A major Garda operation designed to tackle prolific burglars, including members of four organised crime gangs, resulted in 42 people appearing before the courts in Dublin on Thursday. While not all of those charged were linked to each other, they all appeared on charges brought against them under Operation Thor.
The suspects - 41 men and one woman - brought before the courts on Thursday morning were aged between 18 and 63 years and were all arrested after investigations by Garda members in the Coolock and Raheny districts of north Dublin.
Gardaí said the investigations “specifically targeted organised crime groups and repeat offenders... based on intelligence and the latest burglary trends”.
They all were before judges sitting the Criminal Courts of Justice in central Dublin as well as Swords District Court and Balbriggan District Court, both in north Co Dublin. A further two suspects arrested were minors and were being dealt with under the Garda Youth Diversion Scheme.
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The 42 suspects were charged with a total of 60 offences, including burglary and other related offences including trespass and possession of items used in the commission of burglaries. Before Thursday’s court appearances, the coordinated operation had also resulted in 13 other suspects appearing before the courts in recent months.
Under the special operation that began last year, two Garda teams were created - in Raheny and Coolock - working in tandem. They ran surveillance and erected strategic checkpoints at the times and locations suspects were likely to be apprehended going to or from burglaries.
Some of those targeted are regarded as prolific burglars who have long posed a challenge for the Garda and among those charged are men linked to four different crime gangs operating from north Dublin.
This frontline policing was complimented by the scenes of burglaries in north Dublin being prioritised for examination, with any evidence yielded pursued with more intent than burglaries investigations often are.
In some cases, when the investigating gardaí were redeployed after more serious crimes were committed, management of the two teams in Raheny and Coolock ensured those gardaí returned to the burglar investigations.
One source said while burglaries are often non-violent, high volume and often low priority crimes - especially when the property stolen is of modest value - the investigations were treated with a much higher priority to ensure the result of every investigation was maximised.
Operation Thor was created eight years ago to tackle burglary gangs and has continued in the period since, even though burglaries have been at unusually low levels in recent years. The traditional winter surge in burglaries during the winter has been absent, or much more muted, in Garda regions across the Republic in recent months, with residential burglaries down by 24 per cent in the last quarter of last year.
