This Good Friday Agreement seems quite a creepy and absurd thing: I mean, releasing convicted cutthroats, imprisoned for specific violent crimes, NOT for their political ideas? WTF?

http://victims.org.uk/s08zhk/pdfs/counte...ased%201998.pdf

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/alan-kelly-warned-by-garda%C3%AD-over-dissident-republican-threat-1.2282152

Alan Kelly warned by gardaí over dissident republican threat
Minister for the Environment says he has received death threats since Irish Water set up.

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has received a warning from gardaí about threats made to him by dissident republicans.
Mr Kelly said he, his family and staff have received death threats since Irish Water was set up.
Speaking on RTÉ television’s Saturday Night with Miriam, he said a local Garda superintendent in Tipperary told him he was “under threat from dissident republicans.”
A 53-year-old man was arrested on the Dundalk to Ardee road on Saturday night by gardaí investigating the activities of dissident republicans.Man (53) held over dissident republican activity
“A couple of weeks ago a local Superintendent had to come up to me and find me and tell me to my face that I’m under threat from dissident republicans,” he said.
“It’s a difficult thing to talk about because it’s one thing to have some threats about yourself or nasty stuff about yourself but it’s another thing for stuff to be sent to your family, your wife, your parents but also your staff.
“These people just work for me and there’s people ringing them up saying they are going to be killed,” he added.
Mr Kelly said he thinks the group of people making the threats are “not really interested in water charges”.
“There is a broader issue here. There is a small group of people in this country who just want anarchy.”
Mr Kelly said the threats were serious and gardaí had to be involved.
“How do you distinguish between something whether it’s serious or not? You don’t know the minds of these people. In other countries people who work for politicians have been killed or injured and it’s completely unacceptable.”
When asked how many people have paid their water bills so far, he replied. “I don’t know....that’s being honest with you. I think Irish Water are going to announce it in the coming days.”
“There is never a wrong time to do the right thing. I’m not doing this to be popular, obviously, I’m doing it because it’s the right thing. It’s creating an infrastructure to ensure jobs.”
Mr Kelly said Irish Water has to have a board meeting before it informs him about the figures.
“I think we will be surprised by the volume of people that have paid their bills,” he said.
When asked if thought it was “shameful” that he is the Minister presiding over water charges when his family is from a Labour background he said: “I wouldn’t describe it as shameful. I wouldn’t do anything if I didn’t think it was right. I’m a person who’s driven by conviction, [I AM]very strong willed in what I do and what I say. What I say is what I mean and do.”
When it was put to Mr Kelly that the establishment of Irish Water was an “omnishambles” he acknowledged mistakes were made.
“Yes, there were lots of mistakes made. I’m often told I got one of the largest hospital passes in political history....and I agree, by the way.
“Lots of mistakes were made in relation to Irish Water but setting up Irish Water wasn’t a mistake.
“Down through history, water infastructure wasn’t invested in [to] the level it needed to be because it was up competing with education, healthcare, social welfare and being honest, it wasn’t sexy enough to get the large scale funding that was required.”

http://www.herald.ie/news/crime-boss-chr...k-31388907.html

Crime boss Christy Keane loses power in his arm after shooting in gym carpark.

Crime boss Christy Keane has partially lost power in his arm after he was gunned down in a murder attempt in the University of Limerick last month.

eane (54) was lucky to escape with his life after two gunmen fired at him as he was on his way into the gym at the university.
He was hit four times, twice in one arm, after 12 rounds were fired at him.
Keane managed to flee and survived after a pregnant trauma nurse came to his aid on June 29.
READ MORE: Gang member’s home raided as gardai close in on Christy Keane shooter
Keane was rushed to Cork University Hospital after the shooting but is now recovering at home in Limerick, according to the Sun on Sunday.
Reports have suggested that one of the bullets that hit him in the chest splintered apart, causing complications.
He now faces further surgery as he has lost a certain amount of mobility in his upper left arm.
READ MORE: Heroin-user arrested after bid to murder crime boss Christy Keane
There were fears that the shooting of the veteran gangster would reignite a decade-long feud in Limerick. The chief suspects are a gang of young thugs with close links to the McCarthy/Dundon gang.
Two people arrested and questioned over the botched hit have since been released without charge. Both handguns used in the attack were found in a burned-out vehicle.
READ MORE: Three criminal gangs in pact to kill Christy Keane
Detectives from Henry Street Garda Station are now hoping to interview Keane, now that he is recovering at home, over the emergence of a new alliance of crime gangs bidding to control the drugs market in Limerick.
Students at UL have also been asked to come forward with information following the attempted murder.
Anyone with information about the shooting is being asked to contact Henry Street Garda Station.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/crime/he-wanted-ira-hero-johnny-6106395

'He wanted to be an IRA hero': Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair breaks his silence over plot to kill him.

REPUBLICAN Antoin Duffy, 39, was convicted yesterday of hatching a plan to gun down ex-UDA chief on Troon beach.

FORMER Loyalist terror boss Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair claims he was the target of a murder plot because the would-be assassin wanted to be an IRA hero.

Republican Antoin Duffy, 39, was convicted yesterday of hatching a plan to gun down ex-UDA chief on Troon beach.

His cousin Martin Hughes, 36, and Paul Sands, 32, were also part of the plot.

The trio were found guilty after a nine-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow

Meanwhile, the gang also planned to assassinate Adair’s close ally Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory near his home in Ayr.

Adair, 51, believes Duffy - originally from Co Donegal - wanted to appease dissident republicans by organising the high-profile hit.

He told the Scottish Sun: “He [Duffy] wanted to start a terror cell here so he could get back home. Shooting me was his ticket back.


“You have to understand that Johnny Adair is one of the most hated figures in the dissident republican movement.

“Had they been successful, it would have given them credibility, and they would have achieved something the IRA never could.”

Adair, of Troon, Ayrshire, also said his killing could have sparked sectarian violence in Scotland.

Adair’s C Company thugs were linked to the sectarian murders of dozens of Catholics in Northern Ireland.


‘Mad Dog’ served 16 years for directing terrorism before moving to Scotland to escape loyalist feuds.

Duffy’s plot against him was revealed by MI5 surveillance and an operation involving Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Underworld sources claim Duffy was forced out of Ireland after getting caught up in a double murder that was not sanctioned by IRA leaders.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/northern-ireland/new-ballymena-uvf-boss-as-paul-gray-ousted

New UVF boss is a notorious sheep rustler
Roly Poly terror chief Paul Gray has been replaced as UVF boss of Ballymena by a notorious sheep rustler, we can reveal.
The Sunday World has learnt that a well-known Ballymena criminal has taken over the reins.

But already things have started to go wrong for the crook, who earned a reputation for house break-ins and stealing farm machinery and livestock.

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We can’t name the man for legal reasons but we can reveal he was convicted of a string of gun charges a decade ago that were linked to the UVF.



Sources have told the Sunday World the new boss is already unpopular with the rank and file after he started throwing his weight about.

And in one embarrassing incident he made a fool of himself when he tried to intimidate a young former UVF member.

“He made a fool of himself when he went round the houses demanding ‘dues’ from anyone who had anything to do with the UVF or YCV,” said a source.

“One 19-year-old lad told him he wasn’t paying him and that he wasn’t in the UVF anymore so he turned up at the wee lad’s house with two car loads of UVF men.

“He got out of the car and the wee lad came out with a bat of some kind. The wee lad was game as f**k and beat the boss all round his front garden.

“The lads in the cars didn’t get out to help and drove off. One of the cars ran out of petrol half way up the road. It was keystone cops kind of stuff.”

And the source says the new leader is so unpopular there have been some men asking for Paul Gray to come back as boss.

Like Gray there have also been rumours circulating that he has pocketed money on the sly behind the back of his UVF bosses on the Shankill.

Paul Gray

“He’s not well liked,” said the source. “He made his name from stealing everything he could get his hands on. He stole guns for the UVF. But thieving farm machinery and livestock was his big thing. Tractors, cattle and sheep – you name something on a farm and he’s stolen it.”

Paul Gray was finally stood down permanently from the UVF last year after he was accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the terror gangs coffers.

A wide-ranging internal investigation carried out by the UVF’s Shankill Road bosses revealed that Gray and his pal Darren ‘ch*nk’ O’Neill had stashed over £250,000 in secret bank accounts south of the border.

Gray and O’Neill had been ripping off the UVF for some time before bosses on the Shankill finally took action. Gray had been running a loan sharking operation and controlled a number of drug dealers in the area.

A team of senior UVF personnel based on Belfast’s Shankill Road arrived at Gray’s pub in Ballymena in January accompanied by a leading member of the Progressive Unionist Party to tell them they were finished.

Local UVF members in Ballymena were rounded up and told that if they were prepared to spill the beans on the nefarious activities of Gray and O’Neill, then they would have nothing to fear.

However that image does not seem to have been improved with the appointment of the new boss.

steven.moore@sundayworld.com

http://thestar.ie/exclusive-weve-foiled-six-murders-this-year-garda-speak-out-part-1/

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’Sullivan 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.

http://thestar.ie/exclusive-cocaine-comeback-as-garda-detective-speaks-out-part-2/

EXCLUSIVE: Cocaine comeback as garda detective speaks out part 2

IRISH punters are flocking back to cocaine because they have money in their pockets again, the Gardai’s top anti-drugs detective warns today.

In the second part of his exclusive interview with The Irish Daily Star Online, Detective Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan says people are snorting the dangerous party drug in huge numbers as the economy gets back to near boom times.

Chief Supt O’Sullivan leads the 120-strong recently formed Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau that is tasked with taking down crime lords and drugs barons.

Cocaine was at its height in Ireland during the heyday of the Celtic Tiger around 2007 —when the country was swamped with the drug.

But the economic crash of 2008 led to a slump in use of the drug, as people simply could not afford €80 or €100 for a night’s supply.

Gardai noticed users seemed to be deserting coke in favour of cheaper drugs like cannabis.

But as the economy appears to be back on its feet, the Garda annual report showed domestic seizures of the drug jumping from €3.6 million in 2013 to €7.6m last year.

Sources say this shows cocaine bosses like ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan (57) are targeting Ireland again from Spanish boltholes.

Chief Supt O’Sullivan — who warned in yesterday’s Irish Daily Star Online that gunmen are becoming increasingly unstable because they take cocaine before going on their hits — says there is no doubt coke is becoming more popular again.

Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 18.02.31Exotic

He said: “The increased cash flow will result in the increased use of cocaine. It can mirror the economy. Disposable income will mirror it, flash cars will mirror it, exotic holidays will mirror it — as will cocaine.”

The cocaine used in Ireland is largely produced by narco-terrorists in Colombia and imported here by vicious crime gangs, like those headed by banged up Limerick boss Wayne Dundon.

Both the Colombian cartels and the Irish gangs who sell their wares here have been behind countless murders — and coke users here are directly feeding both groups.

The top detective said: “People are funnelling money to criminal groups at home and abroad. If people are going to a nightclub and they get a gram of cocaine, they don’t particularly care that somebody got shot out of it.

Chief Supt O’Sullivan was speaking in his first major interview since the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau was formed by Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan on 9 March.

That squad sprang from the merger of the force’s two main crime fighting organisations — the Organised Crime Unit (OCU) and the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU).

Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 18.07.11
JOINT POLICING: As well as taking on the gangs in Ireland, the new bureau deals with international policing agencies like the US DEA, to build better intelligence.
Target

We revealed yesterday that the chief believes his team has already directly prevented six gun murders since March in its anti-gangland role, but it is also the force’s main focal point in the war on drugs.

OCU was tasked with taking down major crime gangs, while GNDU was going after significant importers of drugs — but the lines between the two are now so blurred that the force needs one organisation to fight them.

Chief Supt O’Sullivan said: “If you look back at it historically, crime has changed hugely in the country… whatever criminals do, we have to develop a strategy and a structure and a process to target them. Going back, you could divide groups years ago to those who dealt in drugs and those who did bank robberies. Rarely did they overlap.

“But then the Celtic Tiger came along, cocaine came along, it was acceptable to sell drugs because people then knew what they were doing when they were buying and selling drugs.

“Armed robbers weren’t dealing with drugs because they didn’t understand them… heroin dealers only sold heroin because they had an understanding of it.

“There was a demarcation line — the demarcation line has stopped. Guys who are doing armed robberies also see profits in getting drugs in.”

Just one kilo of cocaine has the capacity to earn a gang more than €200,000 in turnover in Ireland. It costs around €5,000 to buy in South America and it is then sent to Europe, where Irish gangsters buy it in bulk for around €25,000 a kilo.

That kilo is itself worth some €210,000 in Ireland. Although a kilo costs some €70,000, each imported kilo is high in purity and is normally cut with other white powder to stretch it out to two or three kilos on the street.

Mr O’Sullivan also said young Irish criminals are attracted to cocaine because they use it and realise its massive profits.

He said: “They see the connections and say, ‘Well, look, if we got 20 grand here we could send somebody out or we could get stuff from Colombia or Spain or wherever else’.

“Over the years people become multi-skilled and have contacts in the drugs business and they have contacts in the armed robbery business. They are in the melting pot in Mountjoy and they are all talking to each other.

“It depends whether they go into tiger kidnapping and put their profits into drugs.

“Whatever makes money they are going to do. They see buying and selling drugs as a legitimate means of making money.”

Mr O’Sullivan said gangs are moving away from importing cannabis resin to smuggling cocaine — and growing their own cannabis plants here.

As well as targeting cocaine importers, Mr O’Sullivan’s unit has led the hugely successful Operation Nitrogen, a nationwide crackdown on cannabis growhouses — that has seen them seize more than 40,000 plants since 2013, worth €35 million.

And one of the main reasons for the upsurge in growhouses, he said, was that it meant not having to deal with outside criminals.

He said: “The thing to get your hands on years ago was slabs of hash, kilos of cannabis resin. You would get it in from Holland, or Spain.

“Whereas now the price of cannabis resin has dropped and the price of cannabis grass has gone up.

“You cut out the middle men, you cut out truck drivers and foreign criminals and foreign customs — and you can grow your own stuff and the potency of it is increasing.

“Things change all the time. Years ago there were no growhouses, there was very little cocaine… the market has changed.”

Mr O’Sullivan also said Irish people have been caught in the past trying to smuggle cocaine directly from South America to Europe — such as

Tyrone mule Michaella McCollum Connolly (22) — but most of the drug destined for this country was sourced in Spain, as it was simply easier to organise.

He also said modern communications meant it had never been easier to secure a cocaine consignment to smuggle into this country.

He said: “To us it is academic whether they are going out there or not. In Colombia, you can buy cocaine very cheaply.

Exto
BUST: Chief Supt O’Sullivan says, “Why reinvent the wheel, why just not talk to somebody that you know who is in Spain who knows a guy who knows a Colombian who can get you 10 kilos of this, or 20 kilos or half a tonne?”
Market

“Whether you contact a guy in Amsterdam who knows a Colombian in Amsterdam who knows a guy attached to a cartel… with
modern communications, you are a stone’s throw from picking up a phone to a guy in La Paz… or a guy in Amsterdam, or a guy in Ukraine or a guy in Istanbul.

“Gangs will go anywhere to get cocaine. There are a lot of Irish people living in Spain, a lot of UK criminals living in Spain.

He also warned that cartels would demand payment for cocaine shipments they send to Ireland — even if gardai intercept them.

“Somebody has to pay it and it has to be the Irish guys — or it depends on their credit. But somebody, somewhere, has to pay it and that frequently leads to difficulties,” he said.

Although there is much focus on major importers like Kinahan and George ‘The Penguin’ Mitchell — whom gardai believe both smuggle large amounts of drugs into Ireland – Mr O’Sullivan said Irish criminals will get their cocaine from whatever source they can.

He said: “There is a lot of play on somebody being the main player; people will go and make money on drugs with or without main players.

“You might not know the main player or you might not want to know him or you don’t trust him — and anyway, you want to do your market independently.

“Pockets of criminals will go and do what they see as profit. If the cash is there, they will try and leverage that cash by bringing in drugs — with or without a central main player.”

He also said some small-time gangs were smuggling in relatively minor amounts of cocaine, adding: “There are people like that who try to do it under the radar. Sometimes they get away with it, sometimes they don’t – they are taking a big risk.”

He added: “They want to increase their 10 grand; they are not going to go to a guy who is bringing in a big shipment because they think they will be ripped off.

“They keep it simple… you have to know what you are at and you have to have the contacts. But you have to understand the trade. They have to have a degree of experience and they have to have somebody who knows the ropes — somebody who has been caught in the past, somebody who can give them advice.

“Starting off in the business and [you think], ‘I know nothing about it, but I have 20 grand and I am going to do it’ — you won’t last.

SAFE TO USE
CRIMINAL: Chief Supt O’Sullivan said, “It’s a way of life. It’s not uncommon to find the grandchildren of people who were active in the 1970s and 1980s selling drugs.
Risks

“There are risks, it is fraught with difficulty. You could be sold a powder that’s not coke.”

The chief also said there were now drug dealers whose parents and grandparents had also been involved in the trade – especially heroin.

He said: “I’ve done fellas and I knew their grandfathers. There are people in certain parts of the city who are using heroin and their parents may have died from it, their grandparents may have died from it.

“It is unusual to see that — you would think children of addicts would have learned.”as economy recovers, more people turning to white powder without realising consequences

Video: Armed Traveller gangs issue brutal threats to each other



forum image hosting



Armed with guns, knives and bombs two Traveller gangs have issued a stream of video threats against each other.
The videos, one issued from a Dublin-based gang, the other by a gang from another part of Leinster, appeared this week and threats of serious harm were issued by both sides.

There has been an ongoing feud between both gangs that has resulted in assaults but this latest pair of videos shows that the dispute may be entering a new, far more serious, phase.

The first part of the below video shows a group of men with a large arsenal of firearms, including shotguns, automatic weapons and ammunition.

They name a person before saying 'You said six weeks ago it was only a matter of time (that) you would get your brothers-in-law involved... They are involved and make the best of them.

'You send your young fellas acting like men - we will treat them like men.

'You come to our road - prepare for what you're seeing'.

The other gang responded days later, with an equally chilling clip, which is also included below.

A masked man, brandishing a machete, says: 'You are threatening that you are going to shoot again. My friend, this is what is waiting for you. We will end this once and for all.

'If we see you around the shops you will get that', he adds, waving the weapon.

'If we see you in a pub, any pub, you will get that,' he says, holding a shotgun and cartridges.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thugs held father of one down and tried to crucify him







greenshot


Masked raiders tried to nail Paul Harbinson’s feet to the floor in a ghoulish ‘crucifixion.’
The 23-year-old was still reel­ing from the horror of having 10-inch nails hammered through the palms of his hands as his attackers attempted to pin him to kitchen floor of his home.

The barbaric attack has plumbed new depths in a community numbed by decades of paramilitary-style attacks.

Dragged from the sofa of his home at Florence Walk in north Belfast on Thursday evening by a gang of masked men, he was beaten, held down and forced to lay his hands palms up on the kitchen counter as 10-inch nails were driven through both hands.

Not content with the cruelty inflict­ed, the gang leader then ordered for the Shankill man’s shoes and socks to be removed as they set about a repeat performance on his feet.



Today the Sunday World reveals the full extent of the attack.

Speaking exclusively from a secret location outside Belfast the father of one spoke of his horrific ordeal and revealed how he managed to escape a full crucifixion.

“I was in shock, adrenalin running through me so I didn’t really feel anything,” he said.

“But when I heard him saying about my socks and shoes I realised they were going to hammer my feet to the floor as well and that’s when I react­ed. I tried to pull my hands from the counter, but they were nailed tight,” Paul told the Sunday World.



“They started beating the f**k out of me so I pulled my head in and just kept jumping around the place trying to make sure they couldn’t get my feet, and they gave up.”

Paul, whose family is from the Shankill area, had just returned from staying at his girlfriend’s house when the monsters pounced.

“We had just sat down after putting the child to bed when the back door came flying in,” he recalled.

“The next thing I know I am dragged off the settee. Someone was screaming ‘get into the f**king kitchen’.



“I hadn’t a clue what was going on, I was asking them what I was supposed to have done, but they just kept screaming. They told me to put my hands out and when I refused he told me if I didn’t he would put the hammer right through my face.

“When I saw the bag of nails I knew, the next thing the nails were getting hammered through my hands and for some reason I couldn’t feel a thing, I just watched. It didn’t hurt, it was the adrenaline. I can feel them now though, the pain is bad.”

Paul’s new girlfriend Amy was dragged into the hall and forced to sit on the stairs while a member of the gang watched over her.

They tried to take her from the house, but she pleaded with them to let her stay as she had a one-year-old son sleeping upstairs.

“I was terrified, but I was trying not to cry or scream,” she said.

“I sat with my head in my hands as I heard them beating Paul. When I heard them saying about taking his shoes off I knew what they were doing to him and there was nothing I could do. I was terrified for him and my wee one”

Paul was nailed to the kitchen coun­ter for almost one hour until the fire service came to his rescue.

One of the 10-inch nails was removed from the kitchen worktop by industrial clip­pers. The other, which had been embedded in the cupboard below, had to be electrically sawn off .

“I am just glad that my girlfriend was there with me be­cause I wouldn’t have been able to call for help. I would have been there for I don’t know how long before someone came to help.

“I genuinely don’t know why this has been done to me. I have done nothing to deserve this and they have given me no reason for the at­tack. The people who did this to me are sick.”

In the wake of the sickening attack, local sources laid the blame on the UDA in the Lower Shankill area, headed up by thugs Mo Courtney and Matt Kincaid.

Loyalist sources also claim that the UDA have since accused Paul of drug dealing and breaking into people’s houses, stating this is the reason he was assaulted and that he had received a warning three weeks ago.



Paul denies all of their claims.

“I have never sold drugs or meth in my life,” he declared.

“I used to buy the illegal high 4CMC of the internet, but I never sold to an­yone, they were for me and my mates and that was about a year ago. As for housebreaking, never, I just wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t steal.

“To be honest I don’t know who attacked me because I haven’t been back and my phone was taken. UVF or UDA, it doesn’t matter to me at this stage because no-one should do some­thing like this to anyone. It’s sick.”

He said the truth about the attack will emerge.



“I genuinely don’t know why this was done to me, I have always kept myself to myself in the Shankill, I never socialised there or an­ything and I only moved back. I really have no idea but I will find out, it’s only a matter of time before someone spills,” he explained.

Paul, who has no criminal convic­tions, has insisted he will never return to the area he was born and raised.

“Whoever did this can go f**k them­selves, the lot of them can. I will never be back, what way is that to live? I just wish my family would leave too.”


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'Fat' Freddie Thompson in hiding after death threat



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Gangster Fat Freddie Thompson is in hiding after gardai warned of a threat on his life following his release from prison last week.
Thompson was released from Mountjoy Prison last Saturday but before he left the jail, Gardai informed him that that his life was in danger.

The 35-year is said to be 'paranoid and terrified' by the threat and there are conflicting reports regarding his whereabouts, with Dublin and Birmingham both mentioned as possible locations for his hideout.

Several factions may want to kill Thompson, with his gang at the centre of the feud in Crumlin that has claimed 15 lives since 2000.

Christy Kinihan's associates may also want to target Thompson as they dislike the fact that his high profile attracts unwanted Garda attention.

Thompson was behind bars for an attack on a man in a pub on Cork Street in the city in 2013. He was extradited from the Netherlands in May of 2014 and was immediately placed in custody before being hit with a 20-month sentence for his involvement in the pub brawl.

However, he was released after just 15 months.

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Gangland target Jay O’Connor has fled to Spain where he is in hiding after a rival gang launched a plot to kill him.
37-year-old O’Connor was due to return to Dublin from the UK last Thursday but instead chose to remain hiding.

The long-running dispute between Jason 'Jay' O'Connor and rival gangster David 'Gully' Goulding has already claimed one live so far this year.

The two former friends were both part of the Westies mob which wreaked havoc in west Dublin in the 1990s.

When the gang imploded the two men went their separate ways, Goulding linked up with a Coolock-based faction of the gang while O’Connor remained loyal to the Glennons.

Following the murder of an innocent man in a case of mistaken identity earlier this year tensions have reached fever pitch with gardai working overtime in an attempt to quell tensions in west Dublin.

O’Connor became aware of a threat on his life on the 12th of June this year and has been keeping a low profile ever since.

A source told the Sun that “There has been no sign of O’Connor but his enemies are driving around without a care in the world.

“He was meant to come back last week, but he’s now decided to stay away because there is a serious threat against him at the moment.

“People might think O’Connor is terrified of someone targeting him but the reality is he has a very good alibi if he’s out of the country and one of his enemies is taken out.”

The Sun reports that the gangster has been staying at his heavily fortified, Whitestown home which boasts CCTV and bulletproof windows.


O’Connor has a number of high profile allies in Dublin, including Fat Freddy Thompson’s south inner-city mob and gardai fear that the hood could call in certain “favours” from these associates.


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Gardai find €60,000 of drugs at house after landlord reports burglary



Gardai in Palmerstown discovered €60,000 of drugs after being called to a house to investigate a burglary.
The bizarre incident unfolded in the early hours of the morning in Palmerstown, west Dublin, on Friday when the landlord called gardai after becoming suspicious that someone had broken into his house where he was sub-letting a room.

When officers from Ballyfermot Garda Station entered the room which the landlord had thought had been broken into, gardai discovered paraphernalia linked to drug dealing and obtained a search warrant which they later executed.

Gardai searched the room and discovered the large drugs haul.

In a follow-up operation on Friday afternoon, a Ballyfermot man aged in his early 20s was arrested.

The suspect was released without charge over the weekend and a file will now be prepared for the DPP.

"The landlord in this case had nothing to do with the drugs at all. He became suspicious that a burglary had taken place in his property.

"The officers at the scene quickly established that no one had broken into the room that he was concerned about but quickly realised that there were drugs in the room and then acted in a prompt manner and now these drugs are off the street," a source explained.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/man-shot-dead-by-bmx-riding-assassin-named

Man shot dead by BMX riding assassin named.

A masked gunman on a BMX bike shot a man dead as part of a long-running gang feud.
The gun attack took place in the Greenhills area of Athy shortly after 5pm yesterday and a suspect was arrested shortly afterwards.

The victim was been named locally as Jason Doogue (22) who is from Athy, Co Kildare. His mother, Mary, was killed in 1995.

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The victim was sitting on a wall with up to four friends when the assailant approached him on a BMX bike. The gunman was wearing a balaclava.

He opened fire at close range with a handgun and shot Doogue once, who collapsed over the wall. The gunman, in front of horrified onlookers, then leant in over the wall and discharged a further two shots at his target before fleeing.

Doogue struggled to his feet and collapsed at the entrance of a nearby house. A woman attempted to cradle him and neighbours said the dying man cried out "get me help, get me help" as he lay bleeding on the doorstep.

The victim was critically ill when the emergency services arrived and he was rushed to Naas hospital.

He died from his wounds about an hour and a half later.

Gardaí carried out a series of searches in the town in the immediate wake of the shooting and arrested a suspect, who is in his 40s and from the Athy area.

He can be held without charge for up to seven days.

The Offices of the State Pathologist have been notified and a post mortem examination is expected to take place today.

A motive for the gun slaying has not yet been established, but one theory being investigated is that the killing was part of a drugs feud in the Kildare town.

Doogue was known to gardaí for public order offences.

The scene of the gun attack remained sealed off overnight as investigations led by officers based in Athy garda station continued.

A group of young women wept openly near the scene.

A 22-year-old friend, fighting back her tears, said: "Jason was just waiting to go into his friend's house and have a shower before going on a date with his girlfriend. It's terrible what happened him. He had a hard life."

Prior to yesterday's murder, there had been a number of recent pipe bomb and gun attacks on homes in Athy. Garda resources had been increased in recent weeks as fears grew about an upsurge in violence.

A series of incidents in the town, including one in which shots were fired, stemmed from a feud between two groups, suspected of being involved in drug trafficking and other crimes.

In 1995, Jason Doogue's mother - Mary (30) - was kicked to death by her ex-lover Stephen Davis (20) in a jealous rage following a night out. He was later found guilty of her murder. He spent more than 15 years in prison before being released on licence.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/fat-freddie-under-threat-for-pocketing-cash

Fat Freddie under threat for pocketing cash.

FAT’ Freddie Thompson is hiding out in England under threat from the Kinahan Cartel for pocketing cash he was supposed to collect on behalf of the crime organisation.
The Dublin thug left Ireland shortly after his release from prison earlier this month.

It is believed Thompson travelled to Alicante and collected money owed to him by other criminal figures based there, but has since gone to the U.K.

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It is understood he has been in London and Birmingham since returning from Spain.

He’s believed to be in Birmingham at the moment and is afraid to return to Dublin,” said a source.

The Sunday World has learnt that some of Thompson’s former associates in the Kinahan Cartel fell out with him over money and he now fears they will come after him as a result.

“Thompson’s crew were supposed to collect money for the Kinahans in Ireland, but the Kinahans got word that they were pocketing some of the cash,” said a source.

Thompson is also believed to have been isolated by two former close associates who wrongly suspected him of giving information to gardai which led to the two major drug seizures.

Another man who survived a number of assassination attempts has also been leading a whispering campaign against Thompson.

Thompson was extradited from Amsterdam to Ireland in May 2014 on charges of violent disorder, following an attack on a man in Morrissey’s Pub in Cork Street in January 2013.



He served a 15-month sentence over the brawl and was released earlier this month. Gardai visited Thompson in Mountjoy a day before his released and told him they had intelligence there was a credible threat to his life.

He was released from prison a few days early to give him time to get out of the country.

While Thompson fell out with the Kinahan Cartel, his cousin Liam Byrne still remains close to the gang. Byrne met up with Daniel and Christy Kinahan Jnr on a recent visit to Dublin for a boxing event.

Gardai believe Byrne and his associates are key links in a chain of drug and weapons shipments into Ireland for the Kinahan mob.

The fact that Thompson was previously close to the Kinahan Cartel offers him little protection. The gang are believed to be responsible for murdering their former associate Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh in the Costa del Sol last year and his brother Paul Kavanagh in Drumcondra, north Dublin, earlier this year.

Criminal figures including Christopher ‘Git’ Russell were among those who owed money to the gang. Russell had been repeatedly targeted by Hatchet and Paul Rice over the debt, but the Kinahan operation learned Russell had been paying back the money.

Tallaght criminal Rice was once a key figure in the cartel, but sources say he fears he will be whacked ever since Hatchet was gunned down in Spain last September.

Sources say Rice had been under serious pressure from the cartel to force Paul Kavanagh to pay back what he owed or else he would be killed. He has been laying low since Paul Kavanagh’s murder, only occasionally returning to Dublin.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/...rearms-offences

Northern Ireland man jailed for 1970s loyalist paramilitary firearms offences
Samuel Tweed, 74, sentenced to two and half years in prison after spending 40 years on the run, despite a plea for leniency from first minister Peter Robinson

A 74-year-old man who had been on the run for 40 years for firearms offences related to the Troubles has been jailed in Belfast.

Despite a plea for clemency from Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland’s first minister, Samuel Tweed from Newtownards, Co Down, was sentenced on Friday to two and a half years in prison.

He was arrested in April 1974 after the house he had been seen driving towards in East Belfast was searched. Inside the property in Jocelyn Avenue, police found an arsenal of weapons to be used by loyalist paramilitaries.

The cache included six .45 calibre revolvers, two .22 calibre pistols and and a 12 bore sawn-off shotgun.

Tweed escaped custody the following month, when a group of teenagers burst into Belfast magistrates court claiming there was a bomb in the building. In the panic and confusion he managed to give his prison warders the slip and flee.

He went into hiding and eluded justice until 2012, when lawyers representing him asked the Police Service of Northern Ireland if there were any outstanding charges against their client.

The PSNI later arrested and charged Tweed, sparking a political campaign by unionists, including Robinson, to win leniency. A number of letters were read out in court pleading for Tweed not to be jailed.

Judge Philip Babington, however, told the former loyalist paramilitary: “These were, and are, serious offences. Albeit you were younger but that does not diminish the seriousness of the offences in any way at all.

“I am satisfied that you have lived a lawful and law-abiding life over the last 40 years. However, that does not mean that the offences are any less serious. Far from it.”

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinio...o-31495898.html

Now all guns must fall silent - loyalists must pay for crimes too
If there is to be a balanced approach in dealing with 'hangover violence' from the Troubles, all the parties will have to address continued loyalist criminality, says Henry McDonald.

Internal housekeeping - that notoriously cynical phrase invented by one of Dr Mo Mowlam's Northern Ireland Office officials back in the day - doesn't only apply to the activities of the Provisional IRA and other republican paramilitary groups.

The notion that keeping your organisation quiet and anti-social elements in your community under control by effectively "killing for the peace process" has for the last two decades been prevalent on the loyalist side of the divide.

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While unionist politicians point to the chief constable's admission that the IRA in some form still exists (hardly a major surprise for those who study paramilitarism), there appears to be little focus on the way the UVF and UDA have remained "busy" in certain working-class communities across Northern Ireland.

Among ordinary nationalists such lack of attention to murder, maiming, arson attacks, extortion and blackmail by loyalist terror groups smacks of hypocrisy. Indeed, this perception is only heightened when nationalists look on at the case last week of Sammy Tweed, the 74-year-old who spent four decades on the run after escaping court in 1974.

While there is a strong argument against jailing an elderly man for offences committed so long ago - especially given the legions of killers and bombers released under the Good Friday Agreement's de facto amnesty - the families of UDA victims are at least entitled to point to double standards.

As some unionists call for licenses to be revoked and certain IRA prisoners put back in jail due to recent alleged IRA actions, including the Kevin McGuigan murder, some of these same unionist politicians were lobbying the court not to jail Tweed over the arms charges he faced in the mid-1970s.

Perhaps those who petitioned on the loyalist fugitive's behalf can argue that Tweed is today a changed man who regrets his violent past and, therefore, nothing is to be served by putting an old man into prison. Yet such an argument undermines the clamour from the likes of the DUP that a response to alleged IRA murder is to scoop up republican ex-prisoners and dump them back behind bars as some kind of sanction against Sinn Fein.

The UVF alone has killed 32 people since the October 1994 loyalist ceasefires - 29 of them Protestants. A number of these victims lost their lives in feuds with the UDA and the LVF, although quite a few were shot dead because of personal disputes with the organisation.

For the majority of the last two decades, once the Drumcree disputes petered out and the IRA ceasefire finally bedded down after the Canary Wharf hiatus, all the loyalist paramilitaries have turned their gunsights away from the republican/nationalist community and onto perceived internal enemies within their own.

Of course, it has to be acknowledged that the loyalists did listen to reason and did not react at times of grave instability - most notably following the 1998 Omagh bomb massacre.

Clearly, the leaderships of the UDA and UVF made a strategic calculation that it would be more politically astute to leave the battle against the disparate forces of dissident anti-peace process republicans to the PSNI as well as the beefed-up ranks of MI5 in the province rather than re-engage in sectarian murder and mayhem.

Like so many of their IRA - and indeed INLA - counterparts/old enemies in republican redoubts, some former loyalists have moved into benign community activism, such as the ex-UDA members in Lisburn who run one of the most innovative anti-racist integration projects anywhere in Northern Ireland.

Just as it is in areas from where the IRA and INLA emerged, some of these loyalist ex-prisoners and former armed operatives appear happy to have put their violent days behind them and are moving on with their lives.

Yet even those committed to peace building cannot deny that within the ranks of the organisations they once belonged to there are also those who terrorise their neighbours and enrich themselves using the three capital lettered names of their "movements".

These elements are prepared to go as far as murder to maintain their authority and protect their positions as "made-men" in their respective areas.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister Lord Trimble is not alone in suggesting the resurrection of the Independent Monitoring Commission as one means of restoring confidence among those, not only within the unionist community, who are deeply troubled over alleged ongoing Provisional IRA activity up to and including murder.

He - and now it seems the DUP - believe the "son of IMC" might also act as a deterrent to any further breaches of faith and ceasefires in the near future, so long, of course, as the IMC Mark II has the ability to impose sanctions on those who cross the line.

Inevitably this crisis will ultimately bring in the two key power-players of the peace process from the Downing Street Declaration in 1993 onwards - the British and Irish governments.

If there is to be a balanced approach in dealing with "hangover violence" from the conflict, including morally revolting revenge-motive murders likes those of Gerard Davison and Kevin McGuigan, then the two governments, as well as the parties, have to finally address continued loyalist paramilitary intimidation and terror as well.

One way to deal with that particular problem is to revive yet another body which was made redundant towards the latter years of the peace process. This organisation didn't so much monitor but rather targeted something that continues to oil the paramilitary machines: criminal assets.

As well as IMC Mark II, maybe the only way to counter the stubborn refusal of some (though definitely not all) loyalist paramilitary "commanders" to move away from serial violence and criminality is via ARA Mark II.

A revived Assets Recovery Agency, which goes after the ill-gotten gains of those making a fortune out of terrorising their own people, is arguably the ultimate deterrent in loyalist working-class communities living under their yoke.

Political sanctions, or the threat of political sanctions, have brought republicans to their senses in the near past, whereas going after the money is surely a far more potent weapon to finally loosen the grip of those loyalists who still think they have a divine right to rule their mini-fiefdoms.

Because, if nothing is done in relation to the latter, then "internal housekeeping" will go on in deprived loyalist districts - even long after the hardest of hardline DUP, or UUP, politicians eventually agrees that the IRA has finally gone out of business.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/kinahan-bids-to-be-1-billion-cocaine-king

Dapper Don Kinahan bids to be €1 billion cocaine king
Wednesday 16th September 2015.

Dapper Don Christy Kinahan has dreams of becoming a modern-day Pablo Escobar and has vowed that his Costa-based mob will one day turn him into Ireland’s first cocaine billionaire.
An army of his bulked-up lieutenants are being sent out to take over territories by any means necessary and there is a ‘shoot to kill’ policy on anyone who gets in the way.

The drug tsar (57), is running one of the biggest wholesale cocaine operations in Spain and his lieutenants are snapping up lucrative drug turf across the U.K. and Scotland while expanding all the time back home in Ireland, north and south of the border.

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Cocaine Inc. is run like a multinational. Kinahan’s closest associates make up his executive, with regional CEOs operating throughout the U.K. and Ireland. Each has their own transport, logistic, quality and even communications officers working alongside an army of enforcers and underworld accountants.

Gardai believe that Kinahan’s global operation, which spans Europe, now employees at least 100 directly and hundreds more down the ladder, eventually ending at the foot soldiers who sell grammes of Charlie on the streets, in nightclubs and even in college campuses around the country.

He is shipping massive consignments of cocaine directly from Colombia into mainland Europe, through Spain and Holland, and then transporting it to Dublin, Limerick,

Belfast, Liverpool, Birmingham and now Glasgow in huge loads.

The Irish mob is also dealing cannabis sourced in Morocco and Holland, heroin sourced in Afghanistan and ecstasy pills which are made across Europe. They are shipped into Ireland and the U.K. using legitimate front companies importing anything from frozen chickens to consignments of paving stones to hide their stash.

They also have a network of car dealers across the U.K. and Ireland which they are using to move the drugs. In Dublin they have set up a courier firm which delivers the drugs to a network of customers around the city.

Sources say that Kinahan’s insatiable greed is the driving force behind a colossal expansion that he hopes will rival Russian, Eastern European and South American cartels on the Costa.



In Puerto Banus, where his mob is based, the Dapper Don has seized control of one of the most lucrative drug markets in Spain. His dealers have sewn up trade in the port town, which is a playground of millionaires and celebrities.

Kinahan dreams of being the King of the Costa.

When gardai first caught him with more than €100,000 worth of heroin in a Dublin apartment back in the late 1980s, they couldn’t have imagined just how big he would become.

He served his time here and headed first for Holland and then Belgium, where he built contacts and an expertise in money laundering between stints in prison.
By the time he reached the Costa del Crime in 2003 he was destined for the big time.

He quickly established a business based on the structure of a multinational company, with key roles for associates and a highly organised network of fixers throughout Europe.

In 2006 his sons Daniel and Christopher Jnr went out to join their dad and within a few short years gardai estimate they were turning over around €100million a year.

By 2008 a multi-agency offensive had been launched in a number of countries against Kinahan, his sidekick John Cunningham and a wide circle of their associates in Ireland, the U.K. and Spain.

Officers said monitoring the gang was almost impossible as they had all been trained in counter-surveillance techniques and changed cars and phones, sometimes three or four times a week. All were encouraged to speak in code.

In May 2010 the highly publicised Operation Shovel resulted in the arrest of 22 people – many of whom were key members of the mob.

Garda sources say that the operation was never going to succeed as a surprise bust on Kinahan, as so many officers from different police forces were informed of it days in advance at a high-powered Europol meeting.



While the dawn raid targeted the seizure of key pieces of evidence, drugs or documents, it seemed the Kinahans had already cleared out their homes of much incriminating evidence.

Since then a magistrate has continued to investigate the gang, but is now concentrating on gang membership and money laundering.

Still, the raids did cause a major cash flow issue for Kinahan and €500m in Brazilian assets and €160m in Spanish assets and companies were all frozen.

But the Dapper Don wasn’t long getting back on his feet. This time, however, he warned his enforcers to be more aggressive than ever.

In the last five years, while the Spanish investigation trudges along, Kinahan has managed to expand his operation to far greater proportions than ever before.

Last year he made an alliance with a Limerick mob determined to take over the Dundons’ trampled empire.

He flew into Ireland and met key members of the Keane gang, who had lost their turf to the notorious Dundons during a murderous decade.

Christy Keane himself survived a shooting incident earlier this summer and has vowed revenge against an alliance of smaller gangs who have got together to challenge his takeover bid.

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Christy Keane

Kinahan has made huge strides into Scotland in recent years and is believed to have gone to war with a rival Glasgow gang.

Cops there are investigating Kinahan’s links to Scotland’s most wanted man, who was recently reported to be working as an enforcer for the Irish mob and hiding out in Spain.

Murder suspect Derek ‘Deco’ Ferguson fled Scotland after a barman was shot dead in Glasgow in 2007 and his fellow suspect Billy Bates was found dead weeks later.

Police believe Bates was killed before he could give himself up and they are keen to speak to Ferguson about what happened to him. Kinahan is understood to have recruited Ferguson two years ago.

The Irish drug tsar is also believed to be at loggerheads with the infamous Adams family from London, who have controlled much of the city’s drug needs for decades.

In Liverpool he has key lieutenants, making sure he is getting as big a cut as he can from the Merseyside territory.

And in Birmingham a senior lieutenant from Ireland operates as the region boss while transporting drugs through a second-hand car racket into Ireland.

Daniel and Christopher Jnr are the heirs to their father’s throne and both live in gated mansions and look after the day-to-day running of the enormous drugs, weapons and money laundering operation.

The Kinahans are believed to be responsible for up to 90 per cent of all drugs that are sold in Ireland and act as wholesalers for dangerous gangs all over the country.

In fact, a drugs outfit can measure its success or failure on its relationship with the Kinahan gang. On the Costa they are becoming equal in power to Russian and Colombian cartels based there.

Tensions high ahead of Gary Hutch funeral


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Tensions in the capital are high as the latest gangland victim is to be laid to rest.

Gary Hutch, gunned down in Spain on 24 September, is to be buried tomorrow following the repatriation of his body last week.

The gangland figure, a nephew to 'The Monk', was shot a number of times by a masked gunman at an apartment complex on the Costa del Sol.

It is believed he was targeted by former associates after escaping two previous assassination attempts.

Sources say tensions in Dublin are high, and that armed gardai will be deployed on the streets of the north-inner city for the ceremony.

"The situation is on a knife-edge, with associates of Hutch furious that he may have been executed on the orders of his one-time boss Christy Kinahan," the source told the Herald.

His funeral takes place at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean McDermott Street, at 11am tomorrow.

Gardai will be watching the ceremony closely and armed members of the force will be present on the streets as a precaution.

"Tensions are currently at a high which hasn't been seen in the area for the last number years, so gardai are taking extra preventative measures," a source added.

A number of Dublin's most notorious gangland figures are expected to pay their respects.

However, this may not include notorious criminal 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.

The latter may be forced to avoid the ceremony as reports suggest he is a marked man.

Gardai will patrol the city's streets throughout the funeral, while plain clothed detectives are expected to keep a discreet eye on the ceremony itself.

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Gardai on high alert as 'nasty' thug is released from prison



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A major garda alert has been issued after a dangerous criminal who specialises in preying on and stealing from vulnerable OAPs was released from prison.

Anthony Connors was released from jail last week after he served a 10-year sentence for terrorising 13 pensioners in their homes, including assaulting and falsely imprisoning some of them.

"Gardai across Dublin and beyond have been notified that Connors is back on the streets," a senior source explained.

"There is major concern about this prolific burglar, whose modus operandi has always been to specifically target older people.

"Connors, unlike many of the burglary criminals active nowadays, travels everywhere on foot. He is a nasty criminal," the source added.

His sentencing hearing at Dublin Circuit Court in December, 2009, heard that Connors (40) targeted victims living in accommodation for the elderly. He would call at their door and ask them a question before pushing past them and ransacking their house.

He was on early release from prison at the time and committed several of the offences while on bail.

Sometimes he assaulted the victim and on other occasions he locked them in a room as he escaped. Nearly all his victims were over 70.

Connors, of Tulip Court in Darndale, north Dublin, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of burglary, three counts of false imprisonment, two counts of robbery, one of assault and one of handling stolen property.

The offences occurred in Donnybrook, Dun Laoghaire, Ringsend, Blackrock, Phibsboro, Ranelagh and in the city centre between November 2007 and March 2008.

Before being sentenced in 2009, chronic drug addict Connors was previously handed an eight-year term for another string of burglaries, including the robbery of a 100-year-old woman, but was given early release.

Most of Connors' victims lived alone.

Many later told gardai that they still suffered from nightmares and were afraid to leave the house.

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Gangster’s moll loses full-time armed guard as she keeps giving cops the slip



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GANGSTER’s moll turned State witness April Collins no longer has full-time armed Garda protection stationed outside her Limerick home.

A decision was made to withdraw the armed officers after she deliberately gave them the slip several times, according to sources.

The unmarked Garda car with armed officers has been a feature on Hyde Road, where the ex-girlfriend of Ger Dundon lives, for the last few years.

She was a key witness in the murder case against John Dundon, who was convicted of the murder of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghegan.

“Basically she was suiting herself, heading off without telling anyone and then calling them up when she felt she wanted them there again,” a source told the Sunday World.

Sources said she had been seen exiting the back of her property over a garden wall without informing officers.

April Collins and Ger Dundon

Although the static protection has been withdrawn, a ‘floating’ car with armed officers will stay in the area where she lives, said Sunday World sources.

April, who has three children with Ger Dundon, also gave evidence in court saying she had been threatened by John and Wayne Dundon when Ger was in prison.

Collins also has a daughter with convicted sex attacker Thomas O’Neill, who is serving a three-and-a-half year sentence over a violent robbery.

In 2013 she helped bring down the notorious Dundon gang when she became a State witness in the Shane Geoghegan murder trial.

The dad-of-one was killed after being shot in a case of mistaken identity as he returned home in November 2008.

Ger Dundon’s brother John had put out a hit on a man named John ‘Pitchfork’ McNamara, but hired killer Barry Doyle shot the wrong man.

It was her evidence against the Dundon gang boss that resulted in a guilty verdict at the murder trial and Dundon getting a life sentence.

She also gave evidence against Wayne when he was convicted of the murder of businessman Roy Collins.

April gave evidence against John Dundon

The relationship with her ex-partner and his brothers soured when Ger was in jail in 2010.

Her father, ‘Fat’ Jimmy Collins, had also fallen out with the Dundons as the gang began to fall apart, while her brother Gareth was being blamed for a fire a Wayne Dundon’s house in Hyde Road in 2010.

When she stopped bringing the children to visit their father in jail, she said that she was threatened by Wayne and John.

In evidence, she told how Wayne Dundon was “very angry” when he called to her home in March, 2011.

She said that Dundon told her: “If anything happens to my brother over you, I will kill you over it.”

At the same time, she had started a relationship with O’Neill, with whom she has since had a child.

Three of the Dundon brothers Wayne, John and Dessie are serving life for murder with April’s ex Ger the only one of the four gangster brothers a free man.

The Dundons had forged a terrifying reputation for threatening and intimidating witnesses and backed up verbal threats with bullets on more than one occasion.

Prominent republican 'Slab' Murphy pleads not guilty to tax offences



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A prominent republican has pleaded not guilty to nine tax offences in the Irish Republic.

Thomas "Slab" Murphy, who owns a farm in Co Louth straddling the border with Northern Ireland, appeared before the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin.

The charges relate to the alleged failure to comply with tax laws by not furnishing authorities with a return of income, profits or gains or the sources of them over an eight year period from 1996 to 2004.

The trial was adjourned until Thursday to allow defence and prosecution lawyers to discuss material being disclosed for the trial.

Murphy appeared in court to enter the pleas wearing a pink open neck shirt and brown jacket, almost eight years since he was arrested as part of a tax investigation.

The 66-year-old from Ballybinaby, Hackballscross was remanded on continuing bail with the court ruling that the requirements for him to sign on at a Garda station are to be removed on any date he is in court.

The three-judge court heard a disc containing thousands of pages of documents has not been thoroughly examined by defence lawyers ahead of the trial.

Judge Paul Butler, presiding, told the court he was surprised the defence and prosecution lawyers had not held talks on the disclosure of material ahead of the trial.

"It's astounding, and we can't attribute blame, but it's astounding that both sides have not spoken until today," he said.

"We are dealing with a Revenue case here. We have people in custody waiting for their cases to he held. We need to get on with this."

The trial is scheduled to last two to three weeks.

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Crime figure 'Mr Big' isolated and broke as pressure grows on all sides



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Crime figure 'Mr Big' is almost completely broke and becoming increasingly isolated as pressure grows on all sides, sources have said.

The north Dublin-based crime lord is becoming increasingly paranoid and hindered following a number of high-profile drug seizures he has been involved with.

Sources told the Herald he has been left "extremely paranoid and frustrated" following the busts.

"He has run out of money because the gardai have managed to intercept at least three major drugs shipments which he was involved with in the last 18 months," a source said.

"Because there is so much of a massive threat on his life, he is unable to get drugs on tick because no one wants to run the risk of losing money if he gets whacked."

It is a volatile and uncertain period and many of his close associates have fled Ireland. This means the Coolock-based figure is becoming increasingly disengaged.

"Not everyone has turned their back on him, he often goes around with a 28-year-old criminal from the Darndale area who is suspected of being involved in a very bad knife attack on a younger man a number of weeks ago.

"This incident had nothing to do with Mr Big, who has really been trying to keep his head down, as he is completely paranoid about being shot dead," the source said.

The criminal, who is in his early 30s, is also being monitored by gardai under his bail conditions. He is facing serious charges in the court and is likely to be jailed.

"He needs to keep a curfew as part of his bail conditions and gardai have been doing a good job of making sure that he is at home when he is meant to be there," the source said.

"This often involves officers knocking at his house at night, which is not something he is very happy about at all."

He is also the subject of a considerable amount of interest from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

"That gang's involvement in organising the Alan Ryan murder has brought nothing but bad luck to them, it is something they must really regret at this stage," the source said.

"Up until Mr Big got into a feud with the Real IRA he was able to operate in the shadows, but now he is under severe pressure from every direction."

In the meantime, a family-based gang has moved in on his territory and has reportedly made a fortune in recent months.

Gardai have also seized high-powered vehicles from Mr Big as part of their investigation into his finances. As well as making lucrative profits from the drugs trade, Mr Big has made significant amounts from tiger kidnappings and other robberies.

CAB are expected to hit him with a bill believed to be in the region of €1.5 million.


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Gardai arrest one male following cocaine, cannabis and cash bust


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A 53-year-old man is in custody and a quantity of cocaine, cannabis and cash have been seized by gardai in Co. Sligo.

The man was arrested yesterday evening after gardai stopped his car and found more than €24,000 worth of cocaine and cannabis inside it.

Gardai then conducted follow up searches at a number of addresses in Sligo town where they uncovered €91,000 in cash and further, smaller quantities of cocaine and cannabis.

A female aged in her 20s was arrested at the scene. She is currently detained under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 at Ballymote Garda Station.

The arrested man is currently being detained under the provisions of Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Drug Trafficking Act, 1996 at Ballymote Garda Station, where he can be held for up to seven days.

Cannabis Resin with an estimated street value of €45,000 (pending analysis) has been seized by Gardaí in Sligo investigating the sale and supply of controlled drugs.

Cannabis and Cocaine with an estimated value in excess of €70,000 (pending analysis) and €91,000 in cash has been seized during this operation to date.

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Gardai to monitor boxing event which could be platform for Hutch murder revenge



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The ‘Second Coming’ boxing event, which takes place in November, will be heavily monitored by gardai amid fears of a revenge attack for the murder of Gary Hutch.

The event, which will take place at the national Stadium on Dublin’s South Circular Road, will feature fighters from Macklin’s Gym Marbella (MGM), which members of the feared Christy Kinahan mob travel around the world to support.

It is believed that Kinahan sanctioned the murder of 34-year-old Gary Hutch, who was formerly regarded as one of his most senior lieutenants.

Gary Hutch

Members of the organised crime outfit, including the gangster’s son, Daniel, and other henchmen regularly attend boxing events at the stadium in which their prized fighters take part.

MGM Gym in Spain

Despite calls at Hutch’s funeral for no retaliation, close associates of the deceased are said to be furious over his death and are intent on seeking revenge for their murdered pal.

Surveillance arrangements are expected to be put in place for next month’s fights, with officers from Kevin Street and Sundrive Road Garda Stations expected to liaise with one another before the event.

Yesterday, slain gangland figure Gary Hutch’s mother pleaded for no retaliation for her son’s gun death in Spain, saying, “Let God be our judge.”

Kay Hutch told hundreds of mourners at his funeral that the family does not want to see further violence.

“We don’t want any retaliation. We don’t want any family to feel the pain we are feeling. Our son is gone, so let God be our judge,” she said.

Parish priest Fr Richard Ebejer said “evil does not overcome evil” and told the congregation they were not there to judge the circumstances of Hutch’s death.

Dubliner Hutch – a nephew of former criminal Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch – was gunned down outside his Spanish apartment as he returned from a morning jog two weeks ago.

His funeral Mass was held yesterday at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, on Sean McDermott Street.

Hutch’s close pal ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson was a noticeable absentee, as were several other of his close associates.

Thompson’s attendance was always in doubt as he is regarded as the next target of the Christy Kinahan gang.

Fr Ebejer called on the “cycle of violence” to be broken by not seeking revenge for Hutch’s violent death. He described Hutch as a “family man” who was “a great dad to his daughter”.

“We are all aware of the circumstances surrounding Gary’s death. We are not here to judge, but to mourn,” he said.

Hutch's funeral

“To those who are here, especially the young, I repeat the words of St Paul: ‘Do not overcome evil by evil, but overcome evil by good’.

A letter was read out on behalf of Hutch’s brother, Derek ‘Del Boy’ Hutch, who is serving a lengthy prison term for manslaughter.

In it, he said he would always cherish the memories of the two of them growing up in Dublin, “me blaming you and you blaming me and ma killing the two of us”.

Del Boy was refused temporary release for the funeral, but was allowed to view his brother’s body at a funeral home on Sunday evening.

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Gardai responding to gun attack on car are pelted with stones by mob


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Gardai responding to an gun attack on a car owned by an innocent man were pelted with stones by a mob of youths.

The officers had been originally responding to reports that four blasts from a shotgun had been fired into a car parked outside its owner’s home. The gardai then had to call for back-up.

It is understood that a large rock was thrown at their marked patrol car and the windscreen of the vehicle was smashed-in.

Back-up was called in as the gardai were unable to secure the scene of the shooting, but when additional officers arrived the mob dispersed.

The incident unfolded at around 8pm on Monday in Kippure Park in Finglas, north Dublin.

The owner of the car – a dad-of-two in his 40s – has no involvement in crime and lives in the property with his wife and two sons, aged 23 and nine.

Sources have revealed that the family have become targets for local criminals after being falsely blamed for an incident that happened in the area during the summer.

“The incident – which this family had absolutely nothing to do with – was a threatening behaviour incident which is linked to a boy-racer club.

“It had absolutely nothing to do with them,” a source said.

“This is very much a local issue and it is a cause of great concern that this has happened,” the source added.

Officers from Finglas Garda Station rushed to the scene of the shooting on Monday night.

However, as soon as they got to the location in Kippure Park, a mob of local youths threw stones and screamed abuse at the responding officers. The culprits are not suspected of being involved in the shooting.

Gardai eventually managed to preserve the scene and a technical examination took place.

There have been no arrests in relation to either incident, but sources said that gardai were following a definite line of enquiry.

The car which was shot-up was removed by gardai, who examined the vehicle yesterday.

Last month, figures released by the Central Statistics Office revealed that possession of a firearm was up by 21pc to 214 recorded incidents of this type of crime during the 12 months up to the end of June this year.

However, despite more guns being recovered by gardai the statistics also revealed the number of those firing an illegal weapon dropped by 2pc in that time period.

Appeal for information on anniversary of unsolved Dublin gun murder


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Gardai are appealing for information on the callous gun murder of a young Dublin man seven years ago.
Investigating Gardaí at Store Street are renewing their appeal for any member of the public with information in relation to the murder of Gavin McCarthy (21) in 2008.

On the evening of 19 October, Gavin was in the company of his younger brother, Daniel, and others standing outside a fast food outlet on Lower Sheriff Street.

He was approached by a male on a bicycle who fired a handgun from close range into Gavin’s face and upper body causing him to fall immediately to the ground.

This man then fled the scene, via Crinan Strand, through a lane running between the Sheriff Football Club and the artificial football pitch beside it, onto Commons Street, turning left in the direction of North Wall Quay and the IFSC.

"Gavin was well known and liked in the Sheriff Street community and he left behind his parents, two sisters, two brothers along with extended family when he was murdered," gardai said.

"Investigating Gardaí believe that persons, living within the North Wall Community and in possession of specific information in relation to this murder, are in a position to progress enquires and are appealing directly to them to come forward.

"In particular we would appeal to those who weren’t in a position to give information at the time, due to relationships and associations they had seven years ago, but who may now feel more at ease in coming forward."

Anyone with information should contact Store Street Garda Station on 01 666 8000 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.

Grenade attack on police being treated as attempted murder

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Police in Northern Ireland are treating a failed dissident republican grenade attack on its officers as attempted murder.

A senior officer said it was only "good fortune" that lives were not lost in Friday night's bomb bid in east Belfast, revealing that the military-grade weapon landed at the feet of three officers but failed to detonate.

The grenade was hurled from an alleyway in the republican Short Strand area.

The murder bid came just over 24 hours after a failed under-car booby trap bomb attack on a person with connections to the armed forces in north Belfast.

The sophisticated tilt switch bomb fell off the vehicle in the Linden Gardens area on Thursday and did not detonate. A young boy apparently kicked it as it lay on the street.

Both attacks have been blamed on dissident republicans opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process.

Police officers were responding to reports from local residents of anti-social behaviour when the grenade was thrown at around 10.15pm in the vicinity of Pottingers Quay in the Short Strand.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Temporary Superintendent Bobby Singleton said he believed the calls to police to attend the area were genuine and were not a bid to lure officers into danger. He revealed how near the three officers came to death or serious injury.

"The device was thrown and landed very close to the officers, basically at their feet," he said. "Those who carried out this attack showed a total disregard for the safety of the local community and worryingly, for the second time in as many days, young people were in the vicinity at the time of the attack."

He said the "reckless and senseless" attack was being treated as attempted murder and said the assumption was dissidents were to blame.

The senior officer also hailed the three officers targeted for staying on duty to help evacuate the area in the wake of the attack.

"It is only by sheer good fortune that we do not have a fatality on our hands as this attack occurred in a built-up residential area," he said.

"Police officers join to serve our communities and work tirelessly to keep them safe.

"In contrast to the irresponsible actions of those behind the attack, the officers targeted insisted on remaining at the scene to assist in keeping local residents and their colleagues safe."

PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton branded the attack an "act of madness".

He tweeted: "Device thrown at local police in Short Strand last night was an act of madness that could have killed or injured police or local residents."

The security operation in the Short Strand area continued on Saturday with roads closed to traffic.

Sinn Fein councillor in the Short Strand Niall O Donnghaile insisted the perpetrators had no community support.

"I strongly condemn those involved in this incident which has served only to cause disruption to the local community," he said.

"Clearly somebody could have been killed or injured in this attack.

"I will say this clearly, there is no justification, rationale nor support in this community for violent attacks on the police.

"In successive elections people in this community have overwhelmingly voted for Sinn Fein and endorsed the peace strategy.

"Through tough and prolonged negotiations Sinn Fein have secured a peaceful democratic path to a united Ireland and a new Republic.

"The actions of those who would attempt to undermine that path by futile armed actions do so against the wishes of this community.

"I challenge those responsible to explain their actions to this community, something I am sure that once again they will fail to do."

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Massive cash haul seized in special operation linked to Don gang


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A massive €300,000 cash haul seized by gardai after a major surveillance operation is suspected to belong to close associates of Brian O'Reilly, the best pal of slain gang boss Eamon 'The Don' Dunne .

Sources have revealed that the cash - in both euro and sterling - is linked to a key associate of north Dublin criminal O'Reilly (46) who has survived two assassination attempts, most recently in a shooting in Balbriggan in June 2014. He has since recovered from his injuries.

The Herald also reveals that a criminal tried to claim the cash sum - which was the subject of a court case last week - back from gardai.

He claimed that he needed the money as it had been set aside to pay part of a seven-figure bill to the Criminal Assets Bureau. The €300,000-plus sum was ultimately confiscated by the State as part of last week's court proceedings.

The confiscation order was made by Judge Martin Nolan at the sentencing hearing of another O'Reilly associate, William Trimble (57), in the Dublin Circuit Court.

Trimble, of Edenmore Drive, Coolock was jailed for four-and -a-half years after being caught with more than €290,000 and £12,000.

He had pleaded guilty to a sample count of possessing €243,000, knowing or believing it to be the proceeds of criminal conduct, at a Kinsealy apartment on July 21, 2014.

Detectives set up surveillance and arrested Trimble leaving the property with a vacuum pack machine.

They found €24,000 hidden in a false compartment at the back of his jeep and €23,000 in a fake wardrobe compartment in the apartment.

Gardai found four packages containing €50,000 in a safe at Edenmore Drive, as well as a smaller package with €15,000 and a pink bag holding €5,850.

A further €6,750 was found in a bedroom, along with €16,000 in envelopes in the garden shed as well as the £12,000.

The cash bust was the second major seizure against the gang in the space of just three months last year. Previously, more than €250,000 in cash was seized in a raid in Coolock.

Sources say that the fact that the group continue to be active despite over €500,000 being seized from them is an indication of the levels of cash they have been making from drugs trafficking.

"They were able to absorb whatever blow the loss of this cash was to them and continue as normal," a source explained.

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Ireland's burglary gangs: The dirty half dozen who have created a climate of fear


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IRELAND’S burglary gangs have created climate of fear across Ireland with round-the-clock thefts, breaks-ins and raids.
Some of the most prolific burglary gangs come from within the traveller community who use their lifestyle to cover their activities. But other criminals have also been getting in on the act using cash from robberies to fund drugs and cigarette smuggling rackets.

Operation Fiacla by the Gardaí succeeded in putting some of the best-known suspects behind bars, but the crime wave has continued. Both urban and rural are being targeted with farms also being singled out by well-organised crime gangs stealing machinery and metal.

The distance covered by the organised gangs and their expertise means that huge garda resources have to be deployed to catch them in action.

Organisers were stunned when 2,000 people showed up at a public meeting in Thurles this week to vent their anger at the growing epidemic of burglaries and break-ins in country areas.

“We were hoping for maybe 900 people but 2,000 showed up,” said farmer Robert O’Shea, who was raided twice in one week last year losing €15,000 of tools he had built up over decades.

“Between 60 and 70 per cent of those who attended were victims of crime and when we asked in a straw poll if they knew anyone who had been robbed it was 100 per cent.

“We have had enough. People are living in fear and isolation. It is time the laws were changed on trespass and bail which allow these criminals to roam the countryside.”

He said the new organisation, Save Our Community, would now be demanding talks with Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

“People power is the only thing that that will make the government sit up and take notice. Laws have to be changed,” said Mr O’Shea

The Gangs:

The Subaru Gang

This loose of alliance of gangsters from among the traveller community has been one of the country’s most prolific burglary outfits in the country for decades. A leading member Andy ‘Cock’ Wall was released from jail last year after serving time for a Longford break-in.

He was caught red-handed with jewellery taken from a private house during a night-time raid. The have been responsible for targeting the valuables held by homeowners in expertly executed raids in almost every single county in Ireland.

Other members were caught after raid in Co Kerry following a surveillance operation that started in Dublin. The gang got it’s nickname from their preference for using stolen high-powered cars to make their getaway.

The Sulky Bandits

Based in Limerick city and surrounding towns members of this group from the travelling community have connections across Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry and Cork.
Individuals are suspected to use their sulky racing activities as cover for their criminal operation spotting potential targets in remote rural locations.


An unauthorised stable in east Limerick was burned down by vigilantes who blamed its presence for sparking a crime wave in the area. Members of the gang are now use violence and pose a danger to innocent road-users with high-risk driving to escape the attention of the gardaí.

The thieves who carry out raids have access to well-connected scrap metal dealers and criminals who can off-load other goods for cash. They carry out raids day or night and are not intimidated by the presence of Gardaí.

The Romanian Gang

A gang of violent criminals from Romania, based in Ireland targets gold and jewellery in burglaries. They are suspected to be behind dozens of thefts all over the country and regularly fly in criminals from outside the jurisdiction to carry out jobs.

They also operated outside of Ireland and much of their ill-gotten gains are quickly shipped out of the country. Electronic goods and smart phones have netted the gang bosses hundreds of thousands of euro.

This week armed gardaí arrested five suspects in north Dublin seizing a number of mobile phones and laptops. They are thought to have been behind one robbery in which €200,000 worth of jewellery was snatched from a shop in Co Kildare.

Many of the individual criminals operate under strict hierarchy with bulk of the profits gong to bosses based outside Ireland.

Rubber Reillys

Violent thug Patrick Rubber Og O’Reilly (below) was released last year after serving his time for his part in violent feud attack. While he was inside his son ‘Rubber Beag’ was one of the targets of Operation Fiacla launched in 2012 which saw 300 people charged with offences.

Other members of the clan are professional criminals involved in break-ins and distraction thefts.


A number of relatives have previously been investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau attempting to launder their cash through car deals. Sunday World sources claim Rubber Og Reilly’s arrival in areas such as Kildare, south Armagh and Donegal since his release has coincided with a spate of burglaries.

A number of women are also active as key criminal members of the gang.

The Pale Connors Gang

Slain gang boss Fat Andy Connors had dozens of convictions for burglary and continued carrying out break-ins himself despite his millions. There are more than a dozen members of this outfit have who have continued carrying out break-ins all over Dublin and Leinster despite his murder.

Gang members are experts at what they do, jamming alarm systems or simply ignoring them as they quickly search a house and escape. They have also been suspected of using children as young as 11 to carry out burglaries.

They also like to target elderly or vulnerable people for raids knowing they won’t face any resistance.

The M1 Gang

This collective of professional thieves operate around the north east and the Irish midlands carrying out break-ins, distraction thefts and shop-lifting. Members of this gang would have close connections to the men jailed last week for the horrifying raid on the Corcoran family.


Businessman Mary Corcoran was threatened with extreme violence in front of his traumatised wife Emma and their young kids. Another member of the gang, Matthew Fahy, hit the headlines when he was blasted in the arm by a farmer when he tried to raid the property.

Fahy, who is serving time in jail, has been credited with being among the first to start using a fishing rod to steal car-keys through letter boxes.


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Garda killer was supplying handguns to criminal gangs and terrorists


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eports in today’s Irish Independent reveal that Adrian Crevan Mackin had been buying guns from the US online and bringing them into Ireland.

The republican thug had been purchasing decommissioned weapons which he then reactivated and sold on.

Adrian Crevan Mackin

US authorities tipped off Garda Special Branch who searched the violent cop killer’s home in Omeath in January and found two of the re-purposed guns and components for bomb-making but there was not enough evidence to prefer a charge for possession of the items.

He was already well-known to gardaí and the PSNI for his involvement in a breakaway faction of the Real IRA and had been spotted regularly in the company of "major players".

Crevan Mackin was charged with membership of the IRA and was on bail when he murdered Gda Golden and shot Siobhán Phillips before turning the gun on himself.

Garda Tony Golden

Meanwhile, it has also emerged that the terror suspect had threatened the lives of two female officials from social services in Northern Ireland who were investigating him for domestic abuse.

The thug was caught with extreme animal porn when he was arrested for a previous assault on Ms Phillips.

Ms Phillips had suffered severe physical abuse and was living in fear. Last Friday night she had been subjected to a prolonged overnight attack during which he threatened to kill her and her entire family.

Her family reported the incident to gardaí on Saturday and on Sunday afternoon she went with her father, Sean, to Omeath Garda station where she gave a statement to Gda Golden.

Gda Golden escorted Siobhán to the house so that she could collect her things and return to her family home.

Thousands of mourners are expected at today's State funeral at Blackrock, Co Louth, today.

The Church has seats for just 300 people which will be reserved for family members and the official dignitaries. Gardaí are closing roads into the village from 10am until after 2pm.

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Two Limerick crime families on brink of all-out war


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wo dangerous crime families caught up in Limerick’s underworld are on the brink of all-out war after a tense stand-off at a funeral.

Members of the Curtin and Collopy clans clashed recently in a confrontation that threatened to break out into serious violence.

“Two individuals got into each other’s faces and it got to the point where guns were going to be pulled,” according to a source.

However, since the incident occurred last month, both sides backed off and the gangsters have observed an uneasy truce.

Convicted gangster Paul Curtin was caught up in the incident along with Jonathon Collopy, in a stand-off that threatened to spill over into a wider feud.

Curtin has previously been jailed for his part in a shooting incident in which a young girl was accidentally hit with shotgun pellets.

His brother Christopher, who was also jailed in the same incident, operates a significant criminal gang in the city.

Collopy also has convictions for drugs offences and was arrested in Bulgaria in 2012 at a Black Sea resort before retuning to Limerick.

Sources said the row between the clans started a number of years ago over claims that one side didn’t pay for a consignment of drugs.

Christy Curtin and Brian Collopy once fought each other in the visiting room in Limerick jail over the same dispute.

The latest tension comes as Gardaí continue their investigation into the attempted murder of mob boss Christy Keane, who survived being shot four times last June.

Senior figures in the infamous McCarthy clan are suspected to have ordered the hit on their old rival after years of relative calm.

Fears remain the attempted killing could reignite the lethal feud between the Keane and McCarthy factions.

The Collopys have previously been aligned with the Keanes, but the bond has loosened in recent years, even though one of the brothers is married to Christy Keane’s daughter.

In recent times a number of significant players from the crime clan have been arrested and charged with separate offences and are currently on remand behind bars.

The Collopys were also weakened by the death of gang enforcer Philip, who accidentally shot himself in 2009 while showing off a 9mm Glock pistol.

The 29-year-old, who was obsessed with guns, was the family hardman.

Despite their reputation, the Collopys would be foolhardy to take on a feud with the Curtin family, according to sources.

Christopher Curtin is well-known as being a serious gangster who once did business with the McCarthy-Dundons.

Two years ago members of the clan were the targets of a huge operation by Gardaí in a series of raids on the city’s outskirts.

A number of drug caches seized by Gardaí, each worth in excess of €200,000, have been linked to criminal members of the Curtin clan.

Ex-Westies gangster teams up with psycho who tried to whack John Gilligan




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A former Westies gang member involved in a feud that has already claimed one life this year has teamed up with a psychopath who is suspected of twice trying to murder crime lord John Gilligan.
Sources said David 'Gully' Goulding (38) has been frequently spotted in the company of the Finglas-based criminal.

The psychopath is the chief suspect in the two botched assassination attempts on Gilligan in December 2013 and March of last year.

"Goulding has been spending a lot of time at the Gilligan shooter's house and there's concern that the other man may now take an active part in the feud that Goulding is involved in," a source said.

Gardai are monitoring the bitter disagreement between Goulding and his former pal Jason 'Jay' O' Connor (37) as they are aware of a series of tit-for-tat threats that continue to be passed between associates of both men

The Finglas thug who has aligned himself with Goulding is a convicted armed robber who previously subjected Gilligan to a savage beating in Portlaoise Prison.

He is said to have a "pathological hatred" of the veteran criminal who fled Ireland after the latest attempt on his life at his brother's home in Clondalkin.

He is also suspected of entering the Halfway House pub on the Navan Road armed with a 9mm handgun and looking for Gilligan in December 2013.

The extremely volatile criminal was previously associated with Kevin Ledwidge, a 27-year-old Finglas criminal who was shot dead in July, 2007, as well as convicted killer David Cully (24) who was jailed for life in July for the gun murder of his uncle in December 2013.


The extremely volatile criminal was previously associated with Kevin Ledwidge, a 27-year-old Finglas criminal who was shot dead in July, 2007, as well as convicted killer David Cully (24) who was jailed for life in July for the gun murder of his uncle in December 2013.

"The fact that Goulding and this individual are spending a lot of time together is being viewed as a serious matter and is being looked at closely," the source said.

Goulding was recently released without charge after being arrested following a high-speed motorway chase.

The feud between him and O'Connor stems from a deadly falling-out between former associates in the Westies gang when the north Dublin mob imploded more than a decade ago.

Sources say that associates of O'Connor are suspected of being linked to an attack in which Goulding was shot six times as he sat in a car in Hartstown in January, 2012.

There has never been an arrest in that case, which led to a number of tit-for-tat feud incidents including a murder earlier this year and the on- going threats.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/the-huge-drugs-and-gun-haul-in-pictures

Cache of high-powered guns and drugs seized by gardai.

Gardai have released images of a number of firearms along with a huge amount of heroin which were seized yesterday evening in the Dublin area.
Officers from the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, with the assistance of Gardai from the Tallaght Drugs Unit, stopped a car on Greenhills Road in Tallaght and discovered the cache of weapons.

The recovered firearms include an AK 47 assault rifle and ammunition, two .22 rifles and ammunition, and a loaded pump action shotgun along with silencers and telescope sights.

The latest haul is the second such seizure in the Dublin area this year.

In February, a Steyr AUG machine gun, two Heckler & Koch MP-5 sub machine guns, a Beretta 9mm and a SIG Sauer P220 were confiscated by gardai.



Cocaine and heroin worth €4.9 million, a handgun, and ammunition were also seized at a location in the Bluebell Industrial estate.

"These operations use advanced analytical and intelligence methods to disrupt criminals and dismantle their networks," gardai said.

"Drug seizures play a critical role in targeting the livelihood of criminals and reducing their ability to carry out illegal activities.

"Drug seizures also help protect communities from the devastating impact of drugs and the associated criminality."

http://www.herald.ie/news/viable-bomb-left-at-home-of-council-worker-34177979.html

Viable bomb left at home of council worker.

Gardai are investigating whether a sinister pipe bomb incident in which a 42-year-old council employee was targeted is linked to his work on exposing an illegal dumping site.

The shocking incident led to a number of houses being evacuated at Pearse Avenue in Sallynoggin late on Thursday night after the viable bomb was discovered attached to the man's vehicle.

Bomb squad was called in
Bomb squad was called in
The Herald has learned that the victim has been the subject of a terrifying campaign of harassment for almost three months due to his work.

This has involved threats being made to him by people who have called to his house - which was reported to gardai in September - as well as instances of the respected man being followed on the street.

However, the discovery of a bomb attached to the council employee's vehicle at around 11pm on Thursday is considered a major escalation of the campaign against the Dubliner.

Gardai in Dun Laoghaire are investigating the bomb incident and no arrests have been made so far.

However, sources said that officers who have been aware of threats against the Sallynoggin man never expected the dispute to escalate like it had this week.

The pipe bomb was discovered by a relative of the intended target, who immediately became suspicious and called gardai, who in turn contacted the Army Bomb Squad.

The suspected target declined to comment on the incident but sources said they believed the pipe-bomb attack was a direct result of his work as a litter warden.

There are a number of lines of inquiry, including an alleged illegal dumping incident in south Dublin.

The victim has been on sick leave from work for a number of weeks after an incident where he was threatened, and gardai believe the latest attack is related to that previous incident.

Safe

Neighbours said gardai closed Pearse Avenue at both ends on Thursday night while the Army dealt with the device, which proved to be viable.

"There were three squad cars, and the Army truck as well, but we were told to either leave or homes or stay in the back of them until the area was made safe," said one neighbour.

"It was a terrible thing to happen, and very upsetting for the family," they added.

http://www.herald.ie/news/fat-freddies-cousin-escapes-botched-hit-as-gun-jams-34181113.html

Fat' Freddie's cousin escapes botched hit as gun jams.

Liam Roe (36), a cousin of gangland figure 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, was said to have been standing outside the Red Cow hotel in west Dublin having a cigarette when the attempt on his life was made.

Gardai believe the attempted murder was carried out by a north inner city hit team.

Sources said that detectives have received intelligence that associates of slain drug dealer Gary Hutch have decided to murder "anyone they can get" who has links to Christy Kinahan.

Recognised

"They went for Roe for no particular reason, just that they recognised him. It is not as if Roe had anything to do with Hutch's murder," a source said last night.

Detectives have been probing reports that the hit team had been stalking anyone connected to the Kinahan cartel over the past four days after members of the mob met up in the capital for the weekend's boxing event.

Last night, tensions remained high as gardai believe Hutch's associates have access to numerous stolen cars that could be used in a potential assassination.

Gardai were expecting many friends and associates of Kinahan's to be in the city over the weekend as respected professional boxer Jamie Kavanagh, who is the son of slain notorious gangster Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh, was fighting in the National Stadium on Saturday.

While Jamie Kavanagh has no involvement in organised crime, sources said that some of his supporters are linked to the Kinahan mob and other crime groups.

Fundraiser

When news spread of the attempted hit, it is understood that up to 50 of Kinahan's cronies left the hotel in a hurry. Daniel Kinahan, the son of Christy, was led out a back door by pals and driven from the scene.

The group are understood to have been at the hotel because they were attending a boxing fundraiser.

Roe was arrested in 2007 over allegations that he had threatened to kill a bouncer at a pub in Dame Street.

He was also fined €250 after an incident in 2009 for obstructing a garda drugs search.

In 2012, Roe was given a four-month jail sentence after gardai raided his apartment and found stolen designer handbags worth nearly €9,000.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/the-weed-grinder-that-caused-mountjoy-to-go-into-lockdown

EXCLUSIVE PICS: The weed grinder that caused Mountjoy to go into lockdown.

These exclusive pictures show the cannabis grinder that caused Mountjoy Prison to go into lockdown yesterday.
The grinder, which is made to look like the cylinder from a revolver handgun, was discovered on the C wing of the Prison at 12.30pm yesterday.

Following the discovery authorities put the prison on lockdown and carried out a search of the cells.

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Gardai were also called to the prison.



Following an initial examination it was suspected that the item was part of a gun.



Prisoners were locked in their cells as authorities carried out further searches of the prison complex.

The item was removed by gardai for a forensic examination which later determined it was not part of a firearm.

On Monday, TV3 aired a documentary exposing life behind bars at the Dublin prison.

A criminal closely involved with a dangerous southside drugs gang was lucky to escape with his life when he was slashed in the neck and the head in a brutal prison attack.

Paul Drew, who is originally from Tallaght, is now recovering from his injuries after the incident on the B2 landing in Mountjoy Prison at around midday on Tuesday.

Drew (31) was rushed to the Mater Hospital after it was initially feared that an artery in his neck had been severed because of the amount of blood loss he suffered in the attack.

However, after receiving detailed medical help he was fit enough to return to the jail and is now in a 'protection regime' in the prison.

It has not yet been established what kind of blade was used to attack Drew but prison bosses have identified several suspects in the case.

Sources say that the attack on Drew may be linked to the illegal narcotics trade in the prison and may have been carried out by the same mob suspected of issuing death threats to gangland figure Paschal Kelly (50) last week.

Kelly was forced to move off the same landing that Drew was attacked on.

Kelly, who was a key member the gang that ordered the murder of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan in September 2012, has since been moved to Wheatfield Prison for his own protection.

Drew - who had been living in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, when he was sent to jail in 2009 - is serving sentences totalling 13 years for heroin trafficking and the separate theft of 1,280 plasma TV's with a value of €250,000.

Before he was locked up, Drew was a major target for the Garda Organised Crime Unit because of his involvement in a Clondalkin and Tallaght-based gang. He is not due for release from prison until 2017.

He was handed a three-year consecutive sentence at Naas Circuit Court for handling stolen property in relation to the massive TV haul.

He was earlier given a ten-year sentence after he was caught with €2m worth of heroin following a garda surveillance operation in Saggart.

The suspicious pallet was intercepted by custom officers in January 2008.

Gardai organised a controlled delivery of the pallet, which had originated in Belgium.

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A large cache of weapons and ammunition discovered in a wooded area was believed to have been in the hands to the Provisional IRA after being stolen a number of years ago.

The search was launched in the Scotstown area of Co Monaghan, near the border with Northern Ireland, after a 43-year-old man was arrested last Wednesday and subsequently charged with IRA membership.

Gardai said the arms dump contained AK47s, detonators, detonating cord and components for making improvised explosive devices. Three mortars were also discovered during the operation. The searches are continuing.

A number of weapons were discovered in hides, while some were found buried underground in plastic.

An Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team arrived on scene at 2.45pm last Thursday, where they remained until Monday afternoon.

"All items discovered were made safe and handed over to An Garda Síochána to assist them with their investigation," a spokesman added.

Gardai said the operation involved officers from its anti-terror division, the special detective unit, dog handlers and its armed emergency response unit as well as local officers.

The searches followed the arrest of Jim Smyth, from Aghalissabeagh, Scotstown, a rural area about a mile from the border. He was charged with IRA membership at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on Saturday evening.

He was remanded in custody until Wednesday morning, when a bail application is expected to be heard.

Gardaí are satisfied that the haul was not currently in the possession of any particular dissident republican organisation but are concerned the cache was to be used in the run-up to Christmas.

Anti-terrorist officers are now trying to establish the identity of the 'quartermaster' who was in charge of the arsenal during the Provisional war of terror in Northern Ireland.

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NOTORIOUS gangster Paschal Kelly was forced to seek protection from prison authorities after a major falling out with the equally notorious Sligo drug dealer Patrick Irwin.

Sources have confirmed to the Sunday World that Kelly went to prison officers on Saturday last after an inmate entered his cell and warned him: “You can either walk off the wing or be carted off it.”

Kelly (50) – who was a key member of the gang that ordered the murder of Real IRA boss Alan Ryan in September 2012 – was then moved to Mountjoy’s C-Base on Saturday afternoon after pleading with jail bosses for protection.

“There had been a power play on the wing between Irwin and Kelly going on for several weeks,” a source told The Star.

“Irwin heard talk that Kelly was planning some kind of move against him and wouldn’t stand for it. Irwin is a genuine hard-man – he’s not the kind that would have sent someone else after Kelly, he’s the kind that would have went up to his cell himself.

“Kelly would have been regarded on the outside and on the inside as one of the biggest players out there.

Read: Notorious gangster placed in protection in Mountjoy Prison.

“But he didn’t feel safe enough to leave his cell for a number of days after word went out that Irwin was after him.”

It's understood authorities are now considering rehousing Kelly in Wheatfield prison.

Both Irwin (pictured below) and Kelly are viewed as two of the biggest orchestrators of the drugs trade within the prison system.

Kelly has been suspected of involvement in the drugs trade in prison ever since he was remanded in custody in October of last year.

That happened after heavily-armed gardaí tracked him to a rural hideout in Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath after years on the run.

Kelly – who has 47 previous convictions – was jailed for four-and-a-half years last March for tax evasion, threats to kill a CAB officer and serious driving offences. Last year, he also had his Co. Cavan home, €14k cash and a 4x4 vehicle seized by CAB.

Sligo drug dealer Patrick Irwin (33), is currently serving a three-year sentence for a horrific attack on a garda, alongside a seven-year sentence for drug-dealing.

In June of 2013, a court heard how Irwin was out on bail for possession of €67,000 worth of cocaine when he savagely attacked a garda, leaving the officer with a broken jaw.

In 2012, the CAB seized Irwin’s home in Dromahair, Co. Leitrim.

The court heard how Irwin’s partner, Avril Boland (pictured above), had a hairdresser’s salary of €300 per week, but had a luxurious lifestyle living in a high-quality house and taking foreign holidays.

Her bank account was in effect used to launder Irwin’s criminal funds, Judge Kevin Feeney said.

Sources confirmed that prison authorities are satisfied the threat to Kelly stems from the falling out with Irwin and that Irwin is backed up by a convicted arsonist from a notorious Dublin crime family who is serving a six-year sentence for arson.


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The drugs trafficking situation in Bray is largely controlled by a ruthless gang who are led by a convicted killer.

Senior sources say this mob source their drugs from a number of different supplier including directly from the Christy Kinahan cartel as well as having a "long standing relationship" with associates of gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson.

"This gang are a very serious outfit and they were involved in two serious shooting incidents in the town of Bray last year," a source said.

"They are extremely protective of their own turf and they have a structure which involves one main man who has four other lieutenants underneath him and then a number of smaller level dealers.

"The gang are the biggest drug suppliers in north Wicklow and even into parts of south Dublin."

They are involved in everything from heroin to cannabis distribution, and have been active for over a decade.

Sources point out that the key men involved in the gang rarely leave their homes without bullet-proof vests and are extremely paranoid about being shot by rival criminals.

The gang are the chief suspects for the attempted gun murder of career criminal Jonathan Burke, who received serious injuries after being sprayed with shotgun pellets after an attack at a house in the Heatherwood estate in the town in November of last year.

The same gang are suspected of the shooting of Tiernan Stokes, who was shot in the calves in the People's Park, Bray, in August 2014.

A previous member of the gang, Philip 'Philly' O'Toole, was shot dead as part of a different dispute in January 2013.

Another criminal who had close links to the outfit is gangland killer Garrett O'Brien (28) who is serving a life sentence after being convicted of the murder of Shay O'Byrne in Tallaght in March 2009.

Meanwhile, a Wicklow man who is aged in his 40s who has links to the Continuity IRA has also tried to muscle in on the drugs trade.

Sources say that while his power base is more in the south of Co Wicklow, the man still has a growing influence on the drugs trade in the large seaside town.

The "businessman" has a huge property portfolio.

Despite the drugs problem, gardaí have had a number of major successes this year against the traffickers in Bray with some senior figures receiving significant jail sentences.

'Lucky escape' for innocent passers-by as bullets hit car in gang shootout

Innocent passers-by had a lucky escape during a dramatic early morning shootout between rival drug gangs.
A man and his passenger miraculously escaped without injury when their car was hit twice with bullets as he passed the scene of the gunfight.

The incident unfolded around 11am on the Farrankelly Road in Greystones, Co Wicklow on Saturday morning.

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The Herald reports that a chase between a 4x4 and a van was under way when occupants from one of the vehicles began shooting at the other.


As the incident unfolded bullets hit the car of the man, who was not connected to the incident.

It is believed that links to drug gangs are being explored, with reports that the shoot-out is connected to gangster Freddie Thompson's inner city Dublin gang.

As we reported at the weekend, locals said they saw two men fighting in the street before the gun battle broke out.

Fianna Fail councillor for the area Gerry Walsh said it was lucky nobody was caught in the crossfire during the dramatic incident.

"It's very disturbing to hear. An innocent person could have been easily injured and that's the worrying thing," he told the Herald last night.

"There was a lot of people out and about, despite the weather."

"I was very surprised when I heard it, it's not the kind of thing you expect to hear in this particular area - or in any area," he added.

Mr Walsh said that the stretch of road was especially busy in the run up to Christmas.

His sentiments were echoed by his colleague on Wicklow County Council, Nicola Lawless.

"It could have been much more serious, luckily no one was hurt," the Sinn Fein councillor said.

The thugs behind the shooting incident fled the scene on foot before gardai arrived.

Gardai in Bray are leading the investigation but no arrests have been made.

"A number of men were involved in the incident. A car belonging to a passing motorist was hit twice but the driver and his passenger escaped injury.

"The technical and forensic teams are now carrying out investigations on the car," a garda spokesman said in a statement.

Man suspected to be Europe's biggest drug kingpin arrested


The man alleged to have been behind a €200m shipment of cocaine to France in 2013 has been arrested in Spain.
The man, named in the UK and local media as Robert Dawes, was arrested on November 12 but details have only been released now by Europol for operational reasons.

In a press release the EU's police agency said that the arrest was the result of a two year operation by the French OCRTIS-DCPJ, Spanish Guardia Civil UCO and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

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Dawes is suspected to be the man behind an enormous shipment of cocaine that was intercepted at Charles de Gaulle airport in September 2013.



French police intercepted 1.3 tonnes of the drug, valued at €200m, hidden in suitcases on a plane that arrived from Venezuela.

The Guardia Civil swooped on a villa in Benalmadena in the Costa del Sol and arrested the 44-year-old. Today he has been extradited to France.

The gang's reach is said to be global and a number of individuals connected to it have been arrested in various countries in recent years.

Spanish authorities say in a release published today that have been monitoring Dawes since 2007 and they allege that he leads the largest criminal organisation in the UK and Europe.

The operation conducted by Europol mirrored the investigation into Dapper Don Christy Kinahan, known as Operation Shovel.

Gardai make huge heroin bust


Gardai have taken heroin worth an estimated €420,000 off the streets.
Officers from the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau made the bust after they stopped and searched a vehicle in Clondalkin, Dublin yesterday.

A 35-year-old man is in custody and his currently being detained at Lucan Garda station under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996.

Gardai target two rising big players in Dublin drug dealing world



GARDAI are targeting two young drug dealers in Ballymun who have become the main players in the north Dublin suburb.
The pals are major targets of Operation Domino, which has been targeting the next generation of dealers.

Sources say the 26-year-old and 29-year-old have a network of youngsters flooding Ballymun with drugs.

One of the men is a 26-year-old from the Poppintree area of Ballymun. He has avoided any major convictions and has risen through the ranks in Ballymun.


He has a network of contacts in the criminal world, helped by his interest in sulky racing, including a close associate of Ballyfermot criminal Derek ‘Dee Dee’ O’Driscoll.

The 26-year-old runs the Ballymun operation with his 29-year-old pal, who has links to one of Ireland’s most notorious prisoners. The prisoner, from Inchicore, can’t be named as he is before the courts.

The 29-year-old was involved in a violent attack on a man in Ballymun three years ago.

Other associates of the Ballymun dealers include convicted drug dealer Dano Doyle, whose house was shot at in Ballymun in November.

That incident is not believed to be connected to Doyle’s links with the Ballymun gang.

The gang have links to criminal figures in Coolock, Finglas and the north inner city.

The 29-year-old also has connections to Stephen ‘Ned’ Kelly who is serving life for the murder of Ian McConnell on December 11, 2005.

The killing sparked a feud in Ballymun between associates of Kelly and Ian’s brother Thomas ‘Nicky’ McConnell, a convicted drug dealer who was released from prison last year.

McConnell was also photographed with businessman Jim Mansfield Jnr in recent months. Mansfield was arrested in December in connection with an alleged assault in Dublin last year. He was released without charge.

Mansfield has been warned by Gardaí over a threat to his life. The threat is understood to be coming from associates of traveller criminal ‘Fat’ Andy Connors, who was shot dead in Dublin in 2014.

Trevor O’Neill was shot dead on the Spanish island of Majorca in the ongoing Kinahan/Hutch feud. It’s believed he and his family were socialising at the time of his death with a figure affiliated with the Hutch family.