A 52-year-old Dublin man has been sentenced to five years in prison at the Special Criminal Court for his part in a large Kinahan cartel drugs and ammunition operation.
Anthony Glynn pleaded guilty at the three-judge, non-jury court earlier this year to having hundreds of rounds of ammunition and €1.4 million in drugs for the Kinahans. The court previously heard Glynn had been a “conduit” in the “industrial-scale” operation.
Sentencing Glynn at the Special Criminal Court on Friday to six years in prison, with the final 12 months suspended, Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, said there was no doubt that these crimes were intentional, and said the possession of drugs and ammunition in these quantities for a criminal organisation would have “serious direct consequences”.
Suspending the final year of the sentence for a period of three years, Mr Justice Hunt said the court was taking a “carrot and stick” approach to encourage Glynn to “turn away from this behaviour” in future. The judge said the court also intended to impose a monitoring order under section 26 of the Criminal Justice Act, noting that “if monitoring for three years doesn’t do the trick, I don’t know what will”.
Glynn, of Fitzgibbon Court, Dublin 1, had been charged that he “did commit a serious offence for the benefit of a criminal organisation, namely the possession of one or more controlled drugs, to wit cocaine and cannabis, for the purpose of selling or otherwise supplying the said controlled drugs” within the State on dates between January 25th, 2017, and April 12th, 2017, both dates inclusive.
He also pleaded guilty to committing a serious offence for the benefit of a criminal organisation by possessing ammunition: 199 rounds of .44 Remington Magnum calibre, 76 rounds of .357 Magnum calibre, 38 rounds of .45 ACP calibre and 22 rounds of .22 LR calibre ammunition, – 335 rounds in total – in circumstances as to give rise to a reasonable inference that the said ammunition was not required for a lawful purpose on the same dates.
Both offences are contrary to section 73 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 as amended by section 10 of the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act 2009.
A previous sentencing hearing this month heard evidence from Det Tony Kennedy who told Dominic McGinn SC, for the State, that the criminal organisation in question was the Kinahan organised crime group.
Det Kennedy said that on foot of Garda information a search warrant had been carried out at a business premises at Mount Dillon Business Park in Dublin 5 in March 2017. Crates containing large quantities of cannabis, cannabis resin and cocaine were discovered. A man, Emmet Fogarty, was arrested on site and charged.
Fogarty, of Brookhaven Drive, Blanchardstown, was deemed to be “responsible” for the unit at the business park. Fogarty was 47 years old when he was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to possession of the drugs and ammunition in November 2018.
A follow-up search to the lock-up carried out at a residential address in Dublin in April 2017 saw gardaí seize two Blackberry phones on which a number attributed to Glynn’s brother, Douglas, was discovered.
At Douglas Glynn’s sentence hearing Det Jonathan O’Leary said technological breakthroughs in cracking phone encryption allowed gardaí to fully access the contents of the phone in February 2021. The detective said the technology was able to identify a person saved under the code name “Oscar” on the phone as Douglas Glynn.
In March, Douglas Glynn (38), last of Fitzgibbon Court, Dublin 1, was sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to commit a serious offence, namely the possession of 335 rounds of ammunition and conspiracy to possess drugs. In sentencing Douglas Glynn, Mr Justice Hunt said the operation had been on an “industrial scale” and described the accused as a “trusted manager” for the Kinahans.
Douglas Glynn is also serving a 6½-year jail sentence imposed in February 2022 for his involvement in a foiled plot to murder Kinahan cartel target James “Mago” Gately, during which Glynn placed a tracker on the rival Hutch member’s car.
Det Kennedy told Mr McGinn that the cannabis discovered at the lock-up was valued at €39,902, while the resin was valued at €10,894 and the cocaine was found to be worth €1,422,694 – a cumulative value of €1,473,490.
He said an analysis of the Blackberry phones had been carried out “as far as possible” in 2017, but that a breakthrough in phone-encryption technology saw the phones analysed again in February of 2021. The gang used pseudonyms to conceal their identities, with Anthony Glynn going by the moniker “LED”, who received messages from Douglas “Oscar” Glynn. The detective said slang terms for drugs and ammunition were also used, with “seeds” being a code for ammunition.
The three-judge court has previously heard that other code words were “slate of pollen” for cannabis resin, “tools” for firearms and “candy’” which referred to cash.
Det Kennedy said Anthony Glynn had been co-operative and agreed he was “very easy to deal with”, had pleaded guilty and had no relevant previous convictions.
At a previous sentencing hearing this month Michael Bowman SC, for Anthony Glynn, said his client’s involvement “was that he was positioned as a conduit for information between Douglas Glynn and then this was forwarded to Emmet Fogarty, who was the man on the ground”.
At the Special Criminal Court on Friday, Mr Justice Hunt, sitting with Ms Justice Sarah Berkeley and Mr Justice Alan Mitchell, said that any sentence imposed must be proportionate and must recognise the gravity of the offence but also the personal circumstances of the offender.
He said the maximum sentence available to the court was 15 years. “Taking into account the scenario painted by Det Kennedy, the gravity of the organisation on whose behalf Mr Glynn was acting and the extensive quantities of drugs involved, we can’t consider a headline sentence of any less than eight years.” the judge said. This placed Mr Glynn where he belonged in the context of Douglas Glynn and Emmet Fogarty.
Mr Justice Hunt said the court must also consider the mitigating factors of the case, including Glynn’s plea of guilty. Glynn was entitled to “full credit for that aspect of the matter”, and said the court would reduce the sentence on the basis of that “early and valuable plea” to six years.
He said there were also other matters of a personal nature to be considered and noted that Glynn was “relatively old to be appearing in a criminal court on charges of such gravity, in effect, for the first time”.
The judge also noted Glynn’s good work history, working in a “difficult and socially very useful” job which he lost as a result of his involvement in this incident. The court previously heard Glynn worked as a porter in the Mater hospital. “His employment certainly speaks to his previous good character,” Mr Justice Hunt said. “One wonders why he has ended up in this situation.”
He said the non-jury court was hopeful Glynn would “turn away from this behaviour and we won’t see him again”.
Mr Justice Hunt said the court was inclined to see if this could be encouraged, and said it would suspend the last year of each sentence for a period of three years. “This is designed to be a stick and a carrot for him to behave himself when he is released from custody.”
The judge said the court also proposed to make an order in relation to count one under section 26 of the Criminal Justice Act for the purpose of monitoring Glynn after his release. He said the court intended to limit this to the three years of the peace bond and it would come into force on his final release from custody. “If monitoring for three years doesn’t do the trick, I don’t know what will,” he said.