THE WELL-known drug dealer Tony Felloni has been released from prison. The 68-year-old was released from the training unit at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin at 10am on Saturday.
Felloni, from Lower Dominick Street in Dublin, was one of the highest-profile heroin dealers during the 1980s heroin epidemic in Dublin and remained a key figure in the heroin trade for two decades.
He became notorious when it emerged he used some of his children in his drug dealing and got some of them hooked on drugs.
Mr Felloni was jailed for heroin dealing in June 1996 and served much of his term in Portlaoise Prison and Mountjoy. Jailed for 20 years, he served 15 years after qualifying, like all inmates, for 25 per cent remission. He has 30 convictions, some dating back to his childhood.
In 1999 his final appeal of his sentence was dismissed by the courts. Probation and psychiatric reports on him at that time revealed he had become completely institutionalised, was HIV positive and had obtained drugs in prison. He was unable to manage on his own for more than two days.
While in jail he was targeted by both the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and Revenue Commissioners.
His son Luigi Felloni (37) was also jailed for heroin dealing in June 1996 and received a sentence of six years, while his daughter Regina Felloni (35) was jailed for six years and nine months for heroin dealing.
A trawl of the trio’s assets by the Cab in the Republic last year realised a cash total of just over €292,000, which includes the sale of a property. The bulk of the money, some €253,173, related to Regina Felloni. A bail bond of €24,000, lodged on behalf of Tony Felloni, was also transferred to State coffers. The investigations also found the Fellonis had lodged £145,519 in six bank accounts in Belfast and Liverpool. That cash was released by the British and Northern Irish exchequers when the case against the Fellonis finally concluded last May.
The case against the heroin-dealing family was one of the first pursued by the bureau on its inception in 1996. It took so long because the Fellonis challenged the case and then refused to co-operate when the High Court granted orders to the Cab against them. They also hid cash in the Republic, the North and England.