Seven held in gang investigation

Irish Times

Gardai arrest 13 in major operation | 08/11/2010

Gardaí are continuing to question seven men arrested as part of a major operation targeting gangland crime earlier this week.

Six men are being held at Garda stations in Dublin and another man is being questioned in Co Wexford, a Garda spokesman said today. Six others, questioned in Dublin, Cork and Wexford, have since been released.

Some 300 gardaí met at Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park, Dublin, and in Wexford and Cork stations in the early hours of Monday before raiding over 30 locations in a co-ordinated pre-dawn operation spanning counties Dublin, Cavan, Wexford, Cork and Kildare.

Gardaí seized a small quantity of cocaine and confiscated mobile phones, computers and bulletproof vests during the raids, as well as records linked to property investments which were taken from the offices of solicitors and accountants by members of the Criminal Assets Bureau.

The target of the so-called “super raid” was a drug-trafficking gang based mainly around Sheriff Street in Dublin’s north inner city but with criminal contacts nationally. The gang has been involved in a feud in recent years with another faction also based in Sheriff Street. The feud has cost five lives, two of them this year.

The raids were the latest chapter in an almost year-long specialist investigation into the feud. The probe has been stepped up in recent weeks following a near-fatal shooting last month in Swords, Co Dublin, and the revenge gang beating of a rival criminal in the north inner city just minutes later.

According to Garda sources, the target gang has forged close links with arguably the two biggest crime gangs in Ireland: the McCarthy-Dundon gang in Limerick; and a gang in Finglas, Dublin, once led by murdered criminal Eamon Dunne.

The operation was co-ordinated from Pearse Street Garda station by Chief Supt Pat Leahy, under Assistant Commissioner Mick Feehan, who is in charge of policing in Dublin, and Deputy Commissioner Martin Callinan, who is in charge of all operations across the force.