SOCA – Slugger O'Toole

Question for Gerry Adams: Is Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy still “a good republican”?

Pete Baker on December 17, 2015, 2:34 pm

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As the BBC reports, 66-year-old Thomas Murphy has been found guilty of nine charges of tax evasion at Ireland’s non-jury Special Criminal Court. When, in March 2006, there was a series of co-ordinated raids on properties in the UK and Ireland connected to Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy – who had been named previously as both the UK’s richest smuggler and a former Provisional IRA Chief of Staff – the Sinn Féin president, now Louth TD, Gerry Adams declared, “Tom Murphy is not a …

Chief Constable: “You can’t separate the counter-terrorism efforts from organised crime.”

Pete Baker on June 27, 2013, 4:24 pm

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The PSNI has already warned of the potential consequences of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s restricting of the activities of the UK’s new National Crime Agency here. Now, as the Belfast Telegraph reports, it’s the turn of the Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, to address the issue. Speaking at the launch of the Organised Crime Task Force’s (OCTF) annual report at Crumlin Road jail yesterday, Mr Baggott said any NCA work carried out in Northern Ireland would be done “with complete transparency”. And he warned …

PSNI: “if the NCA is unable to operate fully in Northern Ireland, this will have a detrimental impact on our ability to keep people safe”

Pete Baker on May 15, 2013, 6:15 pm

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With continued political deadlock here over the new UK National Crime Agency (NCA) the PSNI have issued a statement warning of potential problems ahead, and proposing a suggested solution to complaints about accountability. From the PSNI statement Criminality has no respect for boundaries. It is therefore vitally important that the PSNI can access both the international reach which the NCA will provide and the ability to draw down on the expertise that the agency will offer. This expertise will include: …

National Crime Agency: What’s in a name?

Pete Baker on January 31, 2013, 4:31 pm

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The local row over the UK’s new National Crime Agency (NCA) isn’t going away. But let’s try to address the issue in a less hysterical manner… Firstly, the body that the NCA needs to be compared with, in terms of the powers to be available to it here, is the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). From the BBC report 28 January. Many of the policing powers being given to the NCA have been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, therefore it has …

Paisley Junior: SF ‘content’ for paedophiles and gangsters to run writ across NI…

Mick Fealty on January 31, 2013, 12:13 pm

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Oh dear. Speaking in Westminster’s Public Bill committee Ian Paisley Junior has suggested that: Most of the illegal fuel that arrives in the United Kingdom is laundered in Northern Ireland, in south Armagh. It just so happens that it is laundered by a friend of the leader of Sinn Fein, a Mr Murphy. “It just so happens that it was his party that blocked this legislation. I do not know if you are getting the coincidence here, but I am …

“The agency’s investigation has produced evidence of what might be characterised as a lawless lifestyle”

Pete Baker on February 27, 2012, 10:04 pm

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The BBC reports the delayed start of the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s [SOCA] application for a civil recovery order of property and assets belonging to Seamus Francis Mullan. A former member of the Provisional IRA who was serving a life imprisonment sentence for the 1985 murder of an off-duty RUC officer before being freed on early release licence in 1998, Mullan was arrested in 2006 on money laundering and fraud charges – at the time he was described in court as a “disaffected republican”. Subsequently, the …

Murphy challenges Special Criminal Court venue for case

Pete Baker on June 1, 2011, 7:54 pm

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The latest stage in the long-running saga of the State versus Thomas Murphy got under way in Dublin’s High Court today. Thomas Murphy faces trial in the Special Criminal Court on nine charges of failing to make tax returns between 1996 and 2004. In October 2008, the “culmination of intensive investigations by the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency” saw more than €625,000 in cash and cheques confiscated in Ireland as the proceeds of crime, while …

The State versus Thomas Murphy – redux

Pete Baker on December 21, 2010, 10:45 pm

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Possibly relevant to Brian’s earlier post… and Mitchell Reiss’ admission… An iol report provides an update on the long-running saga of the State versus Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy. First a re-cap from a previous post. In October 2008, the “culmination of intensive investigations by the Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency” saw more than €625,000 in cash and cheques confiscated in Ireland as the proceeds of crime, while £445,000 (573,000 euro) and nine properties in the north-west …