THIS is the stash of cocaine and cannabis seized last night in Dublin.
The drug dealing gang, targeted by a specialist garda unit, were caught red-handed last night with a stash of cocaine and cannabis.
The seized drugs are estimated to be worth €150,000.
The seizure and arrests came after officers forced a car to stop on the Belgard Road in Tallaght just after 6pm.
A Gardaí spokesperson said that officers attached to the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau arrested three men.
“A large quantity of cocaine was seized in this vehicle and during a follow up search in the Tallaght area, further quantities of cocaine and cannabis herb were recovered with a total estimated street value of €150,000,” it was added.
“Three males aged 34, 32 and 18 remain in custody at Tallaght Garda station under the provisions of Section 2- Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996,” said the press officer.
Former INLA leader Declan 'Whacker' Duffy has been arrested by gardai. Duffy's arrest took place just before midday. He is now being detained in Clontarf Garda Station.
It's understood he was arrested in connection to allegations of extortion.
Duffy's arrest comes just three days after the Herald revealed that Duffy and Dessie 'Border Fox' O'Hare were among a group of men involved in two incidents.
Gardai in Rathcoole are probing the incidents, which occurred just 15 minutes apart at an estate in the Citywest area.
A businesssman and a security guard were the victims of an assault. Both refused to make a complaint to gardai - and the security guard was subjected to a serious assault which left him hospitalised.
Gardai believe the assaults are linked to INLA extortion activities in the capital and are trying to establish which dissident figures were involved in the savage attacks.
It is not clear whether Duffy's arrest was in connection to this incident.
However, sources say that "reliable information" has come in that both Duffy and O'Hare were present along with a feared Tallaght criminal.
In April, the Herald revealed that gardai were looking to speak to Duffy after a Mercedes car owned by a 68-year-old businessman was burnt out by associates of the gangland thug in the Glasnevin area of the capital.
Originally from Armagh, Duffy is now spending his time between two addresses in south inner city and an address north of the border.
He joined the INLA in the 1980s and was still a teenager when he was involved in the murder of Sergeant Michael Newman in Derby, England in 1992.
It was not until July 2010 that he was convicted and received a life sentence for the murder of the unarmed police officer.
Like Duffy, O' Hare was also released under the Good Friday Agreement after being given a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and mutilating Dublin dentist John O'Grady in 1987 and was linked to multiple murders during the Troubles.
The feared Christy Kinahan crime cartel has teamed up with a notorious gang controlled by a multi-millionaire Traveller crime boss. The gang, which specialises in high end car theft, is believed to be based out of Meath.
Sources say that the gang have been providing the Kinahan mob with top class motors.
"These include top-of-the range Audis, BMW's and Range Rovers which have been either shipped out of the country in containers or simply driven out by people paid to do this.
"The Traveller gang are actually doing a lot of business with the Kinahan network in terms of drugs trafficking, so it is an arrangement that seems to be working very well," a source told the Herald.
The Traveller gang are reported to be involved in car theft, drug dealing, armed robberies and cash-in-transit robberies.
A notorious Meath-based Traveller criminal who is originally from Finglas has been acting as a "middle man" between the two gangs.
Aside from serving numbers spells in Irish prisons the Traveller thug who is aged in his 40s was recently hit with a huge bill by Criminal Assets Bureau.
As well as being connected with foreign and Traveller gangs, he is also a close associate of jailed Finglas gangland figure Alan 'Fatpuss' Bradley.
Gardai have established that dozens of high-end cars that have been stolen here over the past year have been moved out of the country hidden in ship containers underneath scrap, tyres and discarded computers and even disguised in bigger vehicles on cargo ships from Dublin Port.
Sources told The Herald that a number of 'kingpins' have been identified, including a Nigerian criminal who moves between Dublin and London and a Lithuanian crimelord based in the Tyrrelstown area of west Dublin.
Gardai are closing in on the criminals responsible for the horrific assaults on Amy and Nicole Rice in May. The sisters came forward back in May to tell the story of how they were brutally attacked by two men they met on Facebook in a 20-hour ordeal in Newbridge.
The two men responsible, who Gardai believe are from Crumlin and Tallaght, fled overseas after the incident but it is believed they are back in the country and on the brink of arrest.
"It would be best if these individuals gave themselves up so that detectives can speak to them and get to hear what they have to say about this matter," a senior source pointed out to independent.ie.
"These are heavy duty fellas with links to drugs gangs in south Dublin," the source said.
"They have significant criminal connections and gardai have been monitoring the safety of the injured parties in this case."
The source added that the property where the assaults happened has been forensically examined by gardai and key evidence has been obtained.
The sisters told the Herald about their horrendous experience on the night of May 14.
The pair agreed to meet with two men who they initially spoke to through Facebook in April.
Amy said the pair seemed nice, and they arranged to travel to Newbridge, Co Kildare for a drink. They met the two men, aged 25 and 30, at a bus stop and were brought to an apartment in Newbridge town centre shortly after 7.30pm.
Soon after, Amy said one of the men, who is originally from Crumlin, started “acting weird”.
“His demeanour changed and he started talking about how he had been in jail before,” she said.
“They started to get aggressive, and my sister got up to leave at about 8pm. One of them pulled her hair, pushed her to the ground and started kicking her in the head.”
The brave young woman attempted to intervene to save her younger sister but the other man started to pummel her in a frenzied attack.
“They tied us up with rags and put them on our mouths and just kept laughing and laughing as they beat us up,” Amy said.
The sisters say the men worked themselves into a frenzy and asked them to ring “someone with money to pay a ransom” which would set them free.
But when the sisters said they didn’t have any money in their family, they were beaten further.
“They thought it was hilarious, they started ringing this woman and had her on loudspeaker and she kept saying ‘let me hear them scream’.
“Nicole made a run to the corridor outside and fell on the stairs trying to get away and passed out at the bottom.
“They thought she was dead and started ringing people on the phone and saying they needed to dig holes in the Wicklow mountains as they didn’t know what to do with these girls.”
Amy says the last thing she remembered was her sister’s body lying at the bottom of the stairs before she blacked out during another beating.
“I was so scared,” said brave Amy. “I thought we were going to die, I was full sure they were going to kill us.”
Nicole woke up hours later in bed beside her sister. She said as she was not tied up she tried to untie her sister but the men, who were sleeping beside them, woke and the assaults started again.
“They started lining us up against the wall and taking pictures and sending to friends what they had done to us. They were really proud of it.
“They eventually let us go at about 3pm in the afternoon and said if we went to the guards they would kill us and our family.
“They had rung people and found out information about us – they knew our dad was in hospital and everything.”
Covered in blood, the sisters ran out of the apartment and a man, driving by with two children, stopped and took them straight to hospital.
The sisters said they were still receiving threats from the men in hospital. The pair took a number of tests and scans and they believe they may have been drugged on the night of their ordeal.
Amy suffered a suspected fractured jaw. Nicole received a broken nose.
Both siblings suffered severe head and facial injuries.
