GANGLAND EXCLUSIVE Part 1: MOB target pays €100k to stop hit A CLOSE associate of a gangland murder victim has handed over €100,000 to the gunned-down man’s killers — to save his own life, it has emerged.
Sources have told The Irish Daily Star Online that the pal of gun victim and criminal Mickey Devoy stumped up the cash to the gang behind Devoy’s January 2014 death — because he fears he is about to be killed himself.
“He is terrified that he is next and has paid the cash over to save his own skin,” a source told The Irish Daily Star Online last night.
It’s understood the man — who had a close relationship with criminal Devoy, who was gunned down in south-west Dublin in January 2014 — feared he was being targeted by gangsters linked to convicted drug dealer Greg Lynch.
Screen Shot 2015-09-24 at 11.20.26 BLASTED TO DEATH: Murdered crime Mickey Devoy Revenge
Associates of Lynch (30) blamed Devoy for a failed murder bid on him in central Dublin in October 2013 — in which he was shot in the face as he stood outside a pub.
The associates of Lynch — a convicted drug dealer from south inner city Dublin who is a target for gardai in the city — are believed to have gunned down Mickey Devoy (41) in revenge for that attack.
And now The Irish Daily Star Online has learned that they were also gunning for an ally of Devoy — but he hopes to have paid them off with the €100,000 in cash.
Devoy, a habitual criminal from the Balbutcher area of Ballymun, was gunned down on Saturday, January 18, 2014 — just a day after he had been released from the top-security Portlaoise Prison.
Victim Devoy, who had over 60 convictions, had been jailed on warrants a few weeks earlier after gardai became concerned for his safety.
But he took a legal challenge to the detention — and won, being released on the Friday night.
But the victory meant he only had around 24 hours to live.
His body was discovered off the Foxhill Road in Bohernabreena, Tallaght, at around 10.45pm on Saturday, January 18— after detectives from Tallaght Garda Station came upon the scene while on routine patrol.
Violent
The officers had initially stopped to investigate a car parked suspiciously on the road, but as they arrived alongside it, two men jumped into the vehicle and sped away.
The victim had been shot several times in the head and neck in a brutal slaying.
Devoy had spent most of his adult life in prison for a string of violent offences, including a four-year stretch for threatening to kill a man and gouge his eyes out.
He was also prime suspect for the 2005 murder of criminal Mark Byrne — who was shot dead moments after he left Mountjoy jail.
Devoy is believed to have shot Byrne because he accused Byrne of slashing his face during a fight when they were both locked up in the jail.
