Gardai tip off British cops as Dundon flees bolthole

Cormac Byrne

GARDAI have notified British police that notorious Limerick gangster Wayne Dundon has moved to their shores.

It is reported that Dundon flew to Britain yesterday with his wife and two children to avoid heavy garda surveillance.

Dundon (32) has been subject to "in-your-face" surveillance tactics since his release from prison in March and the pressure was getting too much for him.

Wayne Dundon was also isolated, with most of his associates in prison, and he remains a high-profile target for a number of gangs who had previously been at the receiving end of Dundon's attacks.

British authorities will already have knowledge of Dundon and his activities after he was deported from there by the Home Office back in 1997, when he was in his teens, because of attacks on the elderly.

At his 2005 trial for threatening the life of a barman in Limerick, evidence was given of his London offences.

The court was told that he had thrown an elderly woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs and had badly beaten another 75-year-old woman while stealing her pension book.

Since March, the McCarthy-Dundon gang has been extorting money from companies and has amassed almost €200,000 in their six-week campaign.

The gang is reportedly looking to regain losses made on an investment in Newcastle West from a business which was funded by the gang.

The McCarthy-Dundons are also believed to have tried to extort money from a wealthy traveller living in the Rathkeale area. That attempt has appeared to have failed and the gang have been warned not to set foot in the Rathkeale area again.

Luxury

It has also emerged that a member of Dundon's rival outfit, the Keane-Collopy gang, has pulled out of negotiations to buy a €1m luxury pad in Limerick because of the increased garda presence in the city.

Dundon came in for negative publicity earlier this month after he splashed out €8,000 on his daughter's communion.

Dundon denies that the cost came from ill-gotten earnings, and says the money for bringing the carriage and horses from Belfast and the food and drink was provided by his extended family. A surprise guest was Kenneth Dundon (53), father of Wayne, John, Dessie and Gerard Dundon. He had just been released from a six-year prison sentence in England for killing his wife's lover.

hnews@herald.ie