GERARD Kavanagh, who yesterday received a four year jail sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, was believed by gardai to be one of the most important drug dealers on the south side of Dublin.
He was sufficiently well known to have his name included in a "hit list" of alleged dealers circulated recently in Dublin by a vigilante group with republican links.
Kavanagh (25) was considered to be only one step below the "drug barons". Some gardai believe up to £50,000 a week might have passed through his hands.
Gardai had been pursuing Kavanagh for years but had never found him committing a serious offence. His arrest in March 1994 in Crumlin was the culmination of a carefully prepared operation.
Kavanagh was known to be a major figure in the city's drug trade. He is believed to have been set up in the business by an older man after that man was taken into custody accused of a serious crime. Despite having no obvious job or form of legal income, it was not long before Kavanagh was able to buy a £65,000 house in Tallaght.
About 10 people worked under Kavanagh in a typical drugs distribution network. Kavanagh kept them supplied and was supplied himself by one of the "drug barons", of whom he was a trusted associate.
The "pushers" - selling drugs at street level - were equipped with GSM mobile telephones and called their orders into Kavanagh who passed the orders to the top of the chain. The system ensures that the pushers - who may be more likely to give something away under Garda interrogation than the more practised criminals - never get to know the identity of the original supplier of the drugs.
But Kavanagh slipped up the day in March 1994 when he met a group of other men at the gate of Brickfield Park in Crumlin. Kavanagh was doing his rounds and had just approached the men when confronted by a patrol car from Sundrive Road Garda station, carrying three gardai from the station's drugs unit.
The group split up and Kavanagh abandoned his van and made a run for it. He was caught after a short chase and was found to have nearly £2,000 in cash stuffed into his pockets. He also had more than £1,100 worth of heroin and nearly £1,300 worth of cannabis, all in small packets and ready for sale. Another £480 worth of cannabis was found in the van.
Kavanagh faces an uncertain future as one of the people on the vigilantes' "hit list". So far one man on the list has been shot dead, and two others have been shot and injured.
Gerry Lee (31) was killed at the weekend in a house in Coolock. A close associate of the notorious Dublin criminal known as the Monk, he was picked out of a group of people at his 31st birthday party and shot twice.
Another man on the list, Martin Foley, has survived two attempts on his life in the past four months. The other man was shot and injured in a Dublin pub in the south inner city last month.