Ireland

Gardaí forging links with Thai police to combat organised crime

Initiative part of long-term liaison effort, Garda Commissioner says at Templemore graduation ceremony

Gardaí at a passing-out ceremony for 54 new members of the force at the Garda training college in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on Friday. Photograph: Garda press office
Gardaí at a passing-out ceremony for 54 new members of the force at the Garda training college in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on Friday. Photograph: Garda press office
David Raleigh
Fri Jul 08 2022 - 20:46

An Garda Síochána is developing close links with police in Bangkok to try to halt the flow of money stolen from unsuspecting victims of deception crimes in Ireland to banks in cities such as the Thai capital.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said this “long-term” operation is part of an expansion of the Garda liaison officer network, whereby senior gardaí are being deployed across Europe, the United States, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Colombia to “make connections” with local law-enforcement agencies in order to disrupt Irish and foreign gangs involved in drug dealing, murder and other crimes.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for 54 members of the force at the Garda Training College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, Mr Harris said gardaí must have “an international footing as we are always concerned with organised crime, and always in the pursuit of those engaged in it”. Recruits originally from Russia, Tajikistan, Mauritius and Iraq were among those who participated in the passing-out ceremony on Friday.

Mr Harris said the link to Bangkok was due to “concerns around the flow of money through criminal assets worldwide, in terms of the following through on large-scale fraud, and money that’s been defrauded from individuals through various forms of deception, which then moves down into the banking system”.

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“If we are at strategic places throughout the world we can make a real difference in terms of interdicting movements of criminal finance,” he added.

The Minister for Justice has also approved a liaison post in Abu Dhabi as gardaí pursue members of the Kinahan cartel, which has been implicated in a series of Irish gangland murders.

“The overall purpose of this is to make connections with law enforcement worldwide, and where we’ve placed the Garda liaison officers, we’ve always benefited and profited really from the amount of information leading to investigations and bringing individuals to justice here in Ireland, or indeed, in other jurisdictions,” said Mr Harris.

The liaison network functions around Europe and moved into the United States in 2020 and to Bogota, Colombia, last year, which Mr Harris said were “very significant deployments for us”.

“Bogota has been very important, and just practically having someone there making the connections with local law enforcement, but also then with the other liaison officer network. It makes a big difference and it puts us on a global stage.”

The commissioner also encouraged the public to continue to continue provide tip offs to the Criminal Assets Bureau about people showing off vast amounts of wealth without any apparent income.

“We are not just after the ‘Mr Bigs’, important as they are, we are pursuing mid-level dealers and taking from them their trappings of wealth where they’ve been they’ve been obtained from crime,” he said.