'Racketeers earning £125m a year'

Loyalist and republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland are raking in an estimated £125m (€187.3m) a year from ‘Mafioso’ racketeering and extortion, it was claimed today.

Ulster Unionist MP the Rev Martin Smyth said organised crime was growing rapidly day by day and the drug scene, almost exclusively managed by paramilitaries, was also on the increase.