Murder frowned upon by pragmatist dealers

Seven people control drugs distribution in Cork, writes Sean O’Riordan

CORK’S drug lords don’t like killing people. It’s not because of any moral qualms. It’s simply bad for business.

As crime bosses in Limerick and Dublin engage in regular bouts of blood-letting, their counterparts further south try and avoid extreme violence, because it can lead to tit-for-tat reprisals and brings the gardaí down on them heavily.

That would cause serious disruption to the seven main dealers who control drug distribution in the city and county.

There are six unsolved murder investigations in Cork which gardaí believe are connected to the drugs trade.

However, there have never been any reprisals for the killings, which started back in Apr 1995 when Michael Crinnion was shot dead outside a pub in the city.

Crinnion, 35, was an enforcer with the O’Flynn crime family and was shot by a lone gunman armed with a .38 revolver outside the Clannad Bar on Barrack St.

Ballistic tests showed the gun had never been fired before. Gardaí acknowledged the killing bore all the hallmarks of a professional hit.

Crinnion’s brother-in-law, Kieran O’Flynn, 38, was to suffer the same fate in Jun 2001.

The convicted drug-dealer answered a knock at the door of his house at Thorndale, off Dublin Hill, where he was confronted by a gunman.

The hitman fired twice through the door’s glass panel, then stepped into the hallway and fired a third shot through the Kieran O’Flynn’s throat as he lay dying on the ground.

O’Flynn’s partner and three young children were in the house at the time.

Eric Cummins, 31, was shot dead while holding his 18-month-old son, in a gangland-style execution in the driveway of his partner’s house in the Oldcourt, Ballincollig, on Aug 2005.

Convicted drug dealer David ‘Boogie’ Brett, 33, was lured to a secluded spot near the village of Ballydesmond in May 2007 and executed.

Gerard ‘Topper’ Staunton was gunned down outside his rented house at Westlawn in Wilton in Jan 2010.

The last of Cork’s hits was carried out on suspected major drug-dealer Darren Falsey in Carrigaline in August last year.

Gardaí believe that most of the killings were organised within various gang factions themselves because somebody had stepped out of line. Hence, no retaliation.

“The gangs make more money if they don’t have internecine feuds,” a senior Garda source said.

The Cork drugs lords’ number one product has always been cannabis. Going back to the 1970s and 1980s, when heroin became the scourge of Dublin, the Cork gangs decided they didn’t want the drug on their patch because it caused untold misery and that was bad for their cannabis business.

Today, heroin addicts in Cork have their own supply network.

Garda sources indicate that users go to Dublin or Waterford and sell heroin to their friends, thus paying for their habits, which can cost up to €200 a day.

The recent arrest in Spain of Corkman Alan Buckley, following the seizure of €6m-worth of cannabis on board a yacht, suggests the old gateways to Morocco still exist.

For many years, high-fliers in the Cork drugs trade have imported cannabis along the lengthy and largely unprotected West Cork coastline.

European drugs lords have cottoned on to the idea as well.

In recent years, gardaí have made two significant seizures of imported cocaine on that coastline.

“Most of the suppliers in Cork are homegrown, although Limerick gangs do hold some networks in Cork,” said a garda source. “Some gangs from outside Cork come to buy drugs here and Cork gangs often go outside for their supplies as well. A more fluid environment exists in the Cork drugs market today than it did years ago. There has been a shift in the scene.”

Some large family-run operations still exist in the Cork drugs trade, but they are not as influential as they used to be.

The gangs have also branched out into trading other contraband such as smuggled cigarettes, fake DVDs, watches, and clothing.

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