Gang target flees country after five attempts on life.
KEN FOY – 18 MAY 2015 08:19 AM
The country’s number one gangland target has finally decided to flee the country and is now based in England, the Herald can reveal.
Michael Frazer (35), who has survived at least five separate attempts to murder him in the past 14 months, previously proclaimed he would never flee abroad.
However, sources say that he has not made contact with gardai for a number of weeks and detectives have received information that the under-threat car dealer is now in England.
Drimnagh man Frazer, who had been living in the capital’s south inner city, has been a main target for many of the country’s most dangerous crime groupings, including his former pals in the ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson mob, thugs associated with gangland hardman Paul Rice, as well as a ruthless hitman-for-hire from Clondalkin.
It is understood that Frazer is in “so much bother” over a personal issue involving serious gangsters.
READ MORE: Gardai foil yet another attempt on gang target Michael Frazer's life
Frazer, who does not have serious criminal convictions, is no stranger to violence. His family home in Drimnagh has been shot at on a number of occasions and a grenade was even thrown into it in June 2008, causing extensive damage to the property.
All these incidents were linked to the now-defunct Crumlin/Drimnagh feud but in March of last year it emerged that Frazer was a top gang target again when he was shot a number of times in a botched hit in the car park of a church in Clondalkin.
He later stumbled into Clondalkin Garda Station “pumping blood” after driving his Mini Cooper from the shooting at Bawnogue Road, Clondalkin. Gardai believe the gun attack was carried out by a notorious hitman who is the chief suspect for two murders in west Dublin.
The next major incident happened last July when the Organised Crime Unit (OCU) intercepted an assassination team in the South Circular Road area and these same mobsters were also arrested by gardai in January of this year dressed in disguises, ready to pounce on their targets. On both occasions this notorious duo were released without charge.
An even more serious attempt on Frazer’s life occurred at a pub car park in Firhouse on August 1 last year. Frazer was lured to a meeting in the car park of a pub in the south Dublin suburb when a masked gunman walked up to his car and tried to open fire.
But the weapon jammed and Frazer rushed to nearby Tallaght Garda Station to report the incident.
A short time later, locals in the Allenton estate in Tallaght contacted gardai to report two men wearing balaclavas were attempting to hijack cars after a getaway car used in the earlier incident was found burnt and a semi-automatic pistol was found in the vehicle.
panicked
Crime figure Paul Rice was later arrested but released without charge in relation to this incident but the pressure continued to increase on Frazer.
Around a fortnight after this, armed gardai rushed to Brickfield Park in Drimnagh after Frazer made a panicked call to gardai saying he saw a man wearing a balaclava standing outside the house.
In January of this year, two heroin addicts from the Ballyfermot area were arrested and questioned about another failed murder attempt on Frazer at Islandbridge on November 1 last.
The junkie duo were released without charge even though their DNA was found on airbags in the stolen car that rammed into Frazer’s BMW.
