Gardaí continue to question seven over bank raid

GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING last Friday’s robbery of the Bank of Ireland were last night still questioning seven people arrested within…

GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING last Friday’s robbery of the Bank of Ireland were last night still questioning seven people arrested within hours of the raid.

It has now emerged that seven vehicles were seized on Friday night and up to 10 properties searched in Dublin and the midlands.

Almost €2 million was found in a car on the Navan Road, Dublin, and one man arrested. Gardaí believe this cash represents some of the proceeds of Friday’s raid but the whereabouts of the rest of the estimated €7.6 million taken is still unknown.

Gardaí believe it is most likely still in Ireland, but say, because much of the proceeds was in new bank notes, other people involved who were not arrested may now try to bring it out of the country.

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After the arrest of the man in the car, gardaí went to a house in Phibsboro and arrested a man and a woman. Three other men were arrested in a BMW very close to the house, and another man was arrested on the street in the immediate vicinity. Small sums of money were found.

The suspects were detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, and can be held without charge until around 10pm tonight. Their periods of detention were extended from 48 hours to 72 hours at a special court sitting last night.

The Irish Times understands that immediately after news of the raid broke, gardaí increased their surveillance of a number of Dublin gang members regarded as sophisticated enough to carry out the kidnap robbery. During the course of that intensified operation intelligence quickly emerged that led gardaí to a house at Great Western Villas, Phibsboro.

One vehicle, carrying almost €2 million, was then followed from Phibsboro and was stopped, searched and the driver arrested as the car was travelling on the Navan Road.

The man arrested is in his late 20s and is originally from Dublin’s north inner city but is now living in Longford. Two houses were searched in Longford early Saturday morning.

The man and woman arrested at Great Western Villas are a 36-year-old from Dublin’s north inner city who is known to gardaí, and the 32-year-old daughter of a well known armed robber.

The three men arrested in a car at Monk Place, Phibsboro, are also known to gardaí. One of them is a convicted armed robber from the north inner city. He is a suspect for at least one gun murder and another gun attack in which the victim survived.

This man spends much of his time in Spain, and is linked to criminals not only from the north inner city but also from Crumlin and Drimnagh. In his late 20s, he is very closely linked with a leading organised crime figure from the north inner city.

Two of the others arrested were implicated in the shooting dead of a man in Dublin a number of years ago as part of a row over the sexual assault of a woman.

Meanwhile, a major forensic operation was carried out at the weekend at the house in Kilteel, Co Kildare, where bank worker Shane Travers, his girlfriend Stephanie Smith, and her mother and nephew were taken hostage by the six-man armed gang.