Gardaí smash two drug gangs and arrest 80 dealers

GARDAÍ have smashed two gangs and arrested 80 dealers in a massive blitz targeting drug gangs in Dublin city centre.

Senior officers are confident they have “severely disrupted or dismantled” two particular gangs, and said they expect to arrest up to a further 40 people.

The 72 men and eight women were detained over the past 48 hours by drugs squad officers who swooped on more than 100 premises across the capital.

Gardaí said the intelligence-led operation has been ongoing for the past five months and dismantled two significant drug distribution networks operating in the city centre.

Undercover officers posing as users have been buying cocaine and heroin from pushers who deal openly in full view of tourists, shoppers and workers.

The dealers targeted have been behind a sharp rise in open dealing in the inner city, including along the quays and the boardwalk.

The mammoth operation, code-named Feeder, ran for the last five months and targeted middle-ranking and high-ranking dealers supplying heroin and cocaine.

“This was probably more advanced than previous operations,” said a senior Garda source.

“It was more target-oriented. We were targeting dealers at a number of levels. Those arrested are significant drug dealers.

“These are people who were giving serious concern to inner city communities and affecting their quality of life. This is a rude awakening to those gangs.”

A separate Garda source said one of the gangs was a family-run outfit operating out of the Oliver Bond flats complex.

A number of brothers from this family were arrested and are facing multiple charges of supplying drugs.

Some have recently been hit with exclusion orders from the complex following applications by Dublin City Council.

Operation Feeder was conducted by the Garda National Drugs Unit along with Pearse Street, Kilmainham and Store Street drug units.