Luxury cars, watches, €145k seized following major operation

The Criminal Assets Bureau has seized luxury cars, designer bags and almost €150,000 from bank accounts in an ongoing operation targeting a family-run drug gang in west Dublin.

In a major search operation, a range of businesses, comprising scaffolding companies, a barber’s shop, and a garage, were hit, along with professional firms, including an accountancy firm, a solicitor’s office, and an auctioneer’s.

In addition, six residential homes in Dublin and Wicklow were searched in an operation which also involved the Special Crime Task Force, part of the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.

CAB targeted a number of brothers behind a criminal gang based in the Ronanstown area of Clondalkin and yesterday’s searches are described as a “significant development” in that operation.

The gang is suspected of supplying drugs both in the west Dublin area and the general Leinster region.

The west Dublin region boasts the highest number of CAB targets in the entire country, with 161 targets.

Sources said this was a “huge number” and reflected the sheer number of serious criminals and criminal gangs in the division, which stretches from Blanchardstown and Finglas down to Clondalkin and Ballyfermot.

Last June, CAB seized luxury Range Rover vehicles in a garage linked to a notorious heroin dealing gang in Ronanstown, run by two brothers.

After Dublin west, the next largest number of targets is in Dublin South (104), the division boasting the bulk of Kinahan cartel members in the country.

In the search operation yesterday, CAB and SCTF officers seized:

A 161 Audi A4;

A 152 Mercedes C class;

A 151 Seat Leon;

A 141 VW Passat;

At least eight designer bags;

A luxury Hublot watch.

In addition, restraint orders have been made in respect of €145,000 in accounts in financial institutions.

CAB officers are conducting a range of examinations, including at the garage where the seized cars were bought through.

Experts will also probe the scaffolding business and barbershop to determine whether or not they were bought with the proceeds of crime or were used to launder proceeds.

An amount of documentation was obtained from the professional offices searched.

CAB has repeatedly raised the issue of garages being used as a means of laundering significant amounts of criminal proceeds.