Euro police on trail of 40 Irish gangsters operating overseas
Friday August 28 2009
INTERNATIONAL police forces are tracking the movements of up to 40 Irish gangsters who are now operating elsewhere in Europe, it was revealed yesterday.
And the number of Irish criminals moving their base out of their home country is increasing, intelligence analysts disclosed.
Information on the activities of the Irish criminals is being shared among the police forces through the Europol agency, which has a headquarters in the Dutch capital, The Hague.
Gardai are satisfied there are nine primary Irish gangs, working mainly out of Spain, the Netherlands and the UK, but also in France and Belgium.
Officers estimate there are between 30 and 40 gangsters now based outside the country. They are mainly involved in drug trafficking, but some are also linked to other types of organised crime.
One officer said last night: "Not all of them are connected to the primary gangs and they are scattered right throughout Europe".
The gangsters, who have been under surveillance, include gang boss George 'The Penguin' Mitchell, a former member of the John Gilligan drug trafficking gang, Peter Mitchell, and members of some of the main gangs bringing drugs into Dublin and Limerick as well as other urban centres.
Thugs who have played key roles in the main gang feuds at home, as well as associates of the gang formerly led by Martin 'Marlo' Hyland, are also known to have established a network of contacts overseas.
During a briefing at the Europol HQ yesterday, the director of the agency, Rob Wainwright said they hoped to compile a dossier on the top 100 crime gangs operating in Europe and this list will include the Irish targeted figures.
Dangerous
"We have collected significant intelligence on organised crime and are putting together a package on the most dangerous organisations," he added. The crime dossier is expected to be completed within a year.
The head of the Irish desk at Europol, Det Sgt John Reid, said the flow of Irish criminals out of the country and into other EU jurisdictions had begun after the setting up of the Criminal Assets Bureau in the wake of the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996.
Their casebook currently indicated that this trend was increasing but the impact of the likely effects of the new gangland legislation had yet to be determined. Although drugs accounted for a sizeable portion of their workload, there was recent evidence of a surge in cigarette smuggling and counterfeit notes.
Sgt Reid said Ireland was "above average" in sharing information and intelligence among EU member states. The Irish desk at Europol also includes Det Sgt Duncan Byrne and a Customs Service representative, Tom McGrath.
Their case files are divided into a dozen categories, which include drugs, terrorism, Islamic extremism, cigarette smuggling, money laundering, credit cards and ATM frauds, child sex exploitation, trafficking in humans, counterfeit euro, VAT carousels and internet financial crime.
Mr Wainwright warned that intelligence indicated that the use of western and central Africa, particularly in cocaine trafficking, would intensify as pressure exerted on existing routes through Spain and Portugal from South America was pushing the traffickers to use more hostile regions, such as Somalia and Sierre Leone.
- Tom Brady Security Editor in The Hague
