EXCLUSIVE: We’ve foiled six murders this year, Garda speak out Part 1 AN ELITE Garda unit has stepped in to foil six imminent murders in recent months, its boss reveals today.
“Half a dozen plots have been thwarted through the proactivity of this unit. If we didn’t do what we did there would be people dead,” Detective Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan tells The Irish Daily Star Online.
And he also says that most of the targets are blissfully unaware that his unit — the anti-gang Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau — has stepped in to save them.
In a hard-hitting two-part interview — the first since the unit was formed on 9 March — Mr O’Sullivan also reveals: Gunmen are becoming increasingly volatile because they are taking cocaine to psych themselves up before shootings; That leads to increased risks of them shooting the wrong person; He is concerned at how violent younger crime gangs are — and how ready they are to use firearms; Criminals are renting out guns to use in robberies and murders — for just a few thousand euro; Gangsters who receive official Garda notification that their lives are in danger often abuse the officers sent to warn them, and: The average crime boss is only at the top for a few years — before either gardai put him in jail or other criminals destroy him.
CRIME FIGHTER: Chief Superintendent Michael O Sullivan in his office in Dublin Castle. Date:29/07/2015 Photo:Mick O'Neill. Michael o'toole CRIME FIGHTER: Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan in his office in Dublin Castle describing the tough new approach to crime in Ireland. Force
Mr O’Sullivan — who has more than 30 years’ experience in the war on crime — was handpicked by Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan to head up the Bureau in March, when it was formed from the merger of two separate organisations: the National Drug Unit and the Organised Crime Unit.
Mr O’Sullivan said the merger was needed because criminals are changing their strategies — and the force needs to keep up with the estimated 25 major gangs operating here.
“Whatever criminals do, we have to develop a strategy and a structure and a process to target them,” he told The Star — adding that younger criminals’ willingness to use extreme violence is a huge concern.
He said: “Whereas before you may have one guy with a grudge against another guy, now they might go that extra step and say, ‘Well I am not going to give that fella a hiding, I am going to shoot him in the leg’ — invariably he misses, or he shoots a passerby.
“There is a greater propensity for violence among younger criminals — that is the bottom line.”
He said the use of cocaine by gunmen is a big problem too, with them often shooting the wrong person — such as the 2009 murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan.
Mr Geoghegan (28) was gunned down in a case of mistaken identity in Limerick by McCarthy-Dundon killer Barry Doyle — who was supposed to kill one of their rivals.
Picture Shows.Irish Daly Star crime Corresponder interviewing Chief Superintendent Michael D O‚ÄôSullivan in his office in Dublin Castle. Date:29/07/2015 Photo:Mick O'Neill. Michael o'toole WORKING: Chief Superintendent O’Sullivan says the Garda’s new anti-gang Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau has hit the ground running foiling six murders. Risk
Chief Supt O’Sullivan said: “Some people will take coke to do a shooting to give themselves the confidence and sometimes it blurs their thought process and they could end up doing very stupid things — getting the wrong person and getting caught.
“These people are not as organised as we might think they are.”
The senior detective said the use of cocaine by gunmen is also putting gardai at risk.
“Every garda that goes out on the beat, you don’t know what they are going to come across, you don’t know what is going to happen,” he said.
“It is only a matter of time [before] they come across something and are at risk — so all gardai are at risk.
“[Anytime] anyone picks up a gun, the public are at risk. We are very conscious about trying to seize as many guns as possible and to close down avenues where people are trying to shoot people and to investigate them thoroughly and to put people who do this sort of thing behind bars.
“Somebody who goes and picks up a gun, he does not have a lot of principles — or a lot of training. He doesn’t care a lot as to what he is going to do.”
Chief Supt O’Sullivan also said he does not believe there are more than a handful of expert, experienced hitmen in Ireland — but also said gangs don’t use drug addicts to carry out shootings as they can’t be trusted.
Instead, he said, gang bosses’ lieutenants carry out most shootings.
He said: “It would be people that you would trust to do it and it takes a lot to go and shoot somebody and keep your head afterwards.”
Gardai have officially warned hundreds of criminals over the past few years that they are under imminent threat of death — but Chief Supt
O’Sullivan says in many cases the warnings are met with derision.
The people they are trying to save verbally abuse officers giving the warnings — officially called GIM forms — he said.
“Frequently gardai go to criminals and give them warnings to say, ‘We have information that you are being targeted, people are trying to kill you’.
Gardai could go and give a GIM form to somebody and be abused by him, because they always abuse gardai,” he said.
“That is the nature of the culture of criminals who spend their time abusing gardai because it is part of their image, this macho thing.”
CLEAN UP: Limerick is the heart of Ireland's gangland and one of the focus cities for the new crime unit. CLEAN UP: Limerick is the heart of Ireland’s gangland and one of the focus cities for the new crime unit. Plots
The Bureau has been hugely active and has seized around 10 firearms since it was created — and Mr O’Sullivan says his officers have saved at least six lives.
He said: “You could look at the number of guns seized, you could look at the number of people en route to shoot someone who were stopped.
“I certainly believe several attempts on lives have been thwarted by our actions and a number of lives have definitely been saved by our seizure of firearms and drugs — of that there is no doubt.
“If we didn’t do what we did there would be people dead. Half a dozen plots have been thwarted through the proactivity of this unit. That’s what we do — it’s our job.
“[The public] might never hear of it. A car could be stopped and a guy could be caught with a gun, it may not even get into a newspaper.
“Somebody having his tea doesn’t realise he was almost going to get killed… There are people who are alive today who may or may not know we saved their lives, but we certainly have saved their lives.”
Mr O’Sullivan also said crime bosses can make a lot of money — but are rarely around to enjoy it for long.
He said: “They don’t have a great life expectancy. I don’t mean they will all get shot. I mean if someone is running high in the year 2000, by the year 2004 he could either be shot or lose everything because the Gardai arrested him and took his money and his drugs. Or he can fall off his perch and someone else comes along.
“There are very few criminals who go from A to Z and remain top of the heap with the whole thing intact… They could make quite a lot of money for a short period of time, but they don’t tend to have longevity.
“Sometimes these guys believe their own propaganda and they think they are invincible — they aren’t.”
Chief Supt O’Sullivan also said it was extremely difficult for gangs to get their hands on guns — which often come in as part of drugs shipments.
“Firearms are difficult to get and we would like to keep it that way,” he said.
“It is not easy to get firearms. They sometimes come in in shipments and sometimes we get them coming in, sometimes we get them after they come in and sometimes we get them before they come in.
Robbery
“Sometimes they would only want to rent a gun because if they buy a gun it becomes a liability.
“So if they do a robbery, they might say, ‘If you give me a couple of grand out of that robbery, I will give you the gun’, sometimes that happens. “They might buy a sawn-off shotgun — it is the easiest thing to do.
“Guns are so hard to get that people who manage to get them into the country are very reluctant to hand it out willy-nilly.”
Pick up tomorrow’s Irish Daily Star to read part 2 of our interview — drugs crime in Ireland.
