Security van raid ‘similar to North heist’

THE €2 million raid from a security van bore all the hallmarks of a paramilitary operation, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said yesterday.

Giving his initial response to the robbery, Mr Ahern said that while there was no evidence, the robbery could only have been carried out by one of a small number of criminal gangs or by a paramilitary group.

Agreeing it had all the “hallmarks” of a subversive operation he went on to say that paramilitaries had moved away from that kind of robbery until last year when robberies, suspected as being IRA operations, occurred at the Makro fuel depot and the Gallagher cigarette factory, culminating in the Northern Bank robbery in December.