CAB shock at gang’s failure to hide assets
CAB officers who swooped on homes and businesses connected to the Kinahan crime cartel last week were ‘surprised’ the criminals hadn’t tried to dispose of their assets following the Regency shooting.
Investigators are now set to take their battle to the courts to ensure that the haul they recovered can be confiscated as proceeds of crime.
Sources told the Irish Mail on Sunday following the impressive raid: ‘We knew they had all this stuff, but the risk was they could have removed some of the cars and jewellery.
‘Our plan was to do this for quite some time, but with the shootings and
‘It was surprising they hadn’t moved the cars’
everything else we thought there was a real high risk that they could have removed them. In lots of ways it was surprising they hadn’t moved the cars already, so from our point of view it worked out well.’
CAB officials now expect to be in the High Court this week in a bid to hold on to the haul, worth well over €1m, seized on Wednesday.
A source added: ‘The next step is to try and get it into the High Court as quickly as possible and get orders against the seizure. We have got to move on it pretty much straight away, the earlier the better in terms of bringing our accusations. We may be in the courts this week.’
The MoS has learned gardaí seized €90,000 in a credit union account during a second series of dawn raids on the drugs gang on Friday.
€50,000 in cash and €20,000 worth of jewellery were also seized in the second crackdown in just two days.
Meanwhile, in a separate operation in Tallaght, gardaí raided a ‘chop shop’ where high-end cars are cut up and repainted. When detectives swooped an Audi, valued at €70,000, was being worked on.
The chief targets of Wednesday’s operation were members of a criminal gang connected to David Byrne who was shot dead in the audacious Regency Hotel attack last month. Gardaí raided the home of David’s older brother Liam Byrne on Raleigh Square and also the home of Seán McGovern, who is recovering after he too was shot in the Regency attack, on Windmill Road. An accountant and solicitor’s office were also raided.
Sources told the MoS: ‘This was a huge operation involving 60 gardaí, backed up by specialist units, in 18 searches.’