DRUGS TRADE FUELS GANG KILLINGS

Carl O’Brien Reports On The Rising Number Of Deaths Linked To A Bloody
Battle To Control Drug Trafficking

THE YOUNG girl and her family had been out for a Sunday evening walk when
her dog ran into a dilapidated shed within earshot of the roar of Dublin
airport.

Like all curious young girls she followed the dog in, but the scene was one
no young girl should ever have to face - a badly decomposed body that bore
all the signs of a vicious gangland execution.

It was another entry into the violent chapter of the bloody turf wars which
have marked the control of the city’s drug trade.

Noel Heffernan, 35, had been hooded, gagged, bound, and badly beaten before
being shot. He had most likely fallen foul of a notorious drug baron for
whom he had sold cannabis, said garda sources.

The result was a frightening illustration that gangland killings haven’t
gone away.

So far this year, there have been nine gang related killings in the country.

In the aftermath of investigative journalist Veronica Guerin’s murder more
than three years ago, opposition TDs claimed in stormy Dail sessions the
underworld drug figures were beyond reproach.

A crackdown on crime was announced and new Criminal Assets Bureau powers
meant many of the bigger players were forced abroad to Spain, Belgium,
Holland and England.

"When the Gilligan gang were off the scene, the small time players decided
to go out on their own. People are still trying to break into the market in
Dublin, Cork and Limerick in an attempt to set up their own operations," a
Garda National Drugs Unit source said.

Far from smashing the trade, it fractured it into the hands of numerous
smaller players and a new wave of turf wars have erupted a bid to control
the city’s lucrative drug business.

The evidence has been seen on the streets with three gangland killings in
the capital this year.

On January 7, taxi driver John Dillon from Glenties Park, Finglas was shot
dead in his home.

Gardai said he was murdered by criminal associates because of his decision
to co-operate in a trial related to a serious crime.

Three weeks later, Paschal Boland of Ashcroft Court, Mulhuddart was gunned
down as he stepped out of his car, just outside his front door. Known to
gardai as a cannabis dealer, law enforcement sources said the shooting was
a typical gangland execution.

While the streets of Dublin have seen most of the drug feuds, in many ways
it is the pounds 40m drugs corridor across the border between Newry and
Dundalk where the real potential for violent killings are.

The drugs route, controlled primarily by paramilitary gangs, is the most
important in the country and saw the killing of two dealers in quick
succession earlier this year.

Last June, Newry cannabis dealer Paul "Bull" Downey was abducted by masked
men from a Newry hotel car park, beaten and shot before his body was dumped
on the main Newry to Newtownhamilton Road.

The killing was believed to have been carried out by the IRA, as was the
murder just five weeks earlier of notorious Newry dealer Brendan "Speedy"
Fagan. Both had benefited greatly from the assassination of Dundalk drug
dealer Paddy Farrell who had clocked up a pounds 40m fortune from the Newry
Dundalk drugs route.

Security sources are bracing themselves for the bloody battles that go hand
in hand with shifts in dealers’ power bases.

As long as dealers are shot, as long as the market momentarily opens up and
as long as there are entrepreneurs willing to muscle in on it, the killings
will continue.

"The problem is that the border area is one that’s hard to police. The RUC
don’t always come down to the southern extreme of the border and the gardai
can only cover so much south of the border. People will keep getting bumped
off until it settled down until the two gangs controlling the trade come to
some sort of arrangement," a garda source said.