Three held after gardaí smash counterfeiting operation

Two prominent dissident republicans and a known criminal have been arrested after gardaí smashed a cash counterfeiting operation.

Specialist police units confiscated €20,000 in forged notes along with computers and printing presses at a Co Meath plant.

The two Real IRA members arrested are currently on bail for membership of a terrorist organisation offences.

It is the first seizure of a counterfeit plant since the discovery of a hi-tech counterfeit operation in an underground bunker in Co Laois in May 2010.

In Sunday’s operation, gardaí raided four homes in north Dublin and a commercial premises in Summerhill, Co Meath. Three men, aged 42, 44, and 47, were arrested at a house on North Circular Rd.

A Garda spokesman said the investigation was part of “ongoing operations to counter the activities of dissident republican groups.”

Gardaí hope to bring charges today against the two dissidents, most likely for membership of the IRA. Charges in relation to counterfeiting will take longer. It is not yet clear what charges, if any, will be brought against the known criminal.

“There has been information coming out about counterfeit cash and dissidents,” said one garda source, “and this is the culmination of that operation.”

The source said the quality of the forgeries were not of a high standard and nowhere near that of the notes found in Laois, which was described as “one of the biggest and most sophisticated” ever in Europe.