http://www.herald.ie/news/how-alan-ryan-...k-30312922.htmlHow Alan Ryan signed his own death warrant in a face-off at a city car park.
29 MAY 2014 12:00 AM
THE gang that were involved in organising and carrying out the murder of Alan Ryan are one of the most organised and longest established mobs in the country.
Drug dealing, tiger kidnappings, armed robberies, punishment shootings, assaults and stealing huge amounts of drugs and cash from other gangs are what they have specialised in, but they have also been suspected of involvement in at least six other murders over the past decade.
For years, the mob who control a drug-dealing patch from the north inner city all the way up to Drogheda, Co Louth, co-existed with the IRA but all this changed when the two factions became embroiled in a bitter dispute, which kicked off after one of Ryan’s mates was brutally assaulted by one of the gangsters in a north Dublin nightclub in late 2011.
This assault led to a number of tit-for-tat incidents, which finally resulted in Ryan’s murder in September, 2012.
One of the main players in the gang is a north Dublin criminal nicknamed Mr Big’. Previously, he had a working relationship with the dissident terrorists who turned to him for permission when they shot dead Mr Big’s drug-trafficking rival Michael Micka’ Kelly outside an apartment in Clonshaugh in September 2011.
POWER BASE
But that all changed throughout 2012 as Alan Ryan’s power base continued to grow and his scraps with the gangsters got more serious.
The IRA were involved in stealing a huge cash sum that was to be delivered to Spain to buy drugs for the gang who in turn hatched a plan to murder Ryan. However, they did not go ahead with it because a number of innocent young women were in the house where they intended to kill the Real IRA boss.
As the tension continued, gardai officially warned Ryan on a number of occasions that his life was under threat but he continued with his violent cash drive against the mobsters, particularly street level criminals connected to them who were beaten up and had their drugs robbed.
The final straw came in August, 2012, when Ryan and his crew cut and beat up a very close associate of a tiger-kidnap boss outside a north Dublin pub.
He was said to be “absolutely furious” that his younger associate had been attacked in such a way and was “very angry” that Ryan’s crew were trying to extort money from his gang.
This led to a face-off between Alan Ryan and the tiger kidnapper in a Coolock carpark in which Ryan was warned: “You are dead, you will be getting a bullet in your head.”
It is understood that Ryan then issued counter death threats to the criminal and warned that he would continue to attack his younger associates.
A plan to murder Ryan was then put in place with up to 15 gangsters from four different crime groupings being actively involved, gardai believe.
“The shooting was far from a spur of the moment thing - it was planned for many weeks and even up to two months. Cars and apartments were all sorted in advance - flight tickets were booked - it was a large enterprise involving criminals acting in a disciplined and determined way.
“These lads carried out their own surveillance on Ryan and had a great handle on his movements. They were watching as he spent many of his evenings visiting his string of girlfriends and they were obviously watching as he walked down Grange Lodge Avenue on the day of the killing,” a senior source explained.
And it was carried out in a clinical and brutal manner in broad daylight. The killing was so well planned that no-one has yet been charged with the murder and unusually the gunman has not been definitely identified.
Tellingly, all of the gangsters who were involved in the murder plot are all still alive and have not been targeted in any meaningful way by the newly-formed IRA grouping which emerged at the start of last year.
But it has not been all plain sailing for the gangsters, who became the focus of increased garda attention after the murder and many of the criminals are now facing serious charges before the courts or have fled since the high-profile murder.
One of the most senior members of the mob is arch-criminal Paschal Kelly (48) who is on-the-run and had his Co Cavan home, a car and €14,000 in cash seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) last February.
The High Court heard evidence from CAB that Kelly had 42 previous convictions, including one for which he received ten years imprisonment for robbery of travel agents.
The court also heard Kelly and his associates had access to a number of vehicles which he drove using a general car dealer’s/garage insurance policy, even though he has no record of involvement in the motor trade.
Kelly, like many of the mob involved in Alan Ryan’s murder, have strong connections to Co Cavan where some of them have built large homes in rural locations.
It was the presence of these mobsters which led gardai to discover €5m worth of heroin, an Uzi sub-machine gun and a handful of bullets during a raid at a derelict house in Virginia, Co Cavan, in April last year.
Meanwhile, Paschal Kelly has fled the country but his close associate Mr Big’ has remained in Dublin and is unable to flee because he is under garda surveillance after being forced to hand over his passport to the authorities as part of his bail conditions in relation to serious charges that he is facing.
However, this has not stopped him being involved in a number of major gangland spats, including with some of Alan Ryan’s former associates.
In March of this year, the gang boss was involved in an incident in which he threatened and pointed a handgun at Ryan’s former pal Darragh Evans (24).
Gardai launched an investigation after officers received a call saying that Mr Big’ approached the vehicle and then smashed in its front window before pointing a handgun at him.
Evans managed to flee and gardai were alerted to the situation, which happened close to the Dolphin House pub in south inner city Dublin.
This was not the first time that Mr Big’ had caused mayhem in that part of the capital - he was arrested at James Street on December 4, 2012, just days after returning from Spain where he had spent the months after Ryan’s murder. When arrested he was driving with a close criminal associate and in possession of cable ties.
ASSASSINATE
Detectives later received information that he was on his way to assassinate drug-dealing rival Greg Lynch. The convicted heroin dealer survived after he was shot in the face in an unconnected murder attempt last October.
As he continues his involvement in serious crime, Mr Big’ remains a prime target for the gardai’s Organised Crime Unit and sources say that his gang remain one of the most active in the country.
Despite being under death threat from dissident Republicans, they have continued with their activities and have in fact taken the upper hand in the feud between the factions, which has led to many of Alan Ryan’s former associates being driven from their homes.
Innocent family members of these individuals have also been targeted as the crime gangs continue with their drive against Ryan’s faction.
At the same time, the mob spent months trying to gather money that had been promised to it by criminals who clubbed in and paid for Ryan’s murder.
And other major criminals continue to circle around them. In early May, Mr Big’s close associate Christopher Zambra (39) was shot dead in broad daylight in Drimnagh, south Dublin, leading to speculation that associates of Ryan orgainsed the murder.
Zambra’s death is a major blow for Mr Big’ as the two men were very close, with Zambra being seen by gardai at the gang boss’ heavily fortified home just days before the murder.
What is not in doubt is that the gangland landscape has dramatically changed since the murder of Alan Ryan, but the body-count increases as the underworld’s endless round of blood letting continues.
