Pub staff foiled a cannabis operation and led gardai to seize £30,000 belonging to a major drug-dealer, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday. Judge Cyril Kelly imposed suspended sentences on four men who admitted conspiring to possess a kilo of cannabis at the Red Cow Inn, Naas Road, on June 24th, 1996.
P.J. Kelly (27), a truck driver and courier, of Thurles, Co Tipperary, received a three-year suspended term; Gabriel Kelly (40), The Curragh, Co Kildare, received a two-year suspended term; and Christopher Murphy (38), Cuffesgrange, Co Kilkenny, received a one-year suspended sentence.
George Metcalfe (42), a Dublin bus driver, received a five-year suspended term when he admitted the conspiracy charge and having £32,700 knowing it to be the proceeds of another person's criminal activity.
Garda Pauline Reid, Ballyfermot, said the money Metcalfe was caught with belonged to a person "higher up in the chain" of a cannabis-dealing network.
Garda Reid said the murder of Veronica Guerin prompted staff to alert gardai to the suspicious behaviour of the men in the pub car-park.
Gardai viewed security camera footage and picked out the registration numbers of the car and a motorcycle used by the men.
A warrant was obtained to search for the gun used in the journalist's murder and when gardai arrived at Metcalfe's house a box was thrown out the window. It contained £20,000 and a further £12,700 was found in the house, Garda Reid told Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, prosecuting. It was accepted the men were not involved in the Guerin murder.