Irish ‘mafia’ seek shelter in the sun
IRISH people are slowly developing a reputation in Spain and Portugal.
It’s not the reputation we’ve traditionally had, and largely still do: of a friendly people who like to drink, sometimes too much, but generally cause no major trouble for local police.
Now, Irish nationals are increasingly popping up in criminal investigations into drug trafficking and drug-related shootings.
Last week’s gruesome murder of Cork drug dealer Michael ‘Danser’ Ahern by an Irish gang is the latest violent incident involving Irish people.
The emergence of Irish criminal gangs in Spain can be traced to 1996 and the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin. That, and the subsequent formation of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), forced a whole wave of major drug barons and criminals to locate to Holland and Spain.
There, they invested - in homes, businesses, developments - and typically continued their trade, supplying Ireland with large and continuous quantities of drugs.
In Spain, the Costa Blanca and, further south, the Costa del Sol, became the main magnets.
Spain was, and is, the main source of cocaine and cannabis into Europe - cocaine from South American and cannabis from Morocco.
But the extent of the ‘Irish mafia’ in the area has increased significantly in recent years.
The low-cost airline boom has provided existing and would-be traffickers with more routes and more flights.
There has also been a massive expansion in the cocaine business.
A number of incidents in the last 18 months highlight the growth of Irish criminality in Spain, and now Portugal.
In February 2004, the two leaders of the Westies gang from Blanchardstown, north Dublin, went missing near Alicante.
Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg had reportedly been abducted, shot and dumped by foreign criminals. Initially greeted with caution, most people now accept they are dead.
In September, drug trafficker Sean Dunne went missing, feared dead, again in Alicante, following a row with British and Spanish traffickers.
In December, a major Irish cocaine trafficker was arrested in Spain following a joint operation by local police and the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU).
Underlying the international connections of Irish criminals in Spain, the 40-year-old was arrested alongside a British national, a Venezuela citizen and a Hungarian.
Last March, a 50-year-old Irishman was arrested as a member of an international cocaine smuggling operation. He was caught with a Greek national along with €7.1 million worth of cocaine and 98kg of cannabis.
In June, a leading Irish drug trafficker, James Carabini, who was based in Malaga, was one of 11 people arrested after four tonnes of cocaine, worth €300m on the street, was seized near the Canary Islands.
British, Spanish, Portuguese and Colombian nationals were arrested, including the head of a powerful crime family in Spain.
Earlier this month, the son of a notorious former Dublin heroin dealer was arrested in connection with the murder of his girlfriend, Celine Conroy, in Spain.
Michael Ahern was also a regular visitor to Spain. The 38-year-old had moved there some five years ago and had built up connections with the assistance of fellow Cork trafficker Thomas O’Callaghan, who had located there to escape CAB.
Danser had, in the last year or so, started working for a Dublin trafficker, who had a base in the Algarve. This gang sourced large quantities of cocaine in Spain, brought it back to Portugal before sending it to Ireland.
Danser was murdered after he got a shipment of cocaine from Seville in Spain, took a part of it himself and refused to give it back to the gang.
This gang had been under both Portuguese and Irish police attention for the last six months.
The GNDU, who initiated the cross-border operation, intercepted two shipments of cocaine belonging to the gang last month, totalling 47kg, with a street value of around €3.25m. When they moved next, they hoped to catch the crime boss who had only recently returned from Portugal to Ireland.
When ‘Danser’ was murdered, the GNDU was forced to move earlier than they planned. As part of 14 swoops last Friday, the home of the gang leader was searched, but nothing was found.
But they caught the second-in-command in Ireland with 12kg of cocaine and up to €1m in cash.
Operations here and in Portugal against the gang continue.
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