€2.3M drugs haul by cops
CASH, COKE, BIKES AND BULLETS IN MANURE FOUND
POLICE have recovered herbal cannabis with an estimated street value of €2.3 million in Belfast.
Officers made the discovery concealed inside a trailer in the Dargan Road area on Thursday.
A PSNI spokesperson said: “Alongside colleagues from the UK Border Force, officers stopped and search a heavy goods vehicle in the Belfast Harbour area shortly after 10:30pm.
“A 25-year-old man was arrested and remains in police custody.”
GARDAI have delivered a major blow to two major Dublin crime gangs after a series of raids – including one of the biggest drugs outfits in Ireland.
Gardai found cash, cocaine, three stolen motorbikes – and also recovered almost 200 bullets that had been hidden inside a pile of horse manure, it is understood.
The Irish Daily Star has confirmed that the west Dublin outfit known as The Family – who we revealed send up to €10 million out of Ireland every month – was the main target of Thursday’s massive operation in the city.
That mob, which is led by two brothers, now rivals the Kinahan cartel for importance in Ireland – and is a major target for gardai.
We have established that officers seized €200,000 of the gang’s cash in the operation in west Dublin on Thursday – and also compromised one of their main routes for getting cash out of the country.
Scam
Sources say The Family bosses were so incensed by the discovery of the operation they sent one of their main lieutenants to the area to begin an investigation into how the scam had been compromised.
“They are furious,” a source said. “They are really annoyed that the operation was broken up. It was a major supply line for them.”
More than €200,000 in cash was seized in west Dublin along with €20,000 worth of cocaine linked to the gangs’ drugs and money laundering operations, sources say.
The cash, which had been rolled in bundles in preparation for it being smuggled out of the country, was found in three different locations.
One man, who is in his 40s and a low level member of the gang, was arrested and charged with money laundering offences.
He is due to appear in court at a later date.
The Family works with a drugs gang active in the Finglas area of north west Dublin – and gardai also moved against them on Thursday. Gardai brought soldiers from the Defence Forces search unit who used ground radar and metal detectors as part of the crackdown on that mob.
Sources have told us that the equipment led to the discovery of 174 9mm bullets – used in pistols and machine guns – hidden inside a pile of horse dung in one location they searched in Finglas.
There were no arrests in that operation, but gardai also recovered around €1,000 worth of cocaine.
Just four years ago, gardai seized a monkey from the same gang during a raid in the area.
In Thursday’s crackdown, gardai also recovered three high-powered motorbikes that criminals had stolen from the Finglas area in recent weeks.
Gardai have now been in contact with the bikes’ owners to return them in the coming days.
Gardai last night said the raids were part of an ongoing operation against organised crime in the city.
Serious
A spokesman said: “Three high-powered stolen motorbikes were recovered in other searches in the Finglas area also targeting serious and organised crime groups. A small amount of suspected cocaine and a weighing scales was also seized at this location. A man in his 40s was arrested at the scene and taken to a Garda station in Dublin.”
The mob nicknamed The Family has been active for two decades – but has become increasingly important in recent years.
It supplies large areas of Dublin with cocaine, cannabis and heroin — and makes a fortune from crime.
Investigators believe it played a role in the gun killing of rival Gary “the Canary” Carey, shot in the car park of a south Dublin hotel in June last year.
Carey (40) was shot as he came out of the Hilton Hotel in Kilmainham’s gym and died six weeks later. Carey was killed because he was trying to muscle in on operations run by The Family.