The leader of a gun-running ring, which smuggled arms into Ireland from the US, has been jailed for 12 years. Mark McCourt (34) of Edencrieve, Newry, Co Down, was caught “red-handed” in a Garda raid, during which parts for six assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were seized.
McCourt was sentenced by the Special Criminal Court on Monday. He had pleaded guilty in July to participation in a criminal organisation’s efforts to import restricted weapons between February 2023 and July 2024, and possession of firearms.
McCourt told one prospective customer he would throw in 10 pipe bombs as a free gift to seal a €75,000 cash deal to supply guns and ammunition smuggled by air from America, a sentencing court heard earlier this year.
Detective inspector Shane McCartan, of the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, led an investigation into the gang’s activities last year. He told the three-judge court in July that a firearms technician had been able to assemble 82 gun parts seized in a raid on a property in Co Louth last year into six assault rifles and 12 pistols.
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Some 1,200 rounds in 9mm calibre and nearly 400 in .223 were also seized from a shed in Ardee, Co Louth, where Mr McCourt and his co-accused were arrested on July 19th, 2024, the detective inspector said.
It took the Garda Emergency Response Unit 15 minutes to get into the premises after the shutter was pulled down when officers attempted to execute a search warrant, the court was told.
Det Insp McCartan told the court he was “fully satisfied” there was a criminal organisation in existence under the “control and direction” of McCourt. He said the function of the organisation was “the importation of firearms components from the USA to Ireland and the reassembly of these restricted firearms for onward distribution to other criminal organisations”.
Passing sentence on Monday, Ms Justice Karen O’Connor, sitting with Judge Elma Sheahan and Judge Marie Keane, said the court was concerned with the fact McCourt was “caught red-handed and with a degree of bravado”.
McCourt had been “nonchalant” in his references to weapons used by criminals to kill and execute “serious offending, including the institution of fear and intimidation”, she said.
“With no evidence of the court to any threat to him, he was essentially running a business, it can be inferred, for material gain,” Ms Justice O’Connor added. She said the arms smuggling offences were at the “top end of the scale”.
The court jailed McCourt for 12 years for arms smuggling on the basis of a 15-year headline sentence with mitigation of 20 per cent for his early guilty plea.
He has also been concurrently sentenced to 10 years on four firearms possession charges, reduced from 12½ years on the same basis. The remainder of the 20 counts on the indictment were taken into account.
