GUERIN GANG SUSPECTED IN IMPORTATION OF CANNABIS

Gardai were speculating yesterday that members of the Dublin gang which
murdered Veronica Guerin may have been behind the shipment of 30 kg of
cannabis and two machine pistols found in Dublin yesterday.

The shipment was discovered by chance yesterday after a tiler took delivery
of a number of boxes of what he thought were Spanish tiles.

The man picked up the boxes from a shipping agent in Dublin docks and
brought them to a job he was doing in a Terenure public house only to find
that some contained cannabis and guns. He alerted the gardai.

The shipment is similar in size to another intercepted by gardai in north
Dublin last November.

Two members of the gang, one the man who was probably Ms Guerin's principal
criminal contact and who is believed to have provided the gang with the
information about her movements, are believed to be in Spain. The other man
is also wanted for questioning in connection with Ms Guerin's murder as he
is suspected of helping in the preparations and disposal of weapons and
vehicles.

The two are known to have been in the company of other Dublin criminals who
travelled to Spain recently to attend a party. It is believed that they have
funds and are trying to re-establish the cannabis trade that had been the
major income source for the gang before it was broken up by the Garda
investigation into the journalist's murder.

The shipment found yesterday in Dublin would cost about #30,000 to buy from
a major cannabis supplier - based on a reckoning that the "wholesale" price
is about 10 per cent of the final street value, where cannabis sells for
about #10 a gramme.

A number of other gangs are involved in importing cannabis into the State
and gardai say the drugs could have been smuggled by other criminals. One is
a Co Down man, still in his 20s, who had associations with the gang which
killed Ms Guerin. Despite having republican connections, this man
exclusively supplies loyalist drug dealers in Belfast with cannabis imported
through this State.

Also yesterday, customs officers seized about 50 kg of the drug khat when
they searched luggage belonging to an Irish man on a stopover on a flight
from London to New York.

Khat is almost exclusively used by north eastern Africans, mainly Somalis
and Ethiopians. It is a natural amphetamine and causes erratic and
occasionally violent behaviour. Shipments of the drug are regularly taken to
New York for consumption by Somali and Ethiopian nationals there.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"