DUBLIN DRUGS GANG LINKED TO TWO CANAL MURDERS

Gardai suspect a drugs gang based in the Ballyfermot area of west
Dublin may have been responsible for the murder of two young
heroin-couriers whose bodies have been recovered from the Grand Canal
in the past two days.

It is believed both had worked as couriers bringing heroin from
Amsterdam and England and may have been killed because they failed to
pay debts to the gang. Sources close to the investigation believe the
men may have owed about pounds 30,000 to the gang.

One of the victims, Patrick Murray (19), of Colepark Drive,
Ballyfermot, was detained with half a kilo of heroin by Customs
officers at Dublin Airport last month.

Mr Murray was arrested coming off a flight from Amsterdam on December
3rd, along with another Dublin man, and was charged with possession of
the drug with intent to supply.

His body was recovered from the Hazelhatch side of the Grand Canal,
near Kearneystown Bridge, at Newcastle, Co Dublin. Three local people
out for a walk on Sunday afternoon spotted a hand on the surface and
called gardai.

Mr Murray had been stripped before being murdered with a shotgun blast
to the back of the head. Preliminary examination of his body did not
suggest he was subjected to any torture, Garda sources said.

Yesterday the Garda Underwater Unit went to Kearneystown to search the
canal for further evidence. Two hours later divers recovered the body
of a second man.

He was named last night as Darren Carey (20), with an address at
Islandbridge Court, Kilmainham, although originally from Ballyfermot.
He is known to have been a friend of Mr Murray's, and gardai believe
he was in Amsterdam on the day Mr Murray and the other man were
arrested at Dublin Airport.

It is believed he returned to Dublin on another flight.

Gardai last night said the post-mortem examination of Mr Carey's body
suggested he also died from a shotgun blast to the back of the head.

It is believed the two men were killed at another spot and their
bodies brought to Kearneystown Bridge. The Garda Press Office said
yesterday the men appeared to have gone missing just before New Year's
Eve. Mr Carey was reported missing on December 30th and Mr Murray on
New Year's Eve. It is believed they were killed around the New Year.

Both bodies were said to have been well preserved in the icy canal
water.

Post-mortem examinations were begun yesterday, and the results of
these tests will take some days to complete.

According to Dublin detectives last night both men are believed to
have been associated with a drugs gang based in Ballyfermot. The gang
is led by a man in his mid-20s with a criminal background. It is
believed Mr Murray and Mr Carey were in debt to the gang and were
working as couriers to clear the money they owed. It is also suspected
the seizure of the heroin at Dublin Airport led directly to the
decision by the gang to kill the two men.

Gardai, who are aware of the drugs gang, say its leader is extremely
violent and is seeking to assert himself as a significant criminal
figure in the west of the city. Yesterday evening the officer in
charge of the investigation, Chief Supt Sean Feeley, of Carlow-Kildare
Division, appealed for information about the killings. "We would
appeal, particularly, to anyone who was in the Kearneystown area of
the Grand Canal between December 28th and Sunday last, January 9th,
and who noticed anything at all which might be of assistance to come
forward," he said.

Dublin criminals have been known to leave bodies in the countryside to
the west of the city before. Detectives from west Dublin have been
attempting to recover the remains of one Dublin criminal, Jock
Corbally, who disappeared in 1996 and is believed to be buried in the
Baldonnel area.

It is also believed that another west Dublin drugs gang, based in the
Gallanstown area, might have murdered and secretly buried another
youth in the same general area. Patrick Lawlor (17), disappeared from
his home in January last year. His family say they now believe he was
abducted and murdered over a drugs debt of only a few thousand pounds.