer for Jordan but had decided to go it alone in the drugs trade and threatened to take out a ‘Mr Big’ in the Co. Kildare area. Gardai believe Jordan warned Barry, but his advice went unheeded.
After Alan Ryan’s murder it is understood Jordan stopped paying his tithe to the paramilitaries and fell foul of the new command. They put a bounty on his head and the fallout coincided with the wrath of other major criminals.
The burly criminal fled the country and sought safety in the U.K. where it is believed he continued to run his operations. But in recent weeks underworld sources say he has been back in Ireland showing his muscle.
As Gilligan remains in Birmingham, it remains to be seen if Jordan can help his old boss out.
