The use of “fast boats”, usually used by South American cartels to rapidly smuggle drugs, is a new trend for the Republic where demand for cocaine is now “surging”, the Garda’s lead officer combating organised crime has said.
Assistant Commissioner Angela Willis, head of Organised and Serious Crime, told The Irish Times that crime in the Republic, especially the drugs trade, was “local” when she began her policing career in the 1990s. Now, it is truly “global”, while Irish gangs have armed themselves with “military grade” guns.
She was speaking on the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Garda’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB), which she once led. It spearheads the force’s assault against the most significant gangs in the country and foreign crime groups with a reach into Ireland.
It was created in 2015 under then Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan by merging the Garda National Drugs Unit and Organised Crime Unit. In the last decade it has seized drugs valued at €627 million, 171 firearms and 6,600 rounds of ammunition. It has also made 1,700 arrests.
The bureau has seized €33.7 million in cash, with more than €20 million forfeited to the State and court actions under way regarding the remainder. Much of the money is now going to community projects in disadvantaged areas.
“Some of these firearms are military grade machine guns, they are assault rifles ... 110 handguns, many of them automatic or semi-automatic,” she said, adding the success against the gangs was down to the “committed and dedicated” personnel in DOCB over the last decade.
“We now see at-sea drop-offs [of drugs], fast boats. That’s a new trend for us,” Ms Willis said. “The mother ship will arrive into international waters and a fast boat will go out and meet the ship and then return with the product.”
She also pointed to global cartels' reach into the Republic in other ways, including grooming legitimate businesses and their owners into becoming involved in drug smuggling.
She cited the jailing last week of Kerry businessman Nathan McDonnell (44) for his role in aiding the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel’s efforts to smuggle crystal meth to Australia, via Ireland, valued at €32 million. He has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
[ Nathan McDonnell: The rise and fall of the Kerry businessman and drug traffickerOpens in new window ]
“You have legitimate businessmen being targeted to front these [smuggling] operations,” she said, adding international cartels will “see a vulnerability” in a business or its owner that it can exploit.
“Someone might have cash flow problems. It could be a haulier; it could be anyone. Vulnerable people can easily get drawn in and next of all you find yourself engaging with a global cartel. And obviously that’s never going to end well.”
There was a “surge” in the supply of cocaine fuelled by consumption in Ireland, she said. Many people who used the drug have been “burying their head in the sand” by not connecting their consumption with enriching cartels that exploited people all over the world, she said.
As evidence of increased chronic drug use, Ms Willis pointed to findings by the Health Research Board that show demand for drug treatment increased by 37 per cent, to more than 13,000 people, in 2023. Also, 354 people died from drug use in 2021.
“That’s nearly one a day, that is phenomenal,” she said, adding Operation Tara was established under Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to tackle the supplying of drugs nationally.
Gangland killings in the Republic have plummeted to one or two cases a year compared with 20 or more in some years during the Celtic Tiger era and similarly high levels during the Kinahan-Hutch feud of 2015 to 2018.
[ The story of a feud: How the Kinahan-Hutch war escalatedOpens in new window ]
Ms Willis believes the targeting of even peripheral figures during the feud has sent a clear message to the criminal fraternity, which also saw Garda resources focused on the feuding sides and have remained deterred from engaging in similar violence.
In one case, she said, a man who bought a SIM card to be used in a phone during a thwarted Kinahan-Hutch feud attack was caught and jailed for five years, even though he was not “on the ground” on the morning of the attempted killing.
“People saw that no matter what role they played in an organised crime group, we were coming after them, and they were going to get a lengthy prison sentence,” she said. “I think the other [gangs] realised there was going to be too much attention involved in killings, so the killing stopped. They pulled back and they realised murder wasn’t the way to achieve success from their perspective.”
She said that, due to crime being more transnational now, it must be met with bigger and more complex investigations involving co-operation with a range of domestic and international partners. This includes the Naval Service, Air Corps and Revenue’s Custom Service. The Garda also worked closely with Europol, Interpol, the PSNI, National Crime Agency in the UK and the Drugs Enforcement Agency in the US.
The Garda now has its own liaison officers based in the US, Bogotá in Colombia, Abu Dhabi in UAE and in Bangkok, Thailand. This “footprint” would grow and strengthen to meet the new challenge of global cartels.
On the subject of bringing down the Kinahan cartel’s Dubai-based leadership, Ms Willis said the arrest of one of its leaders, Sean McGovern, in Dubai for extradition to Ireland was a positive step. But the Garda will continue its “journey” towards capturing the other leading figures.
[ The Kinahans in Dubai: Is their empire beginning to crumble?Opens in new window ]
