Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘LUNNEY SUSPECT’S ATM RAIDS’
Dead ‘boss’ ran smuggling rackets Net closing after UK bolthole raid
THE chief suspect in the brutal kidnap of Quinn boss Kevin Lunney was a multi-millionaire criminal with more than a dozen aliases.
Cyril “Dublin Jimmy” McGuinness made his money from smuggling and illegal waste management and is believed to have carried out at least 30 ATM raids on both sides of the border.
The net is now closing on the “paymaster” financing the Lunney torture gang after cops recovered significant evidence in Friday’s raid on his UK hideout.
Detectives believe McGuinness was the man referred to as “boss” on the phone by the thugs who beat and branded the Quinn director before pouring bleach on him and dumping him in a country lane. The 54-year-old career criminal dropped dead of a heart attack when armed officers arrived to search his bolthole near Derby after a tip-off from gardai and the PSNI.
Police are now sifting through a mountain of evidence contained in documents and devices at his address.
Yesterday, retired Chief Supt John O’Brien told how Friday’s dawn raids marked a turning point in the probe.
He said: “He would have been caught by surprise and not in a position to destroy any evidence. There was documentation, mobile phones and a laptop seized.
“It’s very significant that they caught him unawares. A lot of preparatory work would have been done before this.”
Speaking on RTE radio, the retired Garda chief, who arrested McGuinness on several occasions, added: “If there’s electronic equipment, written documents, bank statements – all of that is part of the forensic trawl.”
He also insisted the gang would now splinter in a bid to “save their own skins”.
Mr O’Brien said: “McGuinness came across our radar quite significantly. He was part of a network even then in the early days.
“In temperament he had a hair-trigger temperament, he was very volatile.”
In 1986, McGuinness was banned from driving for 25 years and jailed for six months after refusing to stop for gardai as they chased his lorry through north Co Dublin two years earlier.
Then, age 22, he was led from Balbriggan Courthouse handcuffed to a Garda and when he passed a sergeant who gave evidence against him he shouted, “B ***** d” and spat in his face. O’Brien added: “He threatened me frequently and quite graphically – he had a physically intimidating presence.
“Myself and two colleagues arrested him one night – he was stripped to the waist, holding a big brush handle and threatening to take our heads off.”
McGuinness had become public enemy number one after gardai and the PSNI stepped up their investigation in the wake of a fresh death threat issued against Quinn Industrial Holdings chiefs.
Executives at the firm always believed the gang responsible for the campaign of violence was led by the thug, but was funded and orchestrated by another man they refer to as the “paymaster”.
Based in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, McGuinness was originally from
Cloghran near Swords in north Co Dublin.
He worked in scrap metal as a teenager and had run foul of the law before turning 20.
He gained a reputation as an IRA sympathiser who supplied vehicles to them and provided safe houses.
McGuinness was also heavily involved in smuggling alcohol, cigarettes and fuel laundering.
He was suspected of involvement in the IRA bombing of Bishopsgate in London in 1993. The Met Police issued a photofit of M cGuinness two months after the blast.
A source said: “This guy perfected plans for carrying out raids and would then sell his ideas to other criminal gangs.
“He started out in Dublin but because he ran into trouble with the law he migrated north to Monaghan and Leitrim, and eventually across the border.
“He had a criminal career spanning 30 years and had a conviction for every year of his life – 54 in total – going back to his teens and early 20s.
“He was stealing plant machinery across Europe, operating in at least 11 different jurisdictions.
“He perfected ATM robberies using diggers he brought in from the EU. Then he set up a kind of a franchise telling others how to do it.”
McGuinness was arrested in possession of forged British £20 notes in 1992 – but he used so many aliases it took arresting gardai three days to establish his true identity. He had three addresses at the time in north Co Dublin and also one in Middlesex.
In his 20s, he secured contracts for the collection of hazardous waste and used them to run illegal fly tipping rackets.
He was described in a European extradition warrant issued for him in 2008 as an active member of an Irish criminal organisation.
During the height of a spate of ATM robberies a decade ago, McGuinness and his gang were suspects for 15 raids a year.
In 2011, he was extradited to Belgium for stealing 20 trucks and cranes there and in the Netherlands from 2006 to 2007. He was one of three who faced 81 charges, including money laundering, handling stolen goods and illegal dumping, when he appeared in Strabane Magistrates Court, Co Tyrone, in 2005.
Figures showed McGuinness benefited to the tune of €2.9 million from smuggling.
However, only a fraction of this amount – less than £300,000 – was recovered through a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
He lived north of the border on Teemore Road in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh – a short distance from the head office of Quinn Industrial Holdings.
Asked whether he knew McGuinness, businessman Sean Quinn said in an interview last month he was “never in contact with him” but did admit to chatting to him on occasion.