Six people, four of them Irish, have been arrested in Manchester in an operation by British police and the Garda against criminals attempting to set up a new drugs network in Dublin.
A large quantity of heroin was seized by the Greater Manchester Police during raids on houses and business premises in Oldham on the outskirts of the city. [Q L] There were simultaneous raids on houses in Ballyfermot in Dublin but there were no reports of significant amounts of drugs being found.
Two senior officers from the Garda National Drugs Unit were in Manchester yesterday to assist the local force in the operation.
A quantity of amphetamines was also seized in Manchester but exact details of the find were not available last night. Officers were waiting for the seizure to be analysed before releasing details.
The joint police operation was aimed at an emerging drugs-trafficking syndicate which is controlled by two criminal families from Ballyfermot. Several members of one of the families, including the leader of the drugs net work, have been living in Manchester for several years. The other family has remained in Ballyfermot and has been fighting off com- petition from other drug-dealers and establishing a network of street sellers in Dublin.
The Garda unit involved yesterday seized £35 million worth of heroin last month, with 22 kg found at Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Port. In September it seized 7 kg in north Dublin.
Gardai have been watching the two Ballyfermot families for some time. Intelligence reports indicated that the leader of the trafficking operation, a man in his early 40s with a long criminal record, had intended to build up a dominant drugs-supplying network in Dublin. The intention, gardai learned, was to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the previous largest drugs gang in the city.
The Garda has arrested most members of that gang and its leader is in jail abroad.
The four Irish people arrested yesterday include three men and a woman. By last evening two more people, both from Manchester, had also been arrested.