Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Dublin too dangerous for UDA leader
Fianna Fail TD Charlie O’Connor amused many at the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body with his tale of a UDA leader confiding that he was somewhat fearful of visiting Dublin due to its high levels of drug dealing, violent crime and murder. Ahem, indeed
Gary Kent @ 08:54 AM
Gary, you could argue that he probably understands better than most what it’s like to live in such a community. Unless, he’s one of those ‘leaders’ who’s taken up golf!!
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 10:11 AMI recently heard someone on RTE state that the murder rate in Belfast was higher than Dublin - but found that hard to believe. Wonder if there is a reliable source of crime stats on the internet for both/either jurisdictions.
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 01:40 PMJust another case of consciousness being raised when the subject in question is not in control—his criminality is invisible, at least to himself, just as an electric eel is immune to its own discharges.
Nevin, you’ll excuse me if my sympathies for the head hood seem a trifle underwhelming. His biggest problem is likely ne’s not getting a rake-off from the local action.
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 02:12 PMI’m sure it was all very funny for the boys in the harp and portcullis ties but could we have a little more detail? Like to whom did the supposed UDA leader confide this information - was it to Charlie O’Connor himself? What was the situation is which it was confided? Are you sure we are not in the territory of “Paisley is really nice to his catholic constituents” bollix?
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 02:46 PMI suspect a UDA Leader would be well placed to know all about the level of drug dealing in Dublin.
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 06:13 PMOf course a UDA leader would be scared of going to Dublin. Why would he not be? He might for a time not be surronded by a cadre of like minded thugs who help him bully everyone around him and hence allow him to be brave.
The UDA have always been particularly brave in certain circumstances, usually when armed with weapons and confronting dangerous people like old men at Loughlinisland or those in the Rising Sun bar.
Their bravery in other circumstances has always been a little more suspect.
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 07:55 PMHis biggest problem is likely ne’s not getting a rake-off from the local action.
I suppose he could always join the IRA if he wanted that badly enough, eh?
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 08:30 PMTAFKABO: “I suppose he could always join the IRA if he wanted that badly enough, eh? “
Nah—likely he couldn’t stand up to honest competition, even in a dishonest trade—why else would the UDA be so eager to belly up to the public trough?
Besides, last we discussed this matter, the rackets in Dublin were mainly run by honest, ordinary “decent” criminals, with a handful of Loyalist drug dealers. Unless you have some compelling evidence to the contrary, I don’t believe that status quo has changed.
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 09:05 PMDread,
Where do the INLA and other nationalist terrorists fit into your scheme of crime in Dublin?
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 10:12 PMGaribaldy: “Where do the INLA and other nationalist terrorists fit into your scheme of crime in Dublin? “
The INLA are bit players in that, just like everything else they do.
Beyond that, PSF (and, by extenstion, PIRA) are usually accused of being anti-drug vigilantes.
But, as I said, persuasive evidence supporting arguments to the contrary are always welcome.
Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 @ 10:30 PMPersuasive evidence?
How about drug dealers saying that they pay tax to the IRA?
The last time we talked about this I provided a link to that very thing, but you dismissed it, of course.
So let’s look at it logically.
You said the IRA are against drugs, and indeed they have made a big show of punishing small time dealers.
How come this organisation that is able to collate information on the highest in the land has been singularly unable to take out or punish a high ranking dealer...ever?
How come when they were killing all and sundry, they never once tried to kill the top men in the Irish drugs trade, bringing heroin into Dublin?Nope, the word is that they taxed them, and given that they never once went after them, that seems to fit.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 01:50 AMThat naughty co-member of SF, election worker for, and personal friend of SF TD Aengus O Snodaigh, Niall Bennett apparently had a list of criminals Chez Binead…
In a raid on Bennett’s house the police also found a list of criminals, believed to have been drawn up so that the IRA could target figures who refused to pay protection money. The IRA is believed to have shot dead at least five Dublin criminals in the past two years.Sinn Féin have always been very touchy about suggestions that they or the IRA might benefit from “taxing” criminals as that would in effect lower them, albeit by proxy, to the level of the drug-dealing riff-raff in the Loyalist paramilitaries.
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2004/12/taxing_time_for.php
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 01:53 AMEdmund McCoy, 28, was sitting in a bar at Dunmurry in south Belfast when three gunmen walked in and shot him in the head and stomach on May 29, 2000. McCoy was a Catholic who associated with loyalist drug dealers. Again, the murder was seen as benefiting Catholic drug dealers who paid protection to the IRA.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 01:58 AMHow about something that doesn’t sound like a gossip sheet, TAF?
How about something that indicates that PIRA is involved on a corporate level, say, like the IMC reports do for Loyalist organizations?
Or is the best you can manage the underworld equivalent of Perez Hilton?
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 03:58 AMNews > 29 Aug 2005
No evidence of IRA involvement in drug dealing, says head of Garda Drugs Unit Source: Irish Times 29 Aug 2005 p. 5
Interviewed on RTE Radio 1, the head of the Garda National Drugs Unit has said there is no evidence to suggest that paramilitary figures are involved in drug dealing.
Det Chief Supt Cormac Gordon said a small number of Irish drug dealers based in Spain and Holland were supplying the Irish market. These dealers were able to source cocaine for around €30,000 per kilo which, when diluted with other substances, would sell on the streets for up to €70,000 per kilo – yielding a 700 per cent profit.
http://hrbndc.imaxan.ie/directory/news_detail.php?cat_id=&news_id=2239&pointer=60
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 04:29 AMYeah, funny how the same gossip sheet’s were more than sufficient for you to believe the claims about the Loyalists, or am I mistaken in remembering you throwing around the drug dealing claim long before the IMC was even set up?
Besides which, one of the posts above clearly says that the police believed they were receiving protection money from criminals.
I guess you hold the IRA to a different set of accountability than the Loyalists, so what does that tell us?
Can you explain to me why this anti drugs organisation which likes to boast bout being against this evil business has not once used it’s vast resources to go after the top men in the trade, yet has shot bottom level dealers?Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 07:45 AM“For example, with republican organised crime the biggest single organised crime tends to be around excise offences, so if for example we had a significant number of extra excise offences we would expect to see the republican percentage go up. Loyalists, by and large, not exclusively, do more on drugs so if we got a focus on drugs from the referring partners then the loyalist percentage would go up because the different communities groups tend to be involved in different types of activity.”
“The loyalist organisations have always been much more fragmented and in comparison to the Provisional IRA, for example, there has always been much more criminality for personal gain within the loyalist groups than there was necessarily in the republican groups.”
“if I am looking at a typical loyalist paramilitary I would probably see much more of the assets derived from crime have been diverted to personal gain, and for some of the republican paramilitaries I would find pro rata probably less of the assets are as visible. Now, the net overall assets may be greater and it is therefore harder to find them, it is a bigger job to find them, but on the loyalist side it is much more fragmented and there are a lot of people out there flaunting their wealth, much more so pro rata than what we have seen in the republican communities.”
“In the loyalist community, drug dealing is run by the paramilitaries and it is generally run for personal gain by a large number of people.
So there are a large number of targets there who are all making significant amounts of money.If you go into the republican community, the PIRA, in general, do not do drugs, so you won’t find large numbers, on the same sort of scale, of drug dealers in that community.”Alan McQuillan ARA assistant director.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 09:55 AMthe PIRA, in general, do not do drugs, so you won’t find large numbers, on the same sort of scale, of drug dealers in that community.”
Two points.
Firstly, the IRA don’t just operate in Northern Ireland and Dublin has a thriving drugs trade.
Secondly, no one said they “do” drugs, rather they tax those who are involved.I’ve asked what I consider pertinent questions as to why they’ve never gone after the top people in the drugs trade, preferring instead to shoot the occasional low level dealer.
Anyone going to address that question?
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 05:25 PMwho exactly are the top people in the drugs trade? if you know them, why not give their details to the police? Do you want the IRA to take out south american drug cartels(don’t snigger at the back)or the taliban/afghan warlords who grow poppy farms? Tell me what level of dealer (not so)Speedy Fegan was? after all he imported and had links to the gang responsible for veronica guerin’s death. but then again that was the DAAD.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 05:50 PMIn all seriousness I do draw a moral distinction between drug dealers who sell the sort of drugs that are decriminalised in Amsterdam and those that sell those that are habitual and fuel ÂŁ100 a day burglary and prostitution habits like heroin or crack.
Those Loyalists paramilitaries who do sell drugs almost all fall within the former category. In fact I would even say that if the paramilitaries did not exist the drugs problem in Northern Ireland would be even worse than it is, like Glasgow, Dublin or Birmingham, heroin would have a permanent presence outside it’s aberrant Ballymena heartland and the general burglary and mugging rates would be higher (to fund addiction). Paramilitaries are actually a deterrent to “inward investment” by British or southern Irish “ordinary decent” heroin and crack dealers because they can outgun them if they crossed paths.
I guess this might not be a popular view but give it some thought.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 06:14 PMTAFKABO: “Yeah, funny how the same gossip sheet’s were more than sufficient for you to believe the claims about the Loyalists, or am I mistaken in remembering you throwing around the drug dealing claim long before the IMC was even set up? “
You’re mis-remembering in your old age, TAF—the IMC predates my participation on Slugger, iirc. The earliest exchange I can consciously recall discussing Loyalists and drugs was someone explaining to me that the UDA had hoods decked out like American inner-city drug dealers, right down to the velour track-suits and over-priced tennies, right around the time Jim Gray, the Brigader of Bling, aka “Doris Day,” was expelled in March of 2005, about a year and quarter after the IMC was formed in January of 2004.
And I have set and discussed my standard—corporate involvement, as an organization, in the drug trade from something approaching a credible source, such as the Gardai, the PSNI, the IMC, etc. Your sour grapes that, to date, you’ve been unable to meet that threshold notwithstanding.
As for DAAD, the street-dealer is the easiest fellow to catch. Being as he’s right there on the corner, he’s visible. He has neither the resources or protection of a major figure, making him vulnerable. Politically, a mass of grunions is better than some fat tuna that the masses never see and never heard of. Throw in that the cops are not going to bust a hump over some two-bit dealer whose death they can file under “gang related” with a shrug, it becomes a win-win-win. The masses see a dead dealer, the IRA accrues a reputation and the police remain quiescent. That makes them politically savvy, but lazy for picking low-hanging fruit.
TAFKABO: “Firstly, the IRA don’t just operate in Northern Ireland and Dublin has a thriving drugs trade.”
Which, as of no more than two years ago, wasn’t run by the IRA, per the Gardai.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 06:24 PMTAFKABO, don’t mention the question put to Gerry Adams by the Irish Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, during a TV debate in 2006: “Why did you get $25 million from Farc terrorists to spend on Irish politics when you knew they were deriving that from selling cocaine to America?”
Adams was busying talking about the number of people who had died from the illegal trade in Dublin, showing that he was fully aware of the connection between profit from drugs and death when the Minister interrupted him to reveal the Gardai intelligence that Mr Adams and his cohorts had profited to the tune of $25 million - which adds up to an awful lot of death.
Selling terrorist’s expertise on the international market is part of the PSF/PIRA organised crime cartel; and it matters not how many people die either by drug-pushers like Farc using that expertise to murder or how many die as a result of selling $25 million worth of drugs to inflate PSF/PIRA’s annual profits.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 06:57 PMdubliner may i have the link to those reciepts that mcDowell has which show the 25million sinn fein recieved. im sure he has them otherwise he wouldn’t have made such remarks. as we all know McDowell is, sorry, was not into point scoring and mudslinging. so no doubt he had irrefutable proof and so it is fact that sinn fein got 25million, and there is a court case pending no doubt.
ahhh, the link is.....?
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 07:03 PMRepublicanStones, I’ll take the word of the Irish Minister for Justice over a gang of self-serving degenerates any day. Did any member of the Irish government refute the Minister’s claim? Did Mr Adams sue for libel despite the allegation being made to his face in the Republic on live TV? No.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 07:08 PMwell how come if McDowell was so sure he didn’t pursue Sinn fein in court or the refer the evidence to the CAB? it was laughed off by every mature person who saw it for what was...political mudslinging. and its funny you mention irish minister and self serving degenerates.....i don’t think im the only one who’ll have a giggle at that one.
Posted by on Nov 28, 2007 @ 07:14 PM
