GARDAI KEEP TABS ON DRUGS BROTHERS

GARDAI are tracking the two men at the head of one of the State’s leading
drug gangs.

The two, sons of a Cork politician, are top of the most wanted list
following the jailing of Edward Judd Scanlon last week.

Detectives have stepped up surveillance on the pair, who they believe are
keen to fill the vacancy left after Scanlon was given a 22 year sentence
for drugs offences.

Scanlon and his partner Tommy O’Callaghan controlled Cork’s lucrative drugs
trade for years, but with one now in jail and the other living in
Amsterdam, the two brothers have emerged as the city’s newest drug barons.
The youngest of the two, who is in his late 20s and lives on the northside
of the city, has been involved in the drugs trade for a number of years and
is well known to gardai.

He has no prior convictions, but gardai believe that he was the principal
player behind the 1 million pound drugs haul in North Cork last week. Over
100 kilos of cannabis was uncovered in bogland by detectives at
Glenknockane, North Cork. The drugs were discovered by a man out walking
his dog.

Despite the massive setback following the discovery of his key hiding
place, it is believed that the man is still one of the main suppliers of
cannabis and ecstasy in the region.

He earns thousands of pounds each week and is being tracked by the Drugs
Squad and the Criminal Assets Bureau.

A single man, he lives with his partner and three kids, conducting his
illegal business deals from a city centre property.

His brother, who is his right hand man, is in his 30s and lives in the
country with his wife and family.

* Like every other criminal and shady businessman with something to hide,
Judd Scanlon tried to intimidate the media from reporting his low life
activities with legal threats of libel.

Right to the end, before he was sentenced to 22 years behind bars for his
drug dealing, Scanlon got his legal advisers to warn The Examiner that
reports by the paper’s security correspondent Brian Carroll had libelled
him, and demanded an immediate retraction and publication of an apology.

Scanlon went down on Friday. The previous Tuesday, a letter from solicitors
Dermot F O’Driscoll, arrived on the editor’s desk, referring to a story
written by Brian Carroll on Saturday, June 19. Two sentences from that
article, according to Scanlon and his solicitors, were libellous.

They were: (a) One of the country’s biggest drug dealing gangs, headed by
three men, Tommy O’Callaghan, Mark Burke and Edward Judd Scanlon ... and
(b) later this month one of Tommy O’Callaghan’s partners, Edward Judd
Scanlon will be sentenced.

Four days before Scanlon received the longest ever sentence for drug
dealing, his solicitors warned The Examiner: We are instructed by our
client that all of the above references are incorrect, untrue, damaging to
our client, emotionally distressful to his family and libellous.

We are further instructed to demand an immediate retraction of these
incorrect/libellous statements and demand that an apology by published.