Gardai suspect a drugs gang based in the Ballyfermot area of west Dublin may have been responsible for the murder of two young heroin couriers whose bodies have been recovered from the Grand Canal in the past two days.
It is believed both men had worked as couriers bringing heroin from Amsterdam and England and may have been killed because they failed to pay debts to the gang.
Sources close to the investigation believe the men may have owed about £30,000 to the gang.
One of the victims, Patrick Murray (19), of Colepark Drive, Ballyfermot, was detained with half a kilo of heroin by Customs officers at Dublin Airport last month.
Mr Murray was arrested coming off a flight from Amsterdam on December 3rd, along with another Dublin man, and was charged with possession of the drug with intent to supply.
His body was recovered from the Hazelhatch side of the Grand Canal, near Kearneystown Bridge, at Newcastle, Co Dublin. Three local people out for a walk on Sunday afternoon spotted a hand on the surface and called gardai.
Mr Murray had been stripped naked before being killed with a shotgun blast to the back of the head. Preliminary examination of his body did not suggest he was subjected to any torture, Garda sources said.
Yesterday the Garda Underwater Unit went to Kearneystown to search the canal for further evidence. Two hours later divers recovered the body of a second man.
He was named last night as Darren Carey (20), with an address at Islandbridge Court, Kilmainham, although originally from Ballyfermot. He is known to have been a friend of Mr Murray's, and gardai believe he was in Amsterdam on the day that Mr Murray and the other man were arrested at Dublin Airport.
It is believed he returned to Dublin on another flight.
Gardai last night said the post-mortem examination of Mr Carey's body suggested he also died from a shotgun blast to the back of the head.
It is believed the two men were killed at another spot and their bodies brought to Kearneystown Bridge.
The Garda Press Office said yesterday that the men appeared to have disappeared just before New Year's Eve. Mr Carey was reported missing on December 30th and Mr Murray on New Year's Eve. It is believed they were killed around the New Year.
Both bodies were said to have been well preserved in the icy cold water of the canal.
Post-mortem examinations were begun yesterday, and the results of these tests will take some days to complete.
According to Dublin detectives last night both men are believed to have been associated with a drugs gang based in Ballyfermot. The gang is led by a man in his mid-20s with a criminal background.
It is believed Mr Murray and Mr Carey were in debt to the gang and were working as couriers to clear the money they owed. It is also suspected the seizure of the heroin at Dublin Airport led directly to the decision by the gang to kill the two men.
Gardai, who are aware of the drugs gang, say its leader is extremely violent and is seeking to assert himself as a significant criminal figure in the west of the city. Yesterday evening the officer in charge of the investigation, Chief Supt Sean Feeley, of Carlow-Kildare Division, appealed for information about the killings. "We would appeal, particularly, to anyone who was in the Kearneystown area of the Grand Canal between December 28th and Sunday last, January 9th, and who noticed anything at all which might be of assistance to come forward," he said.
Dublin criminals have been known to dispose of bodies in the countryside to the west of the city before.
Detectives from west Dublin have been attempting to recover the remains of one Dublin criminal, Jock Corbally, who disappeared in 1996 and is believed to be buried in a secret grave in the Baldonnel area.