Irish drug dealer reported shot dead in Spain

GARDAÍ are investigating separate reports that a major Irish drug dealer has been shot dead in Spain.

The drug boss, aged 49, is from the Finglas area of north Dublin, and has been closely associated with a number of major criminals over the last 25 years.

He was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 1995 after being caught with one tonne of cannabis on the Co Galway coast. He was suspected of continuing to supply large quantities of drugs on his release. He operated from Dublin and England before heading to Spain in recent months.

If his death is confirmed, he will be the fifth Irish criminal murdered in the Iberian peninsula in the last three years; four in Spain and one in Portugal.

A garda liaison officer attached to the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU), who is based in the Spanish capital Madrid, has been asked to confirm if the reports are true.

Garda sources said they had received a number of reports from separate sources among criminal contacts that the drug boss was murdered over the Christmas period.

“We have information that he was shot dead in Spain,” said a garda source. “There are a number of people reporting it. There has been no sighting of him, we haven’t heard about him or know anyone who has. Over time, this adds credence to the reports.”

However, he stressed it was still possible that the reports might not be correct: “You can’t rule out the possibility it mightn’t be true because you have no body. He could have gone missing because he owes money.”

Garda sources yesterday said they had not yet received any reports of him missing from family members, although this could change with the media publicity.

Senior officers said the man has been a major trafficker of drugs, particularly cannabis, since the 1980s.Along with three other men, he was caught with €7.6 million worth of cannabis on Ballyconneely Beach in Connemara in July 1994.

He and other Dublin man were given 10 years, while two Cork men received a nine-year sentence.

Among his close associates was the notorious Finglas drugs baron PJ Judge, who was murdered in December 1996, and other Finglas criminals, including Marlo Hyland, who was shot dead last month.

Drugs war on the continent

IRISH drug dealers murdered in Spain and Portugal

* Sean Dunne: The 32-year-old drug dealer from Coolock, north Dublin, disappeared in Alicante in September 2004. Gardaí and Dunne’s family believe that he was murdered by criminals in the Spanish resort.

* Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg: The two leaders of the notorious Dublin gang, the Westies, were reported missing and presumed shot dead by criminals in January 2004. The bodies of the two Blanchardstown men were found under six feet of concrete near a warehouse in Catral, 40km from Alicante, last July. DNA samples sent from Ireland are believed to have confirmed the remains are those of Coates, 31, and Sugg, 27. Their bodies have still not been released.

* Michael “Danser” Ahern: The Cork drug dealer, 38, was shot dead by fellow gang members in Portugal’s Algarve in September 2005. Police found his body inside a chest freezer in an apartment in the tourist town of Albufeira. Four Irishmen — one from Dublin and three from Cork — have been charged with his murder.