Gardaí target feud gang in swoop on 50 homes and offices

ONE of Dublin’s biggest and most violent gangs was targeted yesterday in a massive Garda swoop on more than 50 homes and offices.

Gardaí confiscated cash, drugs, stolen property and a suspected firearm in the raids and took away large quantities of documents and computers for analysis.

The crackdown, code-named Operation Gem, was led by the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI), supported by specialist units.

These included the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI), the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU), the Operational Support Unit (OSU), as well as the elite Emergency Response Unit (ERU). They were supported by uniformed and detective gardaí from across the city.

Operation Gem is an ongoing initiative targeting organised crime, but yesterday’s sweep focused on a particular gang.

Separate sources said this gang is one of the two involved in the bloody Drimnagh-Crumlin feud in the south-west of the city, which has claimed at least 11 lives since 2001.

The main target of the Garda operation has largely taken over the running of this gang following the jailing of the gang leader.

Gardaí raided his home in Drimnagh yesterday but he was not there.

The 28-year-old man does not have any significant convictions and has climbed to the top of the gang in recent years.

“The Organised Crime Unit (OCU) has been targeting him for some time and decided to do a major sweep,” said one Garda source.

The OCU is a special force within the NBCI tasked with combating the main crime gangs.

Gardaí seized a total of €70,000 cash as well as a small quantity of cocaine and a small quantity of cannabis. A man in his mid-20s was arrested in relation to the drugs and detained at Crumlin Garda Station under Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act.

A suspected firearm was recovered as well as a quantity of stolen property, mostly mobile phones and computers. Gardaí said a substantial quantity of documentary and computer-based evidence was seized and would be analysed for money laundering offences.

The CAB will examine any evidence relating to assets suspected of being the proceeds of crime.

One Garda source said the purpose of the operation was not to arrest people, but to “gather evidence” of criminal activity and money laundering.

Another source said the leader of the gang targeted yesterday was “bigger” than the leader of the rival gang, who has developed a notorious reputation and whose identity has been revealed in the media.

This man is already under pressure following an attempted pipe-bomb attack on a car belonging to his girlfriend’s mother in Crumlin last Tuesday.

Gardaí said the device, disarmed by army bomb experts, was viable and would have blown up the car, and anyone in it, if it had gone off.