A property bought by one of Dublin’s biggest drug dealers and later extended to more than twice its original size is being offered for auction by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) at a value of €345,000.
The lavishly decorated and extended house in Cabra, Dublin 7 was one of three properties seized by Cab from Dubliner David Waldron.
Waldron took over the supply of drugs in parts of Dublin, including Cabra and Finglas, after his former gang boss Eamon Dunne was murdered in 2010.
Two other houses seized from Waldron – one in Leixlip, Co Kildare and another property near Gorey, Co Wexford – have already been sold for €522,000 and €415,000 respectively.
READ MORE
Those prices were regarded as well below the market value at the time of their sale in 2024. The Wexford property was valued at more than €1 million.
While Cab rarely encounters any lack of demand for properties seized from gangland figures, they often fetch less than the market value of similar properties nearby because of their background.
A third property once owned by Waldron now being offered for sale is located at 229 Ratoath Road, Cabra, Dublin 7.
[ The quiet man: Inside David Waldron’s 25-year run in the Dublin underworldOpens in new window ]
It will be auctioned on February 5th in a live virtual online and public auction run by Wilsons Auctions in Kingswood, Dublin 22.
The 160sq m house, a former council property, was bought by Waldron for €330,000. It was extensively refurbished using proceeds of crime, the High Court concluded in 2024, when Waldron’s assets were seized by Cab.
It is described as “a two-storey semidetached brick dwelling house with modern rear extension”.
The house includes four bedrooms, two of which are en suite, and a family bathroom with a hot tub and “his and hers” sinks.
A significant extension has been built to the rear of the property, and another small building has been constructed at the bottom of the garden.
In 2024, Mr Justice Alexander Owens of the High Court accepted Cab’s contention as “reasonable” and supported by “persuasive” evidence that Cabra man David Waldron had been a “major player in the illegal distribution and sale of controlled drugs in Dublin since 2000, and that this activity has been the mainstay of his means, income and lifestyle”.
The judge said Garda intelligence was that Waldron and his brother Christopher took a “leading role” in sourcing and supplying controlled drugs in the Cabra area after Eamon “The Don” Dunne was murdered in 2010.
David Waldron and his wife Charlene enjoyed “lavish foreign travel”, inconsistent with legitimate income, up to his imprisonment in 2015, said the judge.
The lifestyle resumed when he was released from jail, and they rarely used their bank accounts to defray ordinary daily living expenses, he said.
David Waldron’s close associate, his wife Charlene’s cousin, was Darren Kearns, a drug dealer and enforcer.
When Waldron was in jail in 2015, Kearns (then 33) sought to keep the narcotics business going until he was shot dead at the end of that year outside a pub near the Cabra gate of Phoenix Park.
Martin “Marlo” Hyland (37) and Dunne (36), who were murdered before Kearns, were two other senior drug-dealing associates of David Waldron’s.
Hyland was killed in 2006 by his own gang members, including Dunne, after attracting too much media and Garda attention.
Dunne subsequently took over Hyland’s Finglas-Cabra drugs gang and in less than four years was linked with up to 17 killings.
His bloody reign destabilised the Dublin underworld to such an extent that the Kinahan crime gang decided to murder him in a pub in Cabra in 2010 in an attempt to bring calm to the market they supplied.
Other close associates of David Waldron’s who were shot dead include Richard Keogh, Michael “Micka” Kelly – nicknamed “The Panda” – and zookeeper-turned-criminal Daithí Douglas.
