THREE VICTIMS CAUGHT UP IN DRUGS TRADE

The young Irishmen killed in the Netherlands are believed to be
victims of increasing viciousness in the European drugs trade, writes
Jim Cusack, Security Correspondent

The discovery of three charred and apparently mutilated bodies in the
coastal resort of Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague, has caused
little surprise in the Netherlands.

The country is experiencing a sickening increase in violence among
ethnic-based gangs in the country vying for control of parts of the
drugs trade. It is believed the young Irish people who had been living
in the fifth-floor apartment in Scheveningen had been involved with
eastern European suppliers of chemicals used in the manufacture of the
drugs amphetamine and ecstasy.

Irish and British criminals have been attracted to Holland over the
past two decades because of the availability of the "precursor
chemicals" used in the manufacture of both drugs.

European police say the reason for the increase in the supply is the
entry into the drugs trade of extraordinarily violent criminal gangs
from eastern Europe and particularly from former Yugoslavia.

Criminal figures from the civil war in the Balkans in the 1990s have
now moved full time into the rich drugs markets of northern Europe.
The Yugoslavians have been fighting to establish themselves alongside
equally vicious gangs from Russia, the central European countries of
Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Moroccans and Colombians.

According to one police source yesterday, the drugs gangs in the
Netherlands are engaged in a competition of violence in which
increasingly sadistic and bizarre methods of killing are used to
intimidate the opposition.

In this brew there are also small numbers of English and Irish
criminals willing to risk their lives because of the remarkable
profits to be made from drugs.

Some Irish criminals, particularly men with fearsome reputations for
violence, have forged successful alliances and are apparently
prospering in the Netherlands.

Among these are two Dublin men who were former members of the splinter
republican group, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Both were
killers before they left for Holland in the mid-to late 1980s. Both
are said to have built very substantial drugs networks. i began to
crack down on this gang, its members fled to Amsterdam. Brian Meehan,
the Crumlin man sentenced to life imprisonment last year for Ms
Guerin's murder, was arrested on the streets of Amsterdam in 1998.

Another Dublin criminal, George "the Penguin" Mitchell, was arrested
in the Dutch town of Harlem in March 1998 as he attempted to hijack a
shipment of computer parts. He has benefitted from the remarkably
liberal Dutch sentencing system and is again a free man. Gardai
believe he is still involved in criminal activity in the Netherlands.
According to Garda sources, the young Irishmen who were killed in
Scheveningen were not regarded as serious drug-dealers and certainly
not as professional criminals.

The sources said two were suspected of dealing in drugs and left
Ireland in recent years when their activities became known to i the
Garda and they established a base in the Netherlands, attracted by the
possibilities of setting up a drugs supply route.

It is believed they were buying base chemicals from gangsters who
occasionally called to their apartment.

The police in The Hague believe that the Irishmen might have reneged
on a payment for chemicals or that they may have been blamed for the
seizure by police of drugs.

The Dutch police found amphetamines and a tablet press in the
apartment. Neighbours spoke of the young Irishmen living by night and,
when seen, often under the influence of drugs.

On Saturday morning while other residents tried to sleep, men forced
their way into the apartment and mutilated and killed three young men
and stuffed their bodies into the bathroom. The bodies were apparently
doused with flammable liquid and set on fire.

Forensic examination of the flat and post-mortems on the bodies
quickly showed the young men had not died in the fire.

Five passports were found in the remains of the apartment. Four
belonged to young Irish men including the three who died. The fifth is
believed to be of a 27-year-old Northern Ireland woman. The
whereabouts of the missing man and woman were not known yesterday.