Gardaí target organised crime in raids on 24 properties

Gardaí and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) have carried out a series of raids targeting an organised crime operation based in Cabra, Dublin and seized a large amount of documents.

One man (37) was arrested in the operation on Wednesday morning that involved units from CAB, the Emergency Response Unit, Armed Support Unit, Organised Crime Bureau and the Garda National Drugs Unit.

In total 24 searches of properties in Cabra, Finglas and Monkstown in Dublin, Leixlip in Co Kildare, and the Courtown and Gorey areas in Co Wexford took place.

A Garda spokesman confirmed units “seized a large amount of documentation and evidence, that they believed relate to the proceeds of crime.” The properties searched included residential homes as well as professional offices.

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One man was arrested during a search operation in Finglas, after a quantity of cocaine with an estimated street value of €3,500 was discovered by gardaí. The man is currently being detained at Finglas Garda station under the provisions of section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 as amended.

“The operation and searches are ongoing” said a Garda spokesman. The target of the raids were an organised crime operation based in the Cabra area of Dublin.

Pictures from inside one of the properties raided in Wexford show a large, cluttered sitting room area with a pool table, leather recliner chair, a set of dumbbell weights, several flat screen televisions, a riding saddle hung from a wall, a large set of speakers, as well as a set of power tools.

The room also contained a framed photo of actor Marlon Brando in his role as Don Vito Corleone from the 1972 movie The Godfather, alongside the quote: "I spent my whole life trying not to be careless, women and children can be careless, but not men".

Monday night

In another significant operation by gardaí this week four major members of the Kinahan crime syndicate were arrested on Monday night with a firearm and silencer that gardaí believe was about to be used in a Dublin gangland murder.

Those arrested had been under surveillance for some time before gardaí moved in on them as they were travelling in a car in Fairview, Dublin.

All four were being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to murder a man linked to the rival Hutch faction.

One of the men detained is a violent criminal suspected of a high-profile gun murder for which he was never convicted. The 38-year-old has served lengthy prison sentences for violent crime and has also issued death threats, treated as credible by the Garda, against gardaí and journalists.

One of his close associates, a 23-year-old, was also detained in the operation. He has previously survived an attempt to murder him.

A third suspect, a 35-year-old from Dublin 8, is a key figure in the Kinahan operation in Crumlin and Drimnagh.

Gardaí believe the men were on their way to shoot dead a man in his 20s from the north inner city closely associated with murdered criminal Gary Hutch, whose murder by the Kinahan gang in Spain in September 2015 was the first gun killing in the feud.