230 gangs run North’s crime industry

MORE than 230 gangs are now running Northern Ireland’s billion euro organised crime industry, according to a report.

Even though 60 top-level outfits were smashed or disrupted in the past year, dangerous groups with global links have moved in to plug the gap.

Loyalist and republican terrorists are heavily involved in sophisticated illegal operations stretching from North America to the Far East, the British Government assessment confirmed.

Massive levels of drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and extortion were uncovered in the Organised Crime Task Force’s latest threat assessment.

The authorities identified 150 local gangs whose rackets are confined to the area. But more seriously, another 85 tightly run units have established international links and recruited specialists to protect their illegitimate businesses.

The numbers represent a huge increase from previous years, but experts insisted this was down to advancements in collecting and analysing intelligence.

Security Minister Ian Pearson, who heads the OCTF, vowed to go on the offensive to wreck the gangs.

The dossier includes evidence of counterfeiting links with Turkey and Thailand as part of a trade worth E225 million annually.

These so-called intellectual property crimes show the lengths the gangs will go to. Car brake-shoes were discovered made from compressed and painted grass. Tests on fake perfumes found urine had been added. A cannabis route stretching to South Africa was also discovered, along with illegal cigarettes coming in from China, and fake currency flooding in from all over Europe.

Links with Chinese criminals involved in a people smuggling enterprise were detected as well.

The IRA is blamed for being heavily connected to a five-million litre a year fuel laundering enterprise that helps fund the terror group.

The Provisionals have also run large tobacco, alcohol and VAT fraud scams in an assessment that backed the Independent Monitoring Commission’s scathing appraisal of republican crime.

Loyalists were also up to their necks in crime, with 70% of extortions last year.

The UDA, the North’s biggest loyalist organisation, has also been dealing in drugs, armed robberies and prostitution.