Criminal assets and money laundering investigators have now moved in to examine the earnings of one of the State's largest heroin smuggling gangs which has been broken up after months of under-cover investigation by the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU).
Six people, including the suspected Dublin head of the drugs trafficking team, were arrested on Tuesday at the culmination of the GNDU's "Operation Jumbo". About three-quarters of a kilo of heroin, worth about £40,000, was seized in Kingswood, Tallaght.
The Crumlin man, suspected by garda∅ to be one of the main heroin suppliers in south and west Dublin, has recently been involved in a gang war with other drug dealers from west Dublin. An attempt was made to shoot him two months ago at a house in Crumlin but the gunmen missed.
The man's girlfriend, an employee of Dublin Corporation, was also arrested and is being questioned under the Drug Trafficking Act.
All six, including a man who formerly played Gaelic football for Co Kildare and has been living in Naas, can be held for seven days before being charged or released.
The operation is the latest in a series of strikes against the gang which has established bases in London, Liverpool and Dublin.
Several gang members have been arrested both here and in Britain since August. An estimated £4.7 million worth of heroin, amphetamines and ecstasy belonging to the gang was seized in a car in Lucan on September 18th last. In a follow-up operation in Kilmainham, a further 0.5 kilogrammes of heroin was seized.