The “controlled delivery” of illicit items – which can include drugs and guns – is used frequently by gardaí, especially when trying to catch people attempting to import drugs into the Republic. While it is rarely spoken of, mainly because gardaí want to keep their trade craft secret, it was aired very publicly this week at an Oireachtas justice committee.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris confirmed Evan Fitzgerald, the armed 22-year-old who took his own life in a Carlow shopping centre on the June bank holiday weekend, had been charged with gun crimes after a “controlled delivery” of firearms last year.
On that occasion, gardaí received a tip-off from international policing agency Interpol that unidentified parties in Ireland were active on the darknet trying to buy guns. Gardaí acted on that intelligence, going on to the darknet and offering guns to the suspects.
A face-to-face meeting was later arranged, with the guns and money exchanged. Mr Fitzgerald, who did not realise he was dealing with undercover gardaí running a sting operation, was arrested. The guns were two firearms that were in Garda stores and had been decommissioned.
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Mr Fitzgerald was charged with four offences: possession of a machine gun and pistol and two different ammunition types. A search of an address linked to him yielded a variety of ammunition and powers to make explosive devices, resulting in nine other charges.
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The case was unusual in that the source of the guns – the person who offered them for sale on the darknet – was actually an undercover detective.
Both techniques – controlled deliveries and police officers posing as criminals – are used by international law enforcement. They are also included in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime.
The UN defines organised crime as three or more people working together to commit at least one serious crime punishable by at least four years in jail and from which they derive financial or material gain.
A controlled delivery occurs when illegal items are detected – usually in the postal system or in freight – on their way to the person trying to procure them. The authorities take control of the delivery in order to catch the person the items are destined for. In Ireland, this includes undercover gardaí dressing as postal workers, or couriers, to make a delivery and then arrest a suspect.
The UN also deals specifically with policing techniques in which undercover officers effectively insert themselves into a crime in the planning. It says the crime should be in the planning before the police get involved. If a police officer “originated the idea of the crime and induced the accused to engage in it” this would be used as grounds for defence in some jurisdictions”.
A range of Garda sting operations have been reported in Ireland, including gardaí posing as drug users and even as criminals selling drugs or guns.
In 2017, Ahmed Ayadi, then aged 25 years and with an address in the Lawn, Boden Park, Rathfarnham, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing a 9mm calibre Glock semi-automatic pistol in suspicious circumstances.
Gardaí learned he was involved in the drug trade and that he wanted to buy a gun. Undercover gardaí posed as criminals selling guns. He chose a Glock, paying €450. As he left the transaction location, his car was stopped and he was arrested and charged. He was jailed for five years and also admitted possessing drugs.
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In 2013, Operation Trident saw undercover gardaí infiltrate the drug gang run by Dubliner Freddie Thompson, who became a significant figure in the Kinahan cartel’s Irish operation, running it for a time. The undercover gardaí were given new identities and even moved into properties in the Crumlin area, buying and selling drugs and being arrested to help them infiltrate the gang – all with close co-operation between the Garda and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
However, after some details of the operation appeared in the media, the operation was cancelled and five undercover gardaí were withdrawn, though 29 suspects were arrested on the basis of their work.
In 2013 a CIÉ bus driver – Sunny Idah, then aged 36 – was jailed for 13 years. He was trying to recruit people to smuggle cocaine from Brazil to Ireland by swallowing the drugs. Two undercover gardaí posed as would-be couriers and when they recorded Idah – with addresses at Lipton Court, Dublin – offering them €5,000 to take on the task, he was charged.
