A man who was stabbed to death in Crumlin, Dublin, at the weekend was a drug dealer, according to Garda sources.
Gardai continue to seek three men in connection with the stabbing of Mr Declan Gavin (20), Mourne Road, Drimnagh, which occurred at a bus stop close to Crumlin shopping centre at 3.30 a.m on Saturday.
Gardai said a car with three occupants pulled up alongside the bus stop and there was a confrontation. One man wearing a balaclava got out and stabbed Mr Gavin in the chest. The car then left the scene.
He was taken to St James's Hospital, Dublin, where he was pronounced dead at 5.30 a.m. The State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, carried out a post-mortem examination and concluded that Mr Gavin had died from a single stab wound to the chest.
Gardai say the man was a cocaine dealer and he was responsible for importing about three-quarters of a kilo of the drug which was found at Pearse Street in March last year.
Mr Gavin was arrested after this seizure, in which gardai discovered him and two others "cutting" the cocaine with powdered glucose.
At the seizure, £500,000 worth of ecstasy tablets and up to £750,000 of cocaine were found. Graham Whelan (18), of Clonard Road, Drimnagh, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of the drugs, in a case in February this year.
Gardai say no one has yet been arrested in connection with the fatal attack. They are seeking three men who were in the area in a silver Nissan Micra.
The site of the stabbing is near the place where Dublin criminal Seamus Hogan was shot dead in July. He was killed on a Saturday night outside the Transport Club off Clogher Road.
The killing was recorded on closed-circuit cameras outside the club, but the gunmen and the getaway driver all wore masks.
The murder was described as "professional" and this has led to speculation that it might have been carried out by the IRA.