Gary Cardiff once pinned down a thief who stole his carbon-fibre racing bicycle outside a north Dublin supermarket. He held him down until gardaí arrived.
Now, thieves are coming at him again – and this time in waves.
Gardaí suspect some of them are from the Lucky Dip Gang, who present more like TikTok content creators rather than a Dublin-based crime gang.
Gardaí refer to them as a “crime wave” and “a gang” interchangeably. They engage in crime – specifically, burglaries and joyriding, often pursued by gardaí – so they can record their escapades.
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“They’re not making any money from it; they just want the videos – it’s all about TikTok for them,” says a Garda source.
Other gardaí describe the Lucky Dip Gang as a loose syndicate of about 60 teenagers and young men from across a wide area of Dublin, including Ballymun, Coolock, Blanchardstown and Ballyfermot.
They have been linked to 20-30 crimes per week at times, though Cardiff’s motorbike has so far eluded them.
The Dubliner keeps his high-powered Honda Fireblade locked up outside his house in Inchicore on the western side of Dublin city. Over the last six months his doorbell camera has recorded masked teenagers trying to steal it “at least eight times”.
Clips capture the failed efforts of various groups – all masked with hoods and snoods – as they check the bike and realise stealing it is beyond them, it is so securely locked up. Their youth is clear in the videos.
They use the torches on their phones, or headlamps, in the darkness. Bolt cutters can be seen in the footage. Some are deterred when the bike’s alarm begins to activate.
“Break-ins were a big problem a few years ago but that seems to have fallen off,” Cardiff says of his street.
“But it’s property now. And they’re not robbing these motorbikes to sell them, to make money. They’re going down the fields on them.”
He says his bike can exceed 300km per hour and that any teenager who stole it “would probably be killed off it in five minutes”.
Cardiff describes how some of his neighbours have had property stolen when they have unintentionally left their hall doors or car doors unlocked overnight.
Any weakness is being exploited by teenagers and young men roaming around in the night trying the doors, hoping to get lucky.
Garda members who spoke to The Irish Times say they recognise the details of Cardiff’s account, one describing it as “textbook stuff” for young, low-level, criminals involved in burglaries and vehicle theft.
If they jump in their cars and they’re headed for, say, Cork or Tipperary, they know exactly where they’re going because the targets are already picked
The other side of the burglary trade, where the rewards are enormous, is dominated by tight-knit organised gangs. They are meticulous planners, forensically aware and very dangerous.
Last year there were 9,632 burglaries across the State, down from 16,750 in 2019 and 26,322 in 2015.
But if the Lucky Dip Gang is running riot across the Greater Dublin Area and organised burglary gangs are so active across the country, why have burglaries fallen by almost 65 per cent in a decade?
Gardaí point to the proliferation of home security measures; from camera door bells, more sophisticated alarm systems and much more secure doors and windows.
[ Summer burglaries down 15% this year, Garda figures showOpens in new window ]
They also say the working-from-home culture that began at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and has persisted, means more properties are occupied more often now, deterring many burglars.
But others are not deterred, resulting in violent burglaries in rural communities.
On Thursday three men were jailed for 14 and 15 years for the manslaughter of farmer Tom Niland who died 20 months after being attacked by three men in his west Sligo home. They stole just €800 from the farmer.
The Garda’s Operation Thor was established a decade ago to target burglars. It involves gardaí working to identify the main figures in the most prolific “inter-regional travelling burglary gangs”. They put in place operations – often led the Garda’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DocB) – to catch and bring them before the courts. Because of the wealth some gangs have amassed, the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) is now involved in many investigations.
“They specialise in these burglaries; it’s all they do,” says one source of the organised gangs, which are based in the Republic but who also carry out burglaries abroad.
“If they jump in their cars and they’re headed for, say, Cork or Tipperary, they know exactly where they’re going because the targets are already picked. And they just go in ‘hit, hit, hit, hit’ – no more than five minutes in each house and they’ll be gone. And within 10 minutes of getting out of there they’ve pulled in to change the plates on the cars.”
Another source says the gangs select their targets very carefully because “they are only looking for cash and jewellery”.
“If there’s a firearms safe, they’ll take that too. But you could have the most expensive cameras or laptops – or you could have all your phones sitting there, all your electronics – and it’s just not going to be touched.”
Some gangs are based on family networks, with many senior criminals keen to bring sons and nephews “into the business”, often from a very early age.
On Wednesday two boys in their early and mid teens were arrested in Co Kildare for their alleged role in an organised burglary gang active in the northwest of the country. They were detained under section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, which is used for organised crime suspects as it allows gardaí up to seven days to question them without charge.
One of the boys was the youngest person ever arrested under the legislation.
Gardaí believe the child is controlled by the leader of a big gang, one of a number of well-drilled criminal enterprises specialising in burglaries nationally, often hundreds of kilometres from their homes.
“They’ll get cars, stolen or bought second hand – maybe high-powered Audis or BMWs – and they’ll go on to the car marketplace websites and find the same cars in the same colour and clone the number plates from those,” says a source.
“They will literally have several new plates in the boot of the car. When they go into a location and carry out a number of burglars, we’ll get reports (from the public via 999) that include a registration.”
Once a safe distance away, the gangs change plates, the source says.
“And they might do that several times in one night.”
Gardaí say seven big gangs are behind most organised burglaries in the Republic.
“They are focused, unfortunately, on elderly people at times because they know many of them will keep lots of cash in the house,” says one garda.
“They know farmers will keep lots of cash. And they are hitting it big in some houses – €50,000 and more at times. And that’s what’s encouraging them.”
A number of significant targets have been charged, some remanded in custody, awaiting trial. Others have been hit, often repeatedly, in criminal prosecutions and by the Cab.
Edward Wall (53), Fortunestown Crescent, Tallaght, Dublin, is serving a four-year sentence for a burglary in Killiney, south Dublin, dating from 2021, when jewellery valued at almost €20,000 was stolen. Gardaí had the group under surveillance and caught them.
Wall is the leader of the notorious Cock-Wall burglary gang, which has rammed Garda vehicles in a bid to escape during pursuits.
The Cab recently served him with a €3 million demand for unpaid taxes on his income, mainly from burglaries.
Three of his associates were recorded from the Garda helicopter digging up €79,000 in jars from a field in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, and were subsequently jailed.
In 2022 members of the Connors organised burglary gang were arrested after a Garda operation resulted in their high-speed pursuit by gardaí across Meath and Kildare. The pursuit ended in Naas when gang leader, William Connors, crashed the Audi Q5 the men were in into a roundabout, flipping the vehicle into a supermarket car park.
Connors was jailed for eight years, and his three associates for shorter periods.
The court was told the Audi had been stolen weeks earlier during a residential burglary in London. Cloned plates had been installed on it. In the weeks before it crashed it was linked to 17 burglaries in Northern Ireland, including one in which jewellery valued at €250,000 was stolen.
“They live fast and they don’t like being in jail – it really, really doesn’t suit them,” says one source of the burglary gang members.
“They prefer moving around a lot, going abroad and flitting in and out of the country. Prison kills these people.”
How to protect your home
In a bid to deter burglars, the Garda National Crime Prevention Unit recommends the use of “smart bulbs” – lights that can be turned on via an app when the homeowner is not present. Sgt Mark Bolger says these are particularly useful during longer hours of darkness in the winter months, when burglaries generally increase.
He also says homeowners can leave on a radio when they go out, to give the impression a property is occupied. The same effect can be achieved by using a TV flicker box, a light that mimics the effect of having a TV on in a room.
The most common form of entry by burglars into a home is through the front door, with many simply applying the pressure of their shoulder and body weight to force it open. In a bid to prevent that from happening, homeowners should install composite doors with multi-point locking systems. A well-lit external space at the front door may also deter some burglars.
Sgt Bolger says all windows and doors should be locked properly overnight, with all homeowners checking them, especially before going to bed or leaving the house unoccupied.
