Soon, the spotlight is expected to be on IRA decommissioning but it is already being shone onto money laundering, Conor Lally reports.
The Provisional IRA's money machine has its roots under the scorching Mediterranean sun as much as down the back alleys of west Belfast or among the fields and country lanes of south Armagh and the Border counties.
Every day lorries pulling 40ft containers full of cigarettes pass through the gates of Gallagher's tobacco warehouses in Belfast. Most leave the North on sea freight bound for the far-flung corners of the world.
But for some of the consignments the Belfast depot represents merely the first stage in a global voyage that will lead them back to the North.
"They'll be legitimately sold by Gallagher's to companies overseas," says one senior Garda source referring to the container loads of tobacco. Southern European locations are a favourite.
"Once the shipments make it there they'll be shipped again around a number of EU countries and even to the United States in some cases. False documentation will be produced until eventually the shipments get lost in the paperwork. The stuff then comes back into Ireland, usually from Rotterdam and labelled as furniture parts."
The initial sale will be to an IRA-controlled company, unbeknownst to Gallagher's who are entirely innocent. The goods' criss-crossing of the oceans will be controlled by the same organisation.
When they arrive back in the North, the cigarettes will be distributed by the IRA, often to shops and petrol stations the organisation own or control. Payments to neither Revenue nor Customs and Excise form part of the lucrative business model. Annual profits run into the millions and shipping costs are negligible in comparison.
WELCOME TO PIRA Inc, a tightly-run operation where cigarette rackets represent just one of many lucrative divisions.
Money laundering, fuel smuggling, business and social security fraud, counterfeiting, extortion, loan sharking, drinking clubs, illegal gaming machines and even intellectual property theft are all well established divisions.
IRA extortion demands from companies of up to €400,000 per year are not uncommon. A single illegal gaming machine can net the IRA almost €40,000 per year. And some of the bigger IRA illicit diesel laundering operations have the capacity to produce 200,000 litres a week, resulting in a weekly loss to the Revenue of around €130,000.
Around two thirds of the petrol stations in the North are believed to sell smuggled and laundered fuel. Some owners have been forced into such activity by the IRA. Other garages are owned by IRA sympathisers or are directly controlled by the organisation.
In 2002 the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee produced a report titled The Financing of Terrorism In Northern Ireland. Its authors estimated that the IRA's annual running costs were €2.2 million with an annual fundraising capacity of between €7.3 million and €11.7 million. Based on those figures, IRA Inc has recorded annual profits of €9.5 million every year in recent times.
Two weeks ago, in the wake of the IRA's statement saying its "armed campaign" was over and calling on members to "dump arms", the last deputy chief constable of the RUC, Colin Crampton, predicted the organisation would play a key mafia-style role in Ireland into the future.
"A lot of men have invested their whole lives in illegal armed conflict, bomb-making and terror. They're not about to settle for pipe and slippers now," he said. "Neither is the IRA about to go away . . . This is the most sophisticated, politically strategic organisation I know. It has pensions to pay to loyal volunteers and operatives who have given long service . . . This is not the end of the IRA, it is the beginning of another era of it."
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell apparently subscribes to this nightmare scenario. According to political sources, he is anxious to see the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and the National Bureau of Fraud Investigation working together to, in effect, decommission the republican movement's money machine.
McDowell has relayed these views to senior management within An Garda Síochána in recent months. He believes illegal financing must be tackled immediately, before Sinn Féin grows any stronger.
"The deeper they [ Sinn Féin] get into respectable politics the more difficult they [ IRA fundraisers] will be to dislodge," says one political source. "In a few years' time, there is going to be a real reluctance on the part of a young, newly-promoted garda, in his early 30s in, say, a unit like the Cab, to go in and start quizzing known people.
"Sinn Féin could be in government by then or at least supporting a government. The IRA has taken all they can get and they will keep taking it. They are like the paramilitary equivalent of Cosmo Girl, they 'want it all'. And time is on their side, not ours."
In recent days, senior Garda sources say they believe McDowell must accept that the financial web which has been spun by the IRA will not be easy to unravel. Assets and funds on deposit cannot always be proven to be the proceeds of crime. And often these cannot be directly linked to known IRA members. The links between IRA money and Sinn Féin coffers, they say, also remain unproven.
However, The Irish Times has established that very considerable "post conflict" investigations in the Republic are already underway into members of the IRA and other known republican figures. Cab has joined forces in this regard with the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) in the North.
Customs and Excise in the Republic has done a significant amount of groundwork and the fraud squad in the Republic also has a number of investigative irons in republican fires.
IN RECENT WEEKS Cab has identified one former IRA army council member from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, as a rapidly emerging senior figure in the IRA's cigarette and oil smuggling operations. This man was appointed to the army council 18 months ago, the Cab believes.
He has several properties and, like many of his counterparts, is in the process of attempting to make the move into legitimate business. He owns a substantial piece of land on the outskirts of one southern Border town and gardaí believe he is planning to build around 40 houses there.
Another figure from Armagh with strong links to the IRA has already has had two properties in the Republic frozen by Cab. The North's ARA has also frozen a substantial property he owns in Northern Ireland.
This man has run a significant oil laundering business in the North and the Republic. Last year he was leasing two petrol stations in the west of Ireland which gardaí suspected were selling laundered fuel. Customs raided both a number of times and they have since gone out of business.
However, the same man has used two IRA-controlled petrol stations in Belfast to sell his illegal fuel. He has also recently established a legitimate haulage company and has at least five trucks working on one of the Republic's biggest construction projects.
A Dundalk farmer with links to the IRA has also been identified by Cab as a key figure in the illicit fuel business and is now the subject of investigation. When police raided one of his properties North of the Border last year, they found €400,000 in cash. He controls at least one petrol station in the North and will soon be before the courts in the Republic.
Also firmly on the radars of ARA and Cab is another Armagh-based figure with strong links to the IRA. He has been involved in the fuel smuggling business and in money laundering. He has used petrol stations he owns in Armagh and Monaghan for the former and a number of leased small shops for the latter. He too is expected before the courts shortly.
A well-known dissident republican in the Border area is under continued investigation by Cab and ARA. The cross-Border proceeds of crime probe against him has escalated in the last two months. Both gardaí and political sources say they are anxious that this man's activities, and those of his close circle, are ended or at least seriously disrupted. He continues to pose a major security threat, says gardaí. In Dublin, a gang of criminals which had been involved with the IRA is under close investigation. These have, in large part, controlled the smuggling of cigarettes through Dublin Port in recent years. One of these gang members was recently presented with a €700,000 tax assessment by Cab.
A west Dublin criminal who is in the IRA and has been engaged in crime on its behalf, is also under investigation by Cab. He has been engaged in extortion and smuggling and now has legitimate business interests in the capital.
He can expect a tax demand in excess of €1 million in the not too distant future, according to security sources. Another IRA figure based in the North who owns around 20 properties on both sides of the Border is also under investigation by Cab and ARA. In Armagh a wine smuggling operation is also under investigation.
A group of seven IRA criminals, along with around 15 criminals with no political affiliations, is being investigated for a €2 million construction industry Revenue fraud in Dublin.
And the fraud squad has a number of IRA-controlled pubs under investigation in the Republic on suspicion of money laundering. One political source said it is imperative that as many of these investigations as possible comes to a successful conclusion.
"I think Sinn Féin know that these things are coming down the line," he says. "Why else would Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris have stood down from the army council? If the IRA had been stood down why would they need to leave the army council?
"It's a clear effort to put distance between themselves and what may come down the line, in anticipation of what people [ IRA figures now under investigation] might be charged with." Adams can now be "in the background saying 'I know nothing', a bit like Manuel from Fawlty Towers", said the source.