Massive €63m worth of drugs, €5m cash and number of firearms seized from Irish gangs by gardai in 2021

A MASSIVE €63m worth of drugs were seized by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau in 2021.

The bureau – which works closely with Revenue on operations – also recovered €5.5m in cash from Ireland’s organised crime gangs over the last year.

And they also recovered two semi automatic pistols, one machine gun, one sawn off shotgun and one revolver in the last twelve months.

Since the bureau’s formation in March 2015, 137 firearms, including military grade weapons have been seized.

And in the last five years, the GNDOCB teams helped save 77 lives when they were involved in arresting suspected hit teams.

In 2021, the investigators were involved in two threat to life interventions and have also made 167 arrests in 2021.

Also in the last year, 55 people targeted by the GNDOCB were convicted – with 18 of those receiving sentences of five or more years.

MULTIPLE OFFENCES

The offences have included money laundering, possession of drugs and participating in the activities of an organised crime gang.

Among the most senior gangsters convicted were Paedar Keating for directing the activities of an organised crime gang when he helped plan an attempted hit on Hutch associate James ‘Mago’ Gately.

Others include Declan ‘Mr Nobody’ Brady – a close friend of senior cartel drugs trafficker Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh – on money laundering offences.

We can also reveal that since 2015, €268m worth of drugs, €24m in cash and 5,571 rounds of ammunition have also been seized.

Officers have also made 1,172 arrests in that time.As their investigations continue, the GNDOCB will also be running parallel money laundering probes into their targets.

DIFFICULT YEAR

Det Chief Supt Boland said: “2021 has been a difficult year for everyone with the Covid-19 pandemic but organised crime has continued.

“The money that is being generated is so vast we ensure we have parallel investigations on money laundering into all our targets. We investigate all our targets for every type of criminality.

“People also need to realise when they start snorting cocaine they are contributing to organised crime and the violence they read about – there is no such thing as recreational drugs.”