CAB officers raid houses in rhino horn crackdown

Five homes and an office were raided yesterday as part of a European-wide operation against a notorious Irish crime network.

The outfit, known as the Rathkeale Rovers, is suspected of being behind more than 60 documented thefts of rhino horns, worth more than €40m, in Europe.

European agencies have already hit nine bosses of the gang with a total of €9m in tax demands.

The six searches in Limerick and Cork were conducted by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) with a view to establishing if properties and other assets can be confiscated under Proceeds of Crime laws.

The raids targeted senior members of the Traveller gang, which is based around “several close-knit clans”. The gang operates throughout Europe, as well as North America, South America, Asia and Australia.

The rhino horns — protected under international law — are mainly sold in China, where they are used for traditional medicine, as an aphrodisiac and a decoration in luxury products. Rhino horns can sell for, on average, €60,000 each, but often a lot more.

As part of Operation Oakleaf, 30 premises were searched and 19 people arrested yesterday in Britain and the North.

It brings to more than 50 the total number of arrests in Europe since the operation began in Nov 2010.

The operation was established by Europol, the EU police agency, on the request of gardaí.

Europol was described the network as a “mobile organised crime group”, which has set up companies all over Europe to legitimise their illegal activities and has laundered their income through properties and luxury cars.

In yesterday’s operation, CAB, assisted by local gardaí and the elite Emergency Response Unit, conducted the searches in the Rathkeale and Raheen areas of Limerick and Newmarket in north Cork.

In a statement, a Garda spokesman said: “This search operation relates to an ongoing investigation into the assets and financial affairs of persons suspected of involvement in extensive criminality including labour exploitation, counterfeiting fraud, tarmac scams, tobacco smuggling, and the theft of rhino horns and Chinese cultural artifacts.

“The search operation was carried out to gather evidence. A large quantity of documentation was seized, as well as a small amount of cash and a number of artifacts.”

CAB will liaise with other European forces and Europol.

“Our hope is to ultimately gather evidence of criminal proceeds, but that can be quite a difficult process,” said one source. He said the gang was engaged in a “highly lucrative” trade in rhino horn and that a lot of their earnings were in other jurisdictions.

Cambridgeshire Police — which led operations in Britain — said 19 people were arrested as part of their investigation into six “high-value raids on museum and auction houses”. Three of the 19 were arrested in the North.