Lower league drug dealers to be targeted, vows Lenihan
In the wake of a double gangland murder, Brian Lenihan said the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) would shift attention to lower and middle level drug dealers.
He will meet Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy today where both are expected to discuss the issue of resources for gardaí.
The latest drug feud-related killings come after Mr Lenihan warned last week that the fight against gangland crime was going to be long but relentless.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics last night, the minister revealed CAB detectives would focus investigations not only on big drug dealers, but local smaller criminals involved in the lucrative trade.
“We are going to increase the number of divisional profilers at local level who feed the information into the CAB, that will allow the CAB to target the lower and middle drug dealers.”
Gardaí are expected to use special profilers who will supply details on supply chains between local dealers to CAB.
Mr Lenihan added: “The CAB has been a huge success but it has tended to target the high level people, the big amounts of money, and that’s what you would expect ... But it is very important that the CAB get to tackle people at the lower end, because they provide the visible local example of how crime pays... and that is under way now.”
Up to 10 people have died in gangland killings so far this year compared with a total of 26 in 2006.
But Fine Gael dramatically turned to gangland families yesterday urging them to turn in their criminal relatives.
Following Friday’s shootings, Brian Hayes, in whose constituency they occurred, said gangland crime was increasingly spilling over into everyday life.
“This incident took place close to one of the busiest roads in the country where thousands of cars pass by every day and which has a large residential community. It shows just how brazen these lethal criminals have become.
“The gangland situation is now so serious that all citizens must realise they have a role to play. The gardaí are fighting gangland crime to the best of their ability, but they can only do so much. That is why communities must turn in the murderers who live among them,” said the TD.
Meanwhile, Labour’s spokesman on justice, Pat Rabbitte noted it was particularly disturbing that despite continued callous gangland murders, killers risked only a one in six chance of being tracked down and arrested.
“The depravity of these murderers knows no bounds. What is particularly disturbing in relation to killings of this type — many of them fuelled by the drugs trade — is that the conviction rate for gun murders over the past 10 years has been around 16%.”
Gardaí and the Government needed to work at cutting off the flow of deadly weapons coming into the country, added Mr Rabbitte.
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