Fifty detectives for gangland force

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald has confirmed that 50 gardaí are being assigned to the new gangland task force.

The Irish Examiner reported yesterday that the 50-strong unit would be unveiled by Garda bosses next Monday.

A decision to set up the Special Crime Task Force was announced on May 31 by the Tánaiste and the Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan in response to the threat posed by organised crime, particularly the Kinahan-Hutch feud.

Speaking yesterday, the justice minister said: “The task force will focus on criminal gangs and will bring together expertise in the gardaí and work with Revenue and Social Protection. It will be a more comprehensive approach that will have 50 gardaí.”

The task force brings together detectives who are experienced in crime investigation. It will work closely with the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB). The taskforce’s remit includes:

• Co-ordinating national and international operations against crime gangs;
• Focusing on gunmen planning or in the process of conducting a shooting;
• Providing a targeted approach to people involved in all ranks of a criminal organisation;
• Taking on much of the additional work of CAB in targeting the assets and income of low and middle-ranking gang members.

“The task force will be targeting people running around with guns and going after them proactively, targeting those shooting people and involved in organised crime and if there is wealth attached to them, seize it,” said one source.

The task force will co-ordinate responses in districts in different parts of Dublin in emergencies where gunmen are travelling across the city to carry out attacks.

The decision to set up the task force came just a week after the murder of Gareth Hutch in Dublin on May 24. His was the seventh murder in the feud, six of them carried out by the Kinahan crime cartel.