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May.30, 2010

Gardai are closely monitoring the drugs trade here, anticipating major aftershocks from the biggest-ever European police cross-border operation against the Irish-led drugs gang based in Spain and northern Europe.

The 'pension funds' of major Irish gangsters including John Gilligan are believed to have been wiped out by last week's pan-European police operation aimed at the organisation led by Dubliner Christy Kinahan.

Kinahan's side-kick John Cunningham, who is among the Irish arrested in Spain, is believed to have been looking after Gilligan's money to ease his retirement when he is finally released from Portlaoise Prison in three or four years' time.

Gilligan placed him in charge of his drugs operations after he was arrested in 1996 in connection with the murder of Veronica Guerin. Cunningham, 59, moved to Amsterdam where he was arrested a number of times in connections with drugs and firearms but evaded any lengthy sentences. He operated between a luxurious rented apartment outside Amsterdam near Schipol Airport and another apartment valued at close to €1m near Marbella and close to Christy Kinahan's villa at Guadalmina between Marbella and Estepona.

Gardai believe Cunningham had charge of the actual drugs trade. Kinahan, they believe, was almost exclusively involved, along with accountants and lawyers, in the laundering of the vast amounts of cash generated by the movement of drugs into Britain and Ireland.

Spanish police said last week that among the properties they intend seizing was a portfolio of leisure properties and houses in Brazil, which they said could probably be valued at €500m. The assets investigation co-ordinated by the European police agency, Europol, is also expected to seek the seizure of properties in Britain, Spain, Belgium, Cyprus, Dubai, South Africa and here. The authorities put a value of €250m on properties seized in Spain, which includes Kinahan's villa, valued at €6m.

In the co-ordinated operation involving more than 700 officers across Europe, gardai raided premises here, including the offices of two solicitors and a number of accountants.

They seized a large amount of documentation relating to the ownership of 55 properties from which shops and other cash-handling businesses are conducted.

Some 22 people were arrested in the early morning raids on Tuesday, including 13 British and Irish in Spain and a further 11 arrested by the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Britain. The 11 in Britain were released after questioning on Wednesday.

One of the businesses raided in Spain was a car dealership specialising in top-of-the-range marques. Members of the gang were often to be seen in Marbella driving cars -- some costing more than €1m.

One man, who started life as a petty thief from the Sheriff Street area of Dublin was seen last year driving a McLaren-Mercedes sports car valued at well over €1m.

Despite the scale and relative sophistication of the money-laundering operation, the Irish criminals appear to have been under the impression that the Spanish authorities were either unlikely or unwilling to seize crim- inal assets. This impression is wrong.

Eight years ago, Spain introduced assets-seizure legislation, based on Ireland Proceeds of Crime Act, but the laws were primarily aimed at the terror group, ETA, which was amassing huge amounts of funds from drugs and other forms of organised crime and had close links with the South American cocaine trade. The Spanish Penal Code was also amended to apply the same assets-seizure powers to any form of crime.

The gang may also have been unaware that the Spanish police can and do use wiretap evidence in court cases. They said they had amassed a large volume of telephone conversations between the principal figures in the gang and will be basing much of their evidence against the figures in forthcoming proceedings.

In the past year, Christy Kinahan had been devoting time to trying to curtail gang feuding, which had been disrupting the drugs trade here.

He bought 50 ringside seats for the Matthew Macklin-Rafa Sosa Pintos fight in the O2 arena in Dublin last December. Freddie Thompson and west-side gang leader Eamon Dunne, who was shot dead last month, were among those in attendance. Kinahan later flew out several of the main figures involved in the Crumlin and Drimnagh feud, which has claimed as many as 17 lives, for another gathering at a five-star hotel and leisure complex in Puerto Banus. Again Thompson and Dunne were in attendance.

Kinahan (53) was only recently released from prison in Belgium where he had been convicted of money-laundering. He and Cunningham are believed to have entrusted their business in Belgium and the Netherlands to a Dubliner aged in his mid-20s, who is among those now being sought by European police.

These operations are believed to be concentrated on heroin, ecstasy and firearms supply to both the British and Irish markets. It is known they have long had links with Eastern European and Turkish mafias. Most of the thousands of firearms that have come into the country in recent years have come from the former Soviet Eastern European states.

The Spanish side of the Kinahan and Cunningham operations concerned mainly cocaine and cannabis, and is where the Spanish authorities said the money-laundering operations were being run.

Kinahan, originally from the Liberties area of Dublin, has been working closely with some of Britain's top criminals, including 63-year-old Brian Wright, who was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment in 2007 for his part in a massive cocaine haul seized by UK customs. Wright -- known as the "Milkman" because he "always delivered" -- was involved in race-fixing on a grand scale. Kinahan was named by British police as being behind the attempt to coerce Irish jockey Kieren Fallon into losing races which led to charges against Mr Fallon and his acquittal in court in 2007.

As police in Spain and Britain were rounding up Kinahan's gang, gardai were last week searching for a 29-year-old Dublin man who they suspect of laundering millions in drugs cash through betting rackets.

Gardai recovered documentation showing €2.5m had been bet on horse and dog races and football games, mostly on low-odds bets. The betting slips were being used as proof of "clean" cash. The operation is believed to have been based here to provide ready cash for drug distributors. John Gilligan used exactly such an operation to launder a good deal of his cash.

In the two years since police started investigating Kinahan's operations, they have located his distribution centres on the Continent -- though they failed to make any major drugs seizures last week.

It was fairly well-known that Kinahan's operation was under international scrutiny and a senior Europol official as much as said so last year when he made reference to a major Irish-led drugs and money-laundering operation at a press conference in The Hague.

Kinahan may have switched his supply routes or may recently have cut back. Gardai say there has been a reduction in the supply of heroin and cocaine in the past month and were unsure about the reason.