TIGER RAIDER CAGED
IRELAND’S most successful tiger kidnapper was jailed for seven-and-a-half years yesterday.
Stefan Saunders, 40, was caged along with two accomplices for a spectacular heist on a €1.8million cash-in-transit delivery.
Sentencing them, Judge Michael O’shea said: “This was a very professional planned and executed robbery.”
Trim Circuit Criminal Court in Co Meath heard how the three men carried out weeks of surveillance before the attack.
But they were caught by elite gardai from the Emergency Response Unit, who were lying in wait.
The Irish Mirror can also reveal sources say the men are thought to have trained in a foreign country ahead of the heist.
Saunders, of Hazelbury Park, Blanchardstown, Dublin, was a major target of the anti-gang cops for more than a decade.
He was regarded as Ireland’s most successful tiger kidnapper and robbery specialist, involved in multiple incidents.
His cunning kept him from garda eyes but officers led by Detective Superintendents Seamus Boland and Justin Kelly eventually nabbed him.
His accomplices – Francis Murphy, 39, Drogheda Road, Carranstown, Duleek, Co Meath, and 31-year-old Damien Noonan, from Rusheeny Court, Hartstown, Dublin – were also jailed for seven-and-a-half years.
Det Sup Kelly told the court gardai put a high-level operation in place after receiving intelligence that a robbery was about to happen. Gun used by Saunders
They watched Saunders and Noonan go to a coffee shop in Dunboyne, Co Meath, on four Fridays in August and September 2016, watching the G4S van arrive at a derelict bank to fill an ATM in the wall of the building.
The gang then went to the bank in the dead of night, again followed by undercover detectives from the National Surveillance Unit.
On the first occasion officers saw the gang break into the bank through a rear window – when the alarm went off unsuspecting uniformed gardai responded.
The court heard that the officers found no evidence of a crime and recorded it as an alarm fault.
The gang then returned again and interfered with the alarm sensor in the building, placing it above a ceiling tile so that it would not activate with movement.
The court heard that on the day of the operation, October 7, a third man appeared, Francis Murphy.
They were followed by undercover gardai as they travelled to Dunboyne in a BMW SUV. Saunders, armed with a loaded Makarov handgun, and Murphy, armed with a crowbar, entered the building.
Noonan, stayed with the BMW parked on the street outside.
Det Sup Kelly said all three men were dressed in specialist clothing with walkie talkies and mobile phones. Inside the bank the men lay down on a sheet and sprayed bleach around the room to dissolve any forensic traces. Saunders was dressed in a bulletproof jacket and both men urinated into a bottle.
Gardai had bugged the bank and overheard the gang talking about the use of firearms in the raid.
As the G4S van arrived – carrying €85,000 for the ATM and more than €1.8million in cash – gardai told the crew to stay in the vehicle as 23 armed detectives burst into the bank. The court heard that one of the team saw Saunders fling away the loaded gun, with one round in the chamber and a full magazine. Murphy flung the crowbar.
Armed cops also swooped on Noonan in the waiting SUV, which had been stolen the year before.
Only Murphy admitted his part in interviews and said: “I made a huge mistake, you know well what I was
YESTERDAY
doing.” Judge O’shea said the men had participated in a professionally planned, organised and executed conspiracy.
He noted their use of a gun, which he said was “to intimidate, to frighten, to threaten – there was one bullet in the breach and was an active weapon”.
He sentenced Saunders, Murphy and Noonan to a total of 10 years
IN COURT
Van takes three raiders to prison yesterday imprisonment with two and years suspended.
After the hearing Det Sup Boland spoke of the Garda success and said that his officers would continue.
He added: “This successful outcome underlines that An Garda Siochana will deploy the necessary resources to target groups and people who are willing to use firearms to commit crime for financial gain against organised citizens who are going about their daily work.”
This was a very professionally planned and executed robbery
JUDGE O’SHEA
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