Gardaí arrest 19 in connection with armed raids

Nineteen people were arrested today as part of a massive garda crackdown on the spate of armed robberies across the capital.

The people are being questioned after gardai pounced in a series of dawn raids across Dublin this morning.

A garda spokeswoman said: “The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation into robberies in the city over the last few months.”

Dublin gardaí accompanied by detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested the people during over a dozen searches at different flats and houses across the city from first light today.

Officers would not confirm the amount of gardaí involved in the raids for operational reasons.

A garda spokeswoman added: “The searches are ongoing and will continue throughout the day.”

All of the people are being held at different stations across the city.

There has been a spate of robberies across Dublin from yesterday’s armed heist at a bank in Killester to the €2.4m hijacking of a Brinks Allied cash transit van during an unscheduled coffee stop in Artane last month.

This massive robbery also followed on the back of the theft of €2.2m from the cash-in-transit company Securicor two-weeks earlier.