Organised crime gang likely suspect for NI raid

Police chiefs have not ruled out the possibility that paramilitaries were behind one of the biggest bank raids in British history.

However, the gang that plundered more than £20m (€28.8m) from the Belfast headquarters of the Northern Bank could be any of the dozens of highly organised criminal gangs which have mushroomed throughout Northern Ireland since the IRA and loyalist ceasefires of ten years ago.

Police are also looking at the possibility that the group involved may have had inside help to carry out the heist.

Around 230 gangs are heavily involved in crimes such as armed robbery, drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion rackets, and counterfeiting.

But many of them have links to republican and loyalist groups, who have tightened their grip on organised crime since the end of their terror campaigns.

Security chiefs now regard the loyalist Ulster Defence Association as a euphemism for Crime Incorporated.

The Provisional IRA is also heavily involved in organised crime and, of all the paramilitary organisations, would be seen as the most likely to have the knowledge to carry off such a well-organised heist.

If this proved to be the case, it would end any lingering hopes British Prime Minister Tony Blair has of restoring the powersharing government of Northern Ireland.

Even though Northern Ireland has a population of just one and a half million, there are probably more criminals per head of the population than any other region of the UK.

The taking of hostages in exchange for large sums of money has become one of the most popular tactics employed by gangs recently.

Dissident republicans are believed to be behind a number of unsolved crimes involving the use of hostages in the Strabane area of Co Tyrone.

During the summer, the dissident republican Irish National Liberation Army was linked to a robbery which netted more than £300,000 (€432,000) from an Ulster Bank in Strabane.

In the well-planned operation, a gang subjected a bank official and his family to a terrifying ordeal, holding them at gunpoint overnight.

The bank worker was ordered to go to his bank the following morning and ask his colleagues to hand over a large sum of money, or his family would be killed.

The British government and the security services have declared war on the crime lords, setting up the Organised Crime Task Force and the Assets Recovery Agency in a bid to put them permanently out of business.

Both organisations work together, but their successes have barely made a dent in the massive profits enjoyed by the godfathers of crime.

Earlier this year the Organised Crime Task Force headed by Northern Ireland Minister Ian Pearson reported that the level of criminality remained very high.

But it insisted that operational activity by law enforcement agencies was having a significant impact on their illegal activities.

In recent months the Assets Recovery Agency has frozen the finances of some leading criminals, but the majority remain free to build up their illegal empires.