Kidnapped ‘Shergar of greyhounds’ to be sold
THE €1m greyhound kidnapped this week and held for ransom is likely to be sold to a syndicate in England, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The MoS has also learned that the dog’s owner, Joe Cahill, was previously embroiled in a pipe bomb attack outside his home.
THE greyhound that was held for a €100,000 ransom by a criminal gang is likely to be sold to a syndicate in England, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Joe Cahill, one of the owners of the dog, told the MoS that he can’t sleep at night over what happened to his prize winning greyhound, Clare’s Rocket, earlier this week. He said he is now in talks with a UK-based syndicate.
The MoS can also reveal that Mr Cahill was previously embroiled in a pipe bomb attack when a car parked outside his home in Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, had a viable device attached.
Sources told the MoS the bomb was found attached to an English registered car in the Knights Court housing estate in October 2014.
The greyhound owner, 37, told the MoS last night that the car had ‘nothing to do with him’ and he and his family had to move to Limerick city after the bomb was found because of ‘where it was parked’.
Mr Cahill – who is part of 12-man syndicate that owns Clare’s Rocket – woke on Monday morning to discover that his dog had been taken in the night. The dog, estimated to be worth close to €1m, was kidnapped from its kennels in Golden, Co. Tipperary.
A ransom was demanded from someone with a ‘mild Dublin accent’, who rang Mr Cahill and ordered him to pay €100,000, or he would kill the dog.
Mr Cahill said that following the incident he has ‘had enough’ and was selling his prized greyhound.
‘Do you know what I’m going to do now is walk away from the greyhound scene because I have enough of it. That’s what I’m going to do, pack it in, I’ve had enough of it.’
He added that the dog has ‘gone out of Ireland’ and is going to be sold to ‘people in England’.
‘Well, sure, an English owner’s going to own him now. He’s going to be sold to England and he’s gone out of Ireland now and people in England will own him, that’s what they’re after doing like.
‘Sure how can I put my head to the pillow every night and think about a f ****** dog if he’s going to get taken again or what are they going to do with the poor dog.
‘I’m in talks about selling it. There are 12 of us in the syndicate in total so we all have to agree on it. He’s two and a half and I think he only has a year racing left, that’s it.
‘I’ve had him since 14 months old. I had a dog in England, I bred him myself. I sold him and I bought him after it,’ he added.
The story of Clare’s Rocket this week captivated the nation and he was dubbed ‘the Shergar of greyhounds’. Detectives worked quickly to recover the dog.
Armed gardaí monitored two suspicious cars. One was tracked by gardaí after it left Limerick and travelled to the Waterford border where the dog was handed over to the occupants of the car.
Gardaí later pounced and four men were arrested at locations on the Kilkenny/Waterford border.
‘How can I put my head to the pillow again’
‘I swear, I will track you down’
Notorious gang boss Christy Keane, 55, was one of those arrested.
The return of the dog and the arrests were not the end of the story. Hours after the men’s release from Garda custody there was a bizarre twist.
Keane told a local reporter how, rather than being the villain of the piece, he was its hero.
He was also pictured hugging and smiling with the dog’s owner Joe Cahill and another syndicate member Thomas O’Shea.
Keane told the Limerick Leader newspaper this week how he ‘saved’ the dog from a near certain death.
‘I told him who I was and that I’m from Limerick and I have a share in that dog. I said, “I swear I will track you down. You will go to prison.”
‘So then they agreed to give me the dog. I told them I wouldn’t let it go – I would track them down. That’s my friend’s dog and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, I would track them down,’ Keane said.
‘I said we won’t involve the guards or nobody, you give me the dog, throw him into my jeep and I’ll drive away. I promised him that, that would be the end of it. I would end it there. I did that. He threw in the dog. I took off. There was two men there,’ he added.
Keane – who previously served a 10year prison sentence for drugs offences – said gardaí ‘swooped in on top of us with guns and pulled us onto the ground’.
‘They were armed with red lights on. I had to put my hands in the air and I was trying to tell them I have the dog,’ Keane said.
‘But, look, I understand that, they were looking for the dog. I was trying to tell them “I have the dog – my friend’s dog, I’m after getting him.” I was drowned wet. I was put in a cell.’
When Mr Cahill was asked whether he believes Keane’s version of events, he replied: ‘Well, well, well, what I am hoping, what I am... Listen the guards aren’t fools. So if he had something, whoever had something to do with it, the guards have assured me they’ll be going to court and getting jail for it and rightfully so.’
Asked if he had any qualms about being pictured with Keane he said: ‘Well sure like at the end of the day if the man did the fella a pound to get the f ****** dog back. Like we were told the dog was close to being killed. Like to be honest with you, I don’t drink or smoke or anything like that, the dogs were my only f ****** hobby.
‘It wasn’t that he helped me out, I don’t know Christy or the sky about him. I only met him for the first time on Thursday. It was a member of the syndicate, Tom O’Shea from Newcastle West, who was a friend of his and as, time was going on, the gardaí, they couldn’t tell us anything,’ Mr Cahill said.
‘And he was ringing around a few people to see if they could find out where the dog was. They found out where the dog was and they went down to collect him and sure the rest is history.’
Two years before Mr Cahill’s dog was taken, the pipe bomb was discovered on a car outside his home.
The sinister find caused panic and over 30 homes were evacuated as a controlled explosion was carried out.
Mr Cahill moved out of Newcastle West shortly after the bomb was found and moved to Castletroy.
He told the MoS that the car belonged to a local garage and had nothing to do with him or his family.
‘No, no that’s not my car at all, it belongs to a garage in Newcastle West,’ he said. ‘That had absolutely nothing to do with us and the pipe bomb wasn’t even viable.’