Gardaí seize €50,000 after searching Dublin homes

Gardaí have seized an estimated to €50,000 after teams of detectives raided around ten residential properties in Dublin city suspected of being linked to members of the Kinahan international crime cartel.

The cash seized is believed to be the proceeds of crime. Most of the money was found in one property.

The co-ordinated searches began across Dublin’s south inner city at Dawn and targetd a number of men who have been involved in distributing the drugs Christy Kinahan is believed to have imported into the Republic from his base in Spain.

A man in his 30s was also arrested.

One sinister discovery during this morning’s operation involved the GPS tracking devices that can be fitted to vehicles to allow criminals track their exact location.

Garda sources said these could be used to monitor vehicles being used to transport cash by underworld couriers paid for that risky work.

The tracking devices could also be secretly concealed on vehicles used by the Kinahan gang’s rivals or by other people the gang wanted to follow or intimidate.

While the focus of the raids was not on assets, as was the case during Wednesday’s search operation, financial documents were also seized during Friday’s searches and will now be analysed.

Watches and other high-value jewellery were also seized.

Proceeds

The Criminal Assets Bureau must now go before the courts and apply for orders to begin the long process of the State proving the assets derive from crime and so should be sold and any proceeds realised for the State.

“What you saw earlier in the week you could say was against the higher ups in the Kinahan gang in Dublin and particularly their assets,” said one senior Garda officer on Friday.

“And what we have this morning is a move against different people in the same gang; people involved in the drugs distribution and firearms side of that group.”

The Irish Times understands Friday's raids targeted one key figure in the gang's drugs distribution network in the south inner city and the men who work under him on Kinahan's behalf.

He is a 28-year-old old Dubliner based in a local authority estate in the Dublin 8 area.

Having worked for some for the figures whose homes were raided in the Crumlin area on Wednesday and whose high-value vehicles were confiscated, he has now risen to lead one of the gang's key drugs distribution teams with an estimated 40 criminals working under him.

He had been in dispute with Dublin man Gerard Eglington (27), who was shot dead at his rented home in Portarlington, Co Laois, in September 2012 having been repeatedly threatened by members of the Kinahan gang.

The raids this morning involved about 80 Garda members including members of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, Special Detective Unit, Criminal Assets Bureau, detectives from Pearse Street and Donnybrook stations, Dog Unit, Divisional Scenes of Crimes Unit and the Garda's South Central Divisional Task Force.

Friday’s activity comes at the end of a week of intense activity targeting members of the Kinahan gang in Dublin and a rival faction loyal to murdered drug dealer and armed robber Gary Hutch.

Feud

A feud between the two gangs not only claimed the life of Hutch (34) in southern Spain last September but has seen two other men shot dead in Dublin in recent weeks.

On Friday, February 5th, a group of armed men stormed into a boxing tournament weigh-in at the Regency Hotel, Drumcondra, north Dublin, intent on shooting members of the Kinahan gang who were present.

David Byrne (33), Crumlin, was shot dead and two other men were wounded but survived. Byrne was a member of the Kinahan gang and it was his associates’ whose homes and car business were raided in Dublin on Wednesday when 29 vehicles were confiscated during a Criminal Assets Bureau operation along with about € 100,000 in cash and other valuables.

Some three days after the attack at the Regency last month by men loyal to Gary Hutch, his uncle Eddie Hutch (58) was shot dead at his home in the north inner city.

On Wednesday night after a surveillance operation, the three AK47s used in the Regency attack were seized in a car near Slane, Co Meath, as they were being transported back to the North by a dissident Republican.

And garda í have also identified two houses in Dublin where they believe the guns were stored and identified another key figure who is believed to have been instrumental in storing and sourcing the guns.

A separate investigation into the wealth of that second man is also under way, who is a Dublin-based member of the Republican movement.