Garda probe leak of key Pulse data to drugs gang

A DUBLIN-BASED Garda civilian employee is suspected of providing key information to dealers linked to the ‘Mr Big’ drugs gang in return for cocaine.

Up to eight homes of suspected drug dealers in north Dublin linked to the young woman were raided yesterday as officers attempted to obtain more evidence in their “corruption” inquiry.

The Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation is conducting the probe after receiving information that the woman was being ‘paid’ in cocaine to provide information to the criminals.

“The Garda employee is suspected of passing on information which she looked up on the Pulse system about the movements of the drug dealers,” a senior source said.

Investigators suspect that she was looking up recent sightings of dealers by gardaí and other sensitive information on the system.

The woman has been suspended from duty but has not yet been detained.

A DUBLIN-BASED Garda civilian employee is under investigation because she is suspected of providing key information to dealers linked to the ‘Mr Big’ drugs gang, in return for cocaine.

Up to eight homes of suspected drug dealers in north Dublin linked to the Garda employee were raided yesterday as officers tried to find more evidence in their “corruption” enquiry.

The Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) is conducting the probe after receiving information that the young woman was being “paid” in cocaine to provide information to the criminals.

Yesterday, around 50 NBCI detectives were involved in raiding properties of drug dealers in the Malahide, Swords and Coolock areas of the capital.

There were no arrests in this phase of the operation and the Garda employee has been suspended from duty but has also not yet been detained.

A Garda spokesman told the Irish Independent the force did not comment on internal investigations.

“The Garda employee is suspected of passing on information which she looked up on the Pulse system about the movements of the drug dealers,” a senior source said last night.

“Her use of Pulse attracted suspicion and it led to her phone being seized earlier this month. She was interviewed about the matters and then suspended from duty.

“Her use of the Garda internal computer system led investigators to conclude that she had been looking up things like recent sightings of the drug dealers by gardaí and other sensitive information that gardaí had about them.

“It seems that she had been passing on the information from the internal Garda system on her mobile phone to the drug dealers by means of Snapchat and other social media apps by sending screengrabs of their Pulse history.

“The information is that the woman, who is aged in her 20s, has a cocaine problem and the dealers were taking advantage of this.

“Their homes were hit yesterday and more evidence was secured. The investigation is ongoing,” the source added.

The probe into the woman is considered “far more serious” than another internal investigation into a Dublin-based Garda civilian employee that emerged last week.

In that case, gardaí are investigating a specific allegation that the woman had access to information setting out the times and locations of Covid19 checkpoints and passed on that information to people involved in the drugs trade in south Dublin and Co Wicklow.

That employee has not been arrested or suspended from duty.

“These are separate cases and the two females are not based in the same Garda facility,” a source said.

The drug dealers whom the suspended Garda employee is suspected of providing information to are “relatively lowlevel operators” linked to ‘Mr Big’ – the Coolock-based drug trafficker whose gang has emerged as chief suspects in the murder of hitman Robbie Lawlor in Belfast last month.

A source described them as “significant dealers on a local level”.