Three senior members of a Dublin-based drugs gang known as The Family have been arrested by gardaí during early morning raids in the city.
The gang has been active in drug dealing for over two decades but in recent years has displaced the Kinahan cartel’s Irish operation as the biggest drugs importers into the Republic.
The Irish Times understands the three men arrested on Monday morning, as part of an intelligence-led operation, are senior members of the group and they have been prime targets for the Garda’s gang units.
A number of other people linked to the gang were also detained in the same operation, which has an international component that was continuing to unfold on Monday afternoon.
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[ The group that became Ireland's leading crime gang without firing a shotOpens in new window ]
The Garda’s National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau has been investigating The Family since its inception a decade ago.
Run from Sydney, the encrypted platform Ghost was being used by organised crime gangs, in Australia and across the world, to communicate with each other on the assumption it could not be accessed by law enforcement.
The Family gang, and a number of men working in drug smuggling for the group in Ireland, were using the service when it was compromised. Since then, all of the Irish-related messages on the service have been studied by the Garda, resulting in the arrests on Monday.
The investigation is at an advanced stage and gardaí believe some of the messages incriminate members of the gang and their associates in Ireland in drug smuggling and related activities.
More Irish criminals were using the Ghost platform than organised crime figures from any other country in the world, with the exception of Australia where it originated. About 8 per cent of the devices, 100 in all, being used to access the platform were operating in Ireland.
The Family was one of four major drug trafficking gangs in Ireland to be compromised by the takedown of the platform. One of the four was also effectively acting as an agent for the platform in Ireland and was working to spread its use in the Irish underworld.
Last September, when the Ghost network was taken down, gardaí carried out 32 searches in the Republic, leading to the seizure of cocaine valued at €15.2 million, €350,000 in cash, €320,000 in cannabis, €100,000 in heroin and some cryptocurrency.
If members of The Family gang are charged based on the messages – along with other evidence – it would be the second time such as prosecution has taken place in Ireland. The Kinahan cartel used customised Blackberry smartphones to send messages they believed could not be read by law enforcement. However, one of the devices was seized and messages on the screen were photographed by a Garda member before they were wiped.
The evidence helped secure a conviction against Lithuanian hitman Imre Arakas, who was hired eight years ago by the Kinahan cartel to murder Hutch gang associate James Gately.
In a statement on Monday, An Garda Síochána said five arrests had been made “as part of an ongoing investigation into the activities of an international organised crime group based in west Dublin”.
It said the arrested men - aged in their 30s, 40s and 60s - were being detained in garda stations in Dublin and other locations in the eastern region under Section 50 of Criminal Justice Act, 2007, which allows for gardaí to question suspects for up to seven days without charge.
Monday’s operation was led by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, supported by the Emergency Response Unit, Regional Armed Support Unit, Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the force’s serious crimes squad, and the Dublin Crime Response Team.
