Donohue suspect in USA

A YEAR after the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe the young gangsters suspected to be behind the killing remain free.

Last September the Sunday World caught up with one of the alleged gang at a Big Fat Gypsy style wedding in New York State. He travelled to the US not long after the murder and has been working and living among the expat Irish travelling community.

The baby-faced criminal has so far failed to make himself available to officers working on the murder case that shocked the nation last January.

He turned up at the wedding bash for a cousin at the Ramada Hotel in Newburgh, New York, 60 miles from the city.

The burly youngster was part of a small group of young traveller men who drove from Boston for the raucous party.

Despite the celebration our sources suggested he remained sober and alert throughout the celebrations.

“He wasn’t throwing the pints back, he was definitely cagey and kept looking around. He never left the car keys out of his hands,” a source told the Sunday World.

Guests at the party were loud, while children were allowed run free in the hotel lobby to the bemusement of other guests and staff.

“I don’t think they had seen anything like it before,” a source told the Sunday World.

The Armagh native left Ireland last April for the United States on 90-day visa and he now faces deportation if picked up by US authorities.

Troy Jordan

A Dublin garda is under investigation for leaking sensitive information to Troy Jordan’s gang.

The garda, who is based in south Dublin, voluntarily attended Naas Garda station in recent weeks where he was interviewed under caution by gardai attached to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

During the eight-hour interview he completely denied leaking any information. 

He has not been suspended since the interview, but garda bosses have temporarily restricted his access to the garda Pulse computer system. 

He can no longer log into the system using his own password and if he wants to access it he has to ask his sergeant and be supervised. 

However, it is understood he is suspected of having used other people’s Pulse passwords to access the system. 

Gardai in his district were angered that he was not suspended as it is strongly believed there is information leaking to the gang.

It is understood other officers may be questioned as part of the probe.

A source said: “A lot of people are pissed off that this fella is still on active duty. He should have been suspended as there is significant intelligence to suggest the gang are being given information. 

Other members are not happy to work alongside him. He’s told everyone he’s innocent and hasn’t a clue why he was questioned.”

Troy Jordan is a suspected gang boss based in Allenwood, Co. Kildare. He has no serious convictions, but was twice arrested by cops probing the murder of Latvian mum Baiba Saulite and has  been well-known to the gardai since his teenage years.

Michael 'Mickey' Devoy

Devoy's pal has gone on the run

Michael Devoy's funeral passed off peacefully but one man (inset) charged at photographers

Greg Lynch

The crime partner of slain Dublin hood Michael ‘Mickey’ Devoy tearfully told gardai that he is fleeing the country because he fears he is going to be whacked.

The criminal had been told by gardai that his life was under threat over his links to Devoy, who was gunned down in a gangland feud.

Mickey Devoy was blamed for a failed murder bid on drug dealer Greg Lynch last October and a hitman from Dundalk took up a contract to murder Devoy, his partner and the man’s brother.

The under-threat man, who is not regarded as a serious player in gangland, walked into Store Street Garda station in Dublin city centre and asked to speak to detectives.

The hood, from Ballymun on the city’s northside, broke down as he told startled officers that he knew he would be murdered if he did not immediately leave the country.

He knows he is a ‘dead man walking’ and is understood to have taken a flight to the UK.   It is understood that his brother also left with him. Before he left he refused to make a statement outlining his fears and would not even take up the offer of personal security advice.

Gardai had been fearful that he would be the next victim of the Lynch mob and they believe that tensions will reduce considerably now that he has left Ireland. 

He was not present when Devoy was buried last Wednesday as most of Devoy’s criminal cronies shunned the funeral.

There was a massive garda presence at the church in Finglas and  at Glasnevin cemetery, but the turnout was very low and, aside from one mourner trying to attack press photographers, it passed off without incident.

The prime suspect in the murder of 42-year-old Devoy is believed to have been paid €20,000 for the murder and the same amount is believed to be on the table for the heads of the dead man’s pal and his brother.

Associates of Christy Kinahan and drug dealer Greg Lynch have put up the money in revenge for Devoy trying to murder the 28-year-old last October.

Devoy tried to get rid of Lynch because he was expanding his territory from Dublin’s south-inner city to Coolock and Ballymun, where Devoy operated.

However the shooter failed to finish off Lynch and he survived after losing half his jaw. It was then a case of when, not if, Devoy would be murdered. Underworld justice finally caught up with him 13 days ago when he was shot three times in the head and dumped by the side of the road near Tallaght.

He narrowly escaped two murder bids in the fortnight before he was shot dead and the man who took out the contract on him was arrested close to Devoy’s house in Ballymun. 

He is believed to have been staking him out and three days later a sophisticated bomb was left under Devoy’s car.

Last week we revealed that the hitman who shot Devoy was one of his brother’s closest pals. 

The 40-year-old suspected triggerman was a close pal of Devoy’s brother Derek ‘Bottler’ Devoy.

The pair were involved with a Finglas-based mob led by Martin ‘Marlo’ Hyland and later Eamon ‘the Don’ Dunne. Both worked as enforcers for the gang and they were “inseparable” for years, according to sources. 

However, the former Provo has now distanced himself from the gangs and is operating as a ‘freelance” hitman. 

Gardai believe that he is still in the country although several searches have so far failed to locate him. 

When Bottler Devoy heard the news that his former friend had been responsible for killing his beloved brother he smashed up his cell in Mountjoy prison, where the 30-year-old is serving a seven- year sentence for armed robbery.

Gardai fear that associates of the Devoys will attempt to hit back against the Lynch mob.

Michael Devoy was a veteran criminal with more than 70 convictions to his name. 

He was the chief suspect in the murder of 30 year-old Mark Byrne in May 2005. Byrne had just been released from Mountjoy prison and walked out of a shop after buying phone credit when a gunman shot him dead. The murder was later re-created on RTE drama Love/Hate.

The Ballymun man was arrested over the murder and gardai were hopeful there was enough evidence to charge him, but the DPP disagreed. He associated with major criminals from Finglas and Ballymun who are very unhappy with his murder. 

Greg Lynch is the leader of a 60-strong drugs gang that is responsible for armed robberies and tiger kidnappings.

He is one of the main targets of the new anti-gang unit based at Kevin Street Garda Station. Gardai class him as one of the city’s biggest drug distributors.

Brothel raid

Brothel raid

Brothel raid

Brothel boss Di Wei

This is the moment an elite Garda squad swooped on brothel boss Di Wei. The 31-year-old faces being booted out of the country or a lengthy prison stretch after admitting allowing two apartments he rented to be used as brothels staffed by exploited Chinese hookers.

The Sunday World has learned that Gardai regard Wei as a Mr Big in the secretive Chinese Triad gang operating in Ireland. 

Dozens of cops were involved in raiding four premises used by the brothel king in February 2011 as part of Operation Quest, which investigated prostitution, human trafficking and money laundering.

Gardai from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) carried out simultaneous raids on brothels across south Dublin run by Wei and the Sunday World was on hand to photograph them. 

Undercover officers from the National Surveillance Unit had been secretly monitoring Wei’s every move for nearly a month before hitting the sex dens. They had photographed dozens of men each day coming and going from the knocking shops.

Wei had previously been arrested by gardai at one of his brothels and video recording equipment was found hidden in a wall, which detectives believe was used to secretly record punters. 

Up to a dozen prostitutes were operating out of each brothel, which ran 24 hours a day, unbeknownst to the owners of the premises who had innocently rented them out. 

Ten people were arrested as part of the raids and hundreds of condoms were found, as well as ledgers full of names and phone numbers of clients, mobile phones, laptops and €2,350 in cash.

Wei this week pleaded guilty to allowing two apartments he rented to be used as brothels, but waited until the fifth day of the trial to hold his hands up.

The fact that he cost the State tens of thousands of euro by contesting the charges means he is likely to face stiff penalties when sentenced next month. 

However, it is understood that he might avoid serving hard time if he agrees to be deported back to China and not return. 

After his arrest, Wei, who likes to call himself  ‘David’, spent more than a day in custody, but refused to cooperate with gardai and would not answer questions. 

Wei associates with senior members of the Chinese mafia, a feared group involved in extorting money from Chinese business people living in Ireland. 

Gardai believe he operates at the very top of the Triad gang and is well-known and feared in the Chinese community. 

The ‘businessman’ advertised his women on the notorious Escort Ireland website and is believed to have pocketed thousands of euro a week in profits from each brothel. When gardai raided a brothel at Observatory Lane in Rathmines, Dublin, they found industrial amounts of condoms scattered throughout the premises, along with copybooks full of phone numbers and times.

One packet of condoms was in a jiffy envelope addressed to Di Wei at the address. They also found several copy books, one with ‘Call of Duty’ written on the front. Another copybook had ‘Jessica/Cherry’ written on the front. 

The copy books were full of lists of hundreds of phone numbers and times, together with some Mandarin Chinese characters.

Gardai also seized four Nokia mobile phones, some laptops and €2,350 in cash.

Evidence was heard at Wei’s trial how he was “intimately involved” in running two brothels in Rathmines and Custom House Quay in the city. 

Gardai traced financial transactions from Wei’s bank account to a company called E-designers, which runs a website for Escort Ireland. 

Gardai produced printouts from the website of several prostitutes that were employed by Wei and his senior ‘madams’. 

Gardai believe that several of the Chinese prostitutes were trafficked into Ireland with the promise of legitimate jobs, but were then forced to work in the brothels.

The women were in such fear of Wei and his gangster cronies that they refused to cooperate with gardai.

Embarrassingly, several punters were forced to attend court this week and had to go into excruciating detail about their sexual shenanigans with the Oriental vice girls.

One man told of how he logged on to Escort Ireland and dialled a phone number attached to raunchy photos of hookers. He rang the number and was directed to the apartment complex opposite the Lidl supermarket in Rathmines. 

A Chinese woman opened the front door and led him to the brothel, where he bedded her in a back bedroom. He paid her €100 before sex took place and she provided condoms for him to use.

Another man availed of the services of a prostitute known as YoYo. He called a phone number and was sent to an apartment complex behind Connolly train station. YoYo, who was slim and in her 30s, came out and brought him into the apartment. 

She asked: “How long you stay, hour or half hour? €100 for half hour.” The man gave her €100 and got undressed and on to a bed. He then got a steamy massage and oral sex.

The Sunday World is not revealing the identity of the men to save their blushes – not to mention their marriages. 

Gardai launched Operation Quest after receiving information that vulnerable women were being trafficked into Ireland from eastern Europe and the Far East for prostitution. 

Wei is originally from China, but has lived in Ireland for at least six years. He moves from addresses in Lucan, Santry and the South Circular Road.

He was previously detained after gardai raided a vice den and found recording equipment hidden in the walls of bedrooms that were being used to film customers having sex with Chinese hookers.

Officers believe that unsuspecting customers were secretly being recorded and the material may have ended up being sold on the internet.

The court heard how Wei recently married and is the de facto father of his wife’s child. He is due to be sentenced later this month and has been remanded on bail and ordered to sign on at Kilmainham Garda station three times a week.

Michael Byrne was caged for his sick sex crimes

Cormac Walsh expressed his relief after his abuser Michael Byrne was sentenced

SILENT VICTIMS of paedophile band leader Michael Byrne watched this week as he was jailed for the abuse of the brave whistleblower who spoke out to end his reign of terror.

Evil Byrne, from Templerainey, Arklow, Co. Wicklow, was jailed by Wicklow Circuit Court for four years for the systematic abuse of Cormac Walsh from the age of 11 to 15.

But unknown to many observers, the packed courtroom included several victims whose stories of similar abuse never got told for many different reasons.

At least four other childhood victims of Michael Byrne attended, or were represented by relatives at the sentencing hearing, the Sunday World can reveal.

For different reasons their cases against the prolific paedophile did not end up before the courts.  

“I know loads of people he abused,” one man told the Sunday World on the conclusion of the case. 

“He’s so evil. He abused my brother and then he tried to pin it on me. You can actually pick the men out in Arklow who were in the band as children, whose lives just fell apart because of him. The DPP doesn’t always decide to prosecute. And in other cases he bought himself out of charges over the years.”

Another man spoke about the horror his family had endured. 

“My two sons were in the band,” he said. “One of them suffers very badly still.”

Byrne, a secondary school teacher who also ran the boys’ brass band in Arklow, had unfettered access to children for over 40 years, despite six previous convictions for indecency dating back to the early 1970s.

“The abuse was cold, calculating, premeditated,” Judge Michael O’Shea said. “It was systematic abuse. It was revolting, disgusting, horrific, embarrassing and humiliating.” 

Byrne (76), worked in secondary schools in Rush, Co. Dublin and Wicklow town. 

Courageous Cormac Walsh was just eight years old when the grooming began. “Sexual abuse is a crime that thrives on secrecy and shame,” he said in an emotional victim impact statement. “For this reason my family decided to allow our identity to be made public.”

After numerous court delays, Byrne pleaded guilty to four sample counts of indecency committed between January 1975 and March 1978. He had previously received a six-month suspended sentence for indecency in 1973.

Reacting to the verdict Cormac said: “I’m delighted, overwhelmed… it’s given a sense of closure.”

Our man Mick McCaffrey is shown some of the confiscated contraband

Prison officers display an array of mobile phones which have been seized

A huge amount of drugs have been seized over the past year

Our man is shown a huge quantity of homemade weapons found inside Mountjoy

These are the drug-filled mobile phones seized from the anus of prisoners at Mountjoy, showing the extreme lengths inmates go to smuggle contraband into jail.

An elite group of dedicated officers are fighting back to stop drugs, mobile phones and deadly weapons being smuggled into Ireland’s biggest prison.

The Sunday World has been granted exclusive access to the inner workings of the secretive Operational Support Unit (OSG) in Mountjoy, which is responsible for the ongoing war against contraband at the prison.

The OSG has had massive success in reducing the availability of illegal items at the jail and is so secretive that we cannot identify its members for security reasons because they are vulnerable to being targeted on the outside by angry inmates.

However, two of its most senior officers were allowed to talk to us and explain the lengths that desperate inmates will go to in order to make sure they can talk on illegal mobile phones, take drugs, drink hooch or even murder rival inmates.

The OSG was set up in 2008, but was expanded greatly in June 2010 when current governor Ned Whelan took charge of the jail. Since then they have had massive success in reducing the availability of contraband. 

As well as detecting contraband, OSG staff also gather intelligence on gangs within the system, are responsible for riot and siege control and run the visits in the jail. They have successfully introduced airport-style security for all staff and visitors. 

The prevention of drugs being smuggled into the jail is one of the top OSG priorities. Last there were 183 drug seizures either from inmates or people visiting the jail with narcotics. 

One of the senior OSG officers, ‘Frank’, said: “One of the main ways of bringing drugs into the prison is in a Kinder egg. It is filled with pills or cannabis and is inserted into the back passage and brought inside. A lot of prisoners coming back from temporary release would use this method to bring drugs back into the prison. If we suspect this we put the prisoner in isolation until the Kinder egg comes out naturally.”

Last year OSG staff suspected that a returning prisoner was carrying drugs. He defecated drugs out of his body on five consecutive days with pills wrapped in plastic. On the fifth day he passed a Kinder egg that was also stuffed with drugs. The value of the haul was several thousand euro. 

Last year 238 mobile phones were seized at Mountjoy.  A total of 173 weapons were also found and confiscated while there were a further 183 cases where other contraband was found. This could be homemade ‘hooch’, sim cards for mobile phones or phone chargers.

Mobile phones are now so scarce that they sell for over €1,000 in Mountjoy. However, new technology has presented serious challenges to staff.

Frank showed us one of the next generation of mobile phones, that are made to look like the key fobs of cars. The Beat the Boss phone is very difficult to detect. 

He said: “It looks exactly like a BMW key fob that could innocently be brought in on a visit as an actual car key. But if you look at its back, it is a mobile phone which, despite its size, has full capabilities to make calls and texts. And it can be bought for just €50. 

“That is not to say that all phones that people try to smuggle in here are miniature, though. We all remember having suspicions that a prisoner returning from temporary release had swallowed something. 

“We thought we might find drugs showing up in an X-ray, but we were all shocked to find a full-size Blackberry phone hidden in his anus.” 

Last year most of the 173 weapons seized at the jail were manufactured within the prison from crude material. Daggers made of wood taken from broken food trays, mirrors or perspex and are often found by OSG staff. Frank explained how ordinary materials can be turned into deadly weapons, known as ‘shivs’.

“We often see improvised weapons made within Mountjoy. One of the most dangerous is a toothbrush that has had two razor blades attached with resin and thread holding them in place. It leaves permanent scarring in two places if used across the face.” 

Another OSG officer, ‘Dermot’, demonstrated some of the contraband they had recovered that was held in ordinary items commonly found within cells. 

“If you look at this wooden ashtray, it looks like a bog standard one. However, if you turn it around and closely examine it you can see that a hidden chamber has been made to store an illegal mobile phone.” 

He also demonstrated how a chess board turned out to have been modified to hold an illegal mobile. 

“The chess board would have been modified in here. It looked and felt totally normal, apart from a tiny bit of blu-tack holding the green felt together underneath it. Cardboard had even been placed so that it would not feel hollow when examined. When we removed the felt we saw a section had been carved in to hold a mobile phone.”

Detergent bottles, fake rocks and false bed legs have all been used to store drugs and phones. Radios have even been modified to house circuit boards for phones and turned into chargers. 

One of the most skilled scams uncovered by the OSG was a half-eaten packet of digestive biscuits. The packet had been closed by being twisted and when staff opened them up two biscuits were at the top so they looked normal.

However, when the biscuits were removed the other digestives had been hollowed out and a phone was held between them. The only thing that gave it away was that the packet looked faded with age to an eagle-eyed officer. 

There are around 200 OSG staff working across the prison system and they are fighting a relentless battle against determined prisoners and visitors eager to bring drugs in.

Last week an eastern European woman came to Mountjoy to visit her husband, who is serving a relatively minor sentence, and she was chosen by OSG officers for a random pat down. A female officer felt odd lumps on each side of her breasts and two bags with 1,500 tablets and a large quantity of cannabis were found.

The drugs haul was valued at €5,000 on the outside, but a tablet that would sell for €1 on the street would go for around €4 in Mountjoy, which means the ‘in jail’ value of the drugs was well over €20,000.

Frank said: “Our efforts have gone a great way to decrease the availability of contraband, but there will always be contraband here for us to find.”

Daniel Kinahan has returned to be at his mother's bedside

Christy Kinahan Jnr is back from his Spanish bolthole as mum's condition worsens

The sons of ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan are back in Ireland as their mother fights serious illness.

Jean Boylan, the first wife of the Irish mafia boss, returned from Spain in recent weeks after her health took a turn for the worst – and relatives are believed to be holding a bedside vigil for her in hospital.

Now her sons have followed her home as close pals say her condition is critical. It is the first time that the Kinahans have been back in Ireland since a major police bust on their Costa Cartel in 2010.

Gardai are on high alert monitoring the movements of Daniel and Christopher jnr, who are believed to be staying in safe houses in Tallaght, west Dublin and the south inner city.

The brothers, who are the heirs to the €500 million Kinahan drug operation, are being protected by key enforcers in the capital while they remain at their mother’s bedside.

Jean was transferred to the cardiac ward in Tallaght Hospital this week after spending a stint in St James’s Hospital. 

Boylan (pictured above, right), who is in her early 60s, moved out to Spain two years ago from her home in Oliver Bond flats in Dublin’s south inner-city.

Sources say that she has always objected to her boys following their father into international drug trafficking, but moved to Spain to be close to them and her grandchildren and in an effort to combat her failing health.

The Sunday World understands that Daniel and Christopher jnr were given back their passports by Spanish authorities so they could return to the capital. 

They remain before the courts along with their father, as the enormous investigation into the drug operation 
continues.

A friend said: “Jean has been very sick for a number of years now and her health has continued to fail in recent months. She wanted to come home to be surrounded by her friends and family. She wanted to come back to Oliver Bond, which is her home.” 

Jean and Christy snr were teenage lovers and met in Dublin just as he embarked on his career in crime, which started when he became addicted to the drugs he now trafficks across the globe.

A stint in prison helped him to take stock of his life and he quit heroin and studied languages to equip himself with the skills he believed he needed to move to continental Europe.

As he began to establish connections with Colombian and Russian criminal gangs, the boys remained living with their mother in her inner-city flat. In 2003, he moved to Spain where he has been based ever since, flooding Ireland and the UK with multi-million-euro consignments of drugs and weapons and establishing a major money laundering facility for criminals.

At the time, his sons Christopher jnr and Daniel held an address in Chertsey in Surrey. They shared the house with Jacqueline Kinahan, Daniel’s wife, and were joined there in 2005 by Georgina Corish who would go on to marry Christopher jnr in a lavish ceremony at the Druids Glen resort.

The boys sold up in August 2006 and moved out to the Costa to join their dad. Mum Jean remained in Ireland and continued living in her council flat.

In 2010, the operation was temporarily stalled when Spanish police conducted a high-profile bust on Kinahan and arrested 22 of his cohorts, including Daniel and Christopher Jnr and the veteran Irish criminal John ‘the Colonel’ Cunningham.

The operation, codenamed ‘Shovel’, discovered that the Kinahan mob had used high-end technology to put Spanish police under surveillance as they investigated his mafia-style operation.

Kinahan also had members of his gang trained in military techniques for confrontations with other gangs and to make sure that they wouldn’t break under questioning.

The team behind Operation Shovel described a sophisticated criminal outfit, based on the set-up of the original Italian mafia.

The mob had hidden their money through a complex network of companies and purchases that spread to the north east of Brazil. There, they had planned to build an enormous complex of hotels and apartments in an area known as the Brazilian Rivieria.

In 2012, following the bust, Jean Boylan moved out to Spain. It is understood she was gifted a home by her sons and moved along with another daughter, Sinead Mallon, and her partner, Stephen Mallon, who landed a job at the prestigious Matthew Macklin MGM gym.

There she helped look after her grandchildren – Daniel’s three kids and Christopher Jnr’s two. However, sources say that she regularly begged her sons to turn their back on a life of crime and their father’s drug cartel.

“Jean was never comfortable with any of it. She grew up in the inner city and lived in Oliver Bond all her life, so she could see first-hand just what drugs had done to families and entire communities. 

“Her objections always fell on deaf ears with both the boys – but she did try.

“She wound up just accepting it and trying to keep her mouth shut about it so she could get to see them and her grandchildren.

“Unfortunately she has been fighting a losing battle with her health and now that she is home it is unlikely that she will ever be able to go back to Spain again.”

nicola.tallant@sundayworld.com

Nicola Tallant and Cynthia Owen

Gardai investigating the Dalkey House of Horrors have re-interviewed two retired officers after an ongoing Sunday World campaign helped spark a review of the case.

The two men were among a number of people who were interviewed by gardai in Dun Laoghaire about the death of baby Noleen Murphy, whose body was discovered in a laneway in the seaside suburb on Dublin’s southside in 1973. 

An inquest later found the baby was born alive to then 11-year-old Cynthia Owen as a result of sexual abuse at her family home in Dalkey. 

Earlier this month Cynthia handed in a petition over 12,500 signatures to Minister for Justice Alan Shatter calling for an independent inquiry into the murder of her daughter.

The petition snowballed online after the Sunday World published the results of a harrowing review of the case in January.

It included a haunting image of the dead child and details of a scan of the garden of the House of Horrors which supported Cynthia’s claims that a second child had been buried there.

We also disclosed details of how a number of suspected members of a paedophile ring she claimed abused her were still alive, as were two Gardai who she alleged helped cover up the abuse. 

Following our story Garda agreed for the first time to meet Cynthia’s legal team and open files on their own previous investigations.

And this week they began re-interviewing key individuals.

Gardai carried out interviews in Dun Laoghaire during the week after a number of people met with them by appointment. 

Yesterday Cynthia posted a poignant message to her daughter saying “mummy loves you, mummy misses you, mummy is still fighting for you!”

“When I visited your grave one week ago today I told you I was still fighting and would never give up, looks like my hard work is finally paying off. You rest now darling safe in the knowledge that Mummy cares.”

Cynthia has slammed Alan Shatter, who represented her for years as an opposition TD and called for an inquiry into her case. However, since assuming power he has turned a deaf ear to her pleas.

“It is certainly a case of Garda mishandling and corruption and yet the Taoiseach and the minister both refused to help me in any way,” she said.

Nathan Kinsella

Fat Deccy Smith and Alan Ryan

Volley of shots at Alan Ryan's funeral

GARDAI discovered a signed confession from a drug dealer outlining how he paid ‘protection money’ to the RIRA when they raided Nathan Kinsella’s home, the Sunday World can reveal.

The confession – which was handwritten by a north Dublin drug dealer – included details of cash paid to five separate RIRA members.

The evidence was due to be aired in court last week, where Kinsella was facing charges of IRA membership, and would have caused the supposed anti-drug dissident group significant embarrassment.

However, he changed his plea to guilty at the last minute in the Special Criminal Court, and evidence was not heard. He was jailed for two years on Thursday.

The document outlined in detail the role played by five senior dissident leaders – including Kinsella – in extorting cash from criminal gangs.   

It also detailed the amounts of cash handed over – as well as dates and locations when the drug dealer and some of his pals met with RIRA chiefs.

A source told the Sunday World that Kinsella’s carelessness in holding on to the document lead to his expulsion from the RIRA.

“It had the potential to destroy the so-called Republican movement’s reputation as anti-drugs. If he hadn’t pleaded guilty, it all would have been made public in court,” said a source.

Kinsella was a senior figure in the RIRA in Dublin, and was a close personal friend of slain dissident boss Alan Ryan.

Last week the Sunday World revealed how he had been ostracised by his fellow terrorists in prison, where officers fear for his safety.

He was placed in isolation in Portlaoise Prison after being shunned by both his comrades on the RIRA landing and other criminals whose associates he extorted money from.

Gardai believe Kinsella was playing “both sides of the field” while Ryan was alive and had regular contact with criminal gangs in north Dublin.

Kinsella was arrested after a Garda investigation into paramilitary activity at the funeral of Alan Ryan, who was gunned down on a street near his home in Donaghmede on the city’s northside in September 2012.

Intent on making a martyr of the extortionist and murderer, the Real IRA planned and carried out a chilling show of force against the authority of the State and arranged a colour party and a volley of shots over his home.

Kinsella was closely linked with dissident hardman ‘Fat Deccy’ Smith, who died after he was shot outside a crèche in Donaghmede three weeks ago.

The new cells offer inmates a better quality of life

The new shower units inside Mountjoy

Our reporter Mick McCaffrey is given a tour of the new facilities

When the average person thinks of a cell in Mountjoy, the stench of human waste from three or four prisoners locked up for the night with no toilet usually springs to mind.

As late as 2009, the Inspector of Prisons described the jail as being “inhumane”, with prisoners pouring their urine and faeces into landings, while cockroaches and mice lived in cells where mattresses were covered with human waste.

Judge Michael Reilly found eight prisoners in one room and 15 prisoners being housed in a reception area. He was so concerned about overcrowding that he said “this practice could lead to possible serious injuries or loss of life”.

The living conditions today have totally changed. Nobody ‘slops out’ in the mornings any more and all the cells only house one prisoner, with all units equipped with TVs, kettles, a toilet, sink and mirror as standard.

Martin Galgey is the Chief Officer at Mountjoy and he says that the redesigning of all cells has revolutionised the jail. 

“There used to be hammocks in cells and there could be three people in a seven-metre square space,” Galgey told the Sunday World. “There was no in-cell sanitation, so you can imagine the smell in the morning after three men being locked up for over 12 hours. Now all cells are single occupancy. 

“You can close your cell door at night and have some peace and quiet. The fact you have your own toilet when you want adds to prisoners feeling they are in a more humane environment.” 

New showers have also been installed on every landing, which inmates can use whenever they want, outside of lockdown hours.

The cells used to have only a tiny window which meant that only a small amount of natural light came into the prison. 

Now, according to Galgey: “The windows are now far bigger and the more natural light that gets into the cell, then the better it is.” 

“The windows were designed in Limerick and they operate by twisting a knob, which opens blinds to let in air and light, but also closes at night to keep in the heat. 

“Prior to this, prisoners were breaking the glass in the summer to let ventilation in, and it was freezing in the winter so they would stuff them full of towels and duvets and it was becoming a fire hazard. 

“Now there is plenty of light and ventilation, which is very important for mental health.”

Televisions were introduced into all cells in 2000 in an effort to reduce the number of suicides at the jail by keeping inmates occupied when they were locked up for the night. Suicides have now effectively been eliminated. 

Galgey said: “Prisoners usually watch shows such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street while they are here and there is always silence when The X Factor is on.”

If an inmate causes any damage then there are consequences.  

“If you break a television, then the cost is taken out of your gratuity to have it replaced, so there are consequences. That is something we are serious about because taxpayers should not be out of pocket.”

Governor Ned Whelan and his senior staff have introduced a system where prisoners are given incentives to behave and are punished if they don’t. They are given the status of ‘enhanced prisoner’ if they go two months without any issues. 

There are extra gratuities to be spent in the tuck shop and more phone calls for well behaved inmates. An ‘enhanced’ prisoner gets €18 per week, as opposed to the normal €10.50. There has been a massive decrease in violent incidents since this was introduced. 

The current management regime has also made it easier for legitimate people to visit the jail. 

Before, anybody could walk in off the street and ask to meet a prisoner, which resulted in inmates being bullied to try to smuggle in contraband. Now, only people on a designated prisoner list can get in. 

Galgey said: “People can now come in 15 minutes before the visit and go through airport-type security. Before, it used to take up to two hours to even get into the jail. It just makes everybody more happy. 

“Women who pick up their kids can be in and out within 45 minutes and home for the school run. It has resulted in a calmer prison and that’s good for everybody

Larry Murphy has fled the country and is believed to be living in Holland

Paul Moore served a nine-year sentence for rape

Kevin Scully assaulted more than 20 young boys and girls

These are the worst known sex offenders that no-one wants as a neighbour.

There are at least 1,000 convicted sex offenders walking the streets of Ireland.

Of those, just over 100 are considered to pose a serious risk of re-offending and some are kept under observation by the gardaí and probation services.

The presence of these and other known sex offenders in a community can leave locals in constant fear for their own safety.

Robert Quigley

He is one of Ireland’s most dangerous sex beasts and was released from jail last year after serving his time for a brutal kidnap and sex attack. 

Quigley’s then 22-year-old victim was beaten so badly she thought she was going to die after being abducted and driven to the Dublin Mountains. 

The dangerous fantasist sparked a huge Garda manhunt following the sinister attack in November 2006.

He was given an eight-year sentence after pleading guilty to the assault. At the time, the trial judge commented: “It would be irresponsible to release this man into the community without some kind of strict supervision.” 

He was back living in his family home in Tallaght, Dublin, when the Sunday World snapped him on the street.

Kevin Scully

Scully sexually assaulted more than 20 boys and girls, one of them only two-years-old, and is now back on the streets. The Sunday World recently revealed how he has been living in hostels for homeless people in Dublin city centre. Evidence was heard during his trial that a detective considered him “high risk”. 

Scully’s depraved sex acts imposed a reign of terror on children in his native west Cork during the mid 1990s. Children told detectives how he used scissors to cut their pocket linings so he could touch their private parts. 

Scully had threatened to kill some of his terrified victims if they told their parents about the abuse. Evidence was heard that he did appear to have benefitted from treatment.

Larry Murphy

The infamous sex attacker was released in 2010 after serving 10 years for kidnapping and raping a business woman in Carlow. 

Only for the lucky intervention of two hunters, there were fears that Murphy had planned to kill the woman. The violent nature of the attack combined with his careful planning raised concerns that Murphy may be responsible for other unsolved attacks and disappearances of women. 

Despite a huge Garda trawl through his past, no evidence has been found. He now lives in Holland, where it is understood he remains under the watchful eye of the authorities.

Trevor Byrne (pictured above)

Serial sex attacker Byrne was released from jail less than two weeks ago after serving his latest 
sentence. 

The 36-year-old has spent only a few weeks out of prison in the last 20 years and Gardai fear he will strike again. He was previously jailed for raping an 18-year-old woman.

He also threatened to slit the throat of a nurse and forced his way into the home of another victim.

Byrne was released on the understanding that he agrees to the probation service requirements that he does not drink alcohol, stays in accommodation supplied by them and obeys an 8 p.m. curfew.

Barry McGee

Last month, the Sunday World caught up with convicted rapist McGee as he collected his dole on Dublin’s East Wall. McGee is one of Ireland’s most notorious rapists and served 13 years in prison for raping two Australian tourists at knifepoint. 

He repeatedly raped the women during a sadistic four-hour ordeal of sexual torture. His presence has sparked deep concerns in the community, prompting one resident to put up posters to warn neighbours about the predator. 

A veteran detective said during his trial: “It was one of the most gruesome and horrible cases I have dealt with in the course of my career in the Garda Síochána.”

Paul Moore

Rapist Paul Moore, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2001, has been in breach of parole conditions, approaching women and drinking despite probation orders that he avoid alcohol. 

Dubliner Moore, who had a previous rape conviction, committed another rape in 2001 just months after his release from prison. He was released from jail in 2011. 

He received a three-month suspended sentence at Dublin District Court for breaching his parole conditions in 2012. He didn’t take kindly to being confronted by one of our reporters near his Mountjoy Square home.

John English

Described as a “menace to society”, English was given bail last December after an appeal was launched against the suspended portion of his sentence. 

In 2004 he was jailed for 13 years for raping an Australian tourist after meeting her in a bar in Cork.  Released after serving his time in September 2012, he was sent back to jail for drinking alcohol in breach of his release conditions after the suspended part of his sentence was activated. 

The 35-year-old has previous convictions for rape, false imprisonment and sexual assault dating back to 1993, when he was in his mid- teens. He was described at the time as “a danger and a menace to society” and “a serious threat to the women of Cork”.

Michael Murray 

Murray, who is in his 50s, has rape convictions dating from 1989 in England, when he received an eight-year sentence. He committed six rapes in six days in 1996 in Dublin, in one instance strangling a woman almost to the point of death.

One attack involved an assault on a 22-year-old Trinity College student. Murray grabbed her and sexually assaulted her before stabbing the woman seven times in the chest and back. 

Murray received an 18-year sentence for the rapes, but served only 13 years. He breached his parole conditions in 2011 for which he received a six-month sentence. Murray failed in a legal bid to prevent newspapers from publishing any information on his whereabouts.

Larry's jail buddy

This 49-year-old man was convicted for the kidnap and rape of two sisters, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in jail. During the terrifying ordeal in 2001 both women thought they were going to die as he subjected them to sexual and physical abuse. 

In a chilling comparison with Murphy, the man, who worked in construction, had never been suspected of being a dangerous sexual predator before the attack. He served his time in Arbour Hill, where it is claimed he struck up a friendship with Murphy, before being released in 2008. 

Two years later, after his own release, Murphy joined him in Amsterdam and last year the man left Holland to return home. He can’t be named to protect the identity of his victims.

Brian Fortune

The double killer has been recently allowed out of jail on temporary release after more than 27 years behind bars. He was jailed in 1986 for the murders of Margaret Nolan and her daughter Anne in Kilbride, Co. Wicklow, in 1985.

Margaret Nolan had once employed Fortune, who is originally from Wicklow. The body of Anne Nolan was found badly beaten and strangled in the pantry of her house, while the body of her mother was discovered in the sitting room of the house. Both had been strangled. 

Details of the horrific crime were never heard in open court in a bid to spare the dead women’s family from further distress.

Josef Fritzl held his own daughter in captivity for 24 years

Fred and Rose West turned their home into a graveyard

Joaquin Guzman has been responsible for more murders than any other criminal

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El Shorty (Joaquin Guzman)
The Mexican drug lord has been responsible for more murders than any other modern criminal, with estimates of up to 25,000 deaths at his door as a result of the bloody drug feuds in his home country. 

As the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel he was named by U.S. prosecutors as the most powerful drug trafficker in the world and was labelled “Public enemy No.1” by the Drug Enforcement Agency. 

Guzman, with an estimated wealth in excess of €10billion, was captured on February 22, 2014, in a luxurious condo. Now a battle is being fought over where he will be tried. One thing is for certain – he will never be free again. 

Semion Mogilevich
This is the smartest and most successful of our mad men. He remains free living in Russia under the protection of the Kremlin despite being the Balkans’ wealthiest criminal.

A master of assassinations and espionage, he has combined drug dealing and international spying in such a way as to afford him a lifetime of protection in Russia. 

The Ukranian has a net worth of more than €5billion and remains on the FBI’s most-wanted list. He remains in control of a worldwide network of crime, engaging in prostitution, sex trafficking and diamond smuggling. 

Josef Fritzl 
This Austrian former pillar of the community was exposed as the monster he was when, after 24 years in captivity, his daughter emerged from a concealed basement in a house in Amstetten to tell a story of rape, abuse and brutality that was beyond comprehension. 

Elisabeth Fritzl, who was 42 when she was discovered, told of how she had given birth to seven of her father’s children during this time. Three of her children were brought up as foundlings, by her father and mother, while she lived in the basement with her other four children in the most horrific of circumstances. 

She escaped in April 2008 and has since begun the long road to recovery. Fritzl was convicted of assault, murder, rape and incest and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009. 

Ariel castro (above)
In 2002, Ariel Castro began kidnapping women off the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, and soon made a prison of his home for Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus until May 6, 2013, when Berry ran from the house in an unguarded moment with her six-year-old daughter. 

Castro was arrested within hours and pleaded guilty to 937 counts of rape, kidnapping and aggravated murder. Sentenced to more than 1,000 years in custody, he hanged himself in prison less than a month into his sentence. 

In a cruel fashion, Ariel Castro would let his captives watch news reports on the anniversary of their disappearance, taunting them that they would never be found.  His suicide brought some small relief to his victims, whose resilience and strength in the midst of years of pain, sexual abuse and deprivation has earned the respect of millions. 

Marc Dutroux 
The Belgian monster tortured, raped, kidnapped and murdered young girls in Belgium in 1995 and 1996. No longer was rape and murder a quick and terrible trauma – instead, the evidence showed that he kept his victims imprisoned for his sexual pleasure over months until he killed them.

It took years for his case to come to court and he was finally convicted of six murders in 2004. The case opened up the justice system as rumours of powerful paedophile rings protecting Dutroux gained further weight with his brief escape from prison in April 1998. He remains in prison.

Fred West 
A lowly-educated farm worker turned his home at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester into a graveyard as he and his wife Rosemary murdered and raped countless young girls and women, including their own children.

On his own he had killed at least two women, but with his wife they collaborated to pick off hitchhikers and bring them to their home, where they would trap them in a world of cruelty and sex games that ended in death. Victims were buried beneath the house and the grisly remains were discovered in 1994 after decades of killing. 

Alone he was a dangerous simpleton, but with his wife Rosemary they became prolific killers and sexual predators. She was convicted of 10 murders, but he hanged himself just before going to trial in 1995. 

Arkan
Even as a football hooligan, Arkan was audacious, leading a group of a thousand Red Star Belgrade supporters to war. He never did things in half measures, as he used the war in the former Yugoslavia to become the wealthiest gangster in Eastern Europe until his assassination in 2000 in a Belgrade hotel. 

He was on Interpol’s most-wanted list as a killer and bank robber and also, along with his own militia, was wanted by the UN for crimes against humanity. As a bank robber he left cards and roses so the police would know that he was responsible. Chopping off the heads of rivals and shooting dead 65 innocent Bosnian men and boys showed that he had no mercy. 

He had contacts with every major criminal organisation in Europe, but it was the Camorra in Naples which he did most business with. In the end, Arkan went into politics and many thought he was untouchable until he was shot in a hail of bullets. 

In an instant, the gangster, mercenary, rapist, cold-hearted killer and power broker was dead and the world was a better place.

Gardai search for missing men

Anthony Keegan

Eoin O'Connor

Suspects in the disappearance of two Dublin men in Co. Cavan are understood to have fled to the North as gardai probe whether the pair were ambushed by a local gang who offered to sort out a drug debt for another man.

Eoin O’Connor (32) and Anthony Keegan (33), both originally from Kilmore in north Dublin, vanished after travelling to Cavan, where they are believed to have gone to collect a €15,000 drug debt from a small-time Finglas criminal now based in Cavan. 

Gardai initially investigated whether the Finglas man may have had the pair killed. It is understood he admits meeting with them and claimed he paid them the money, but said he had nothing to do with their disappearance. 

Gardai are examining a new theory that another gang based in Cavan approached the Finglas man to say they would take responsibility for the €15,000 debt for a €10,000 fee. 

A source said: “There are claims this gang said they would take care of his problem for him and then set up an ambush to kill the two lads. It’s been said he didn’t know they were going to be killed.”

It is understood some members of this gang have fled to the North and gardai are looking to speak to them. 

Gardai stress they are following a number of different lines of inquiry. 

Sources say the Finglas man is not believed to be a suspect in killing the pair as he is dependent on drugs and alcohol and it is unlikely he is capable of taking them on.  

Gardai have yet to find any trace of the men since their disappearance. 

Shortly after they went missing, someone phoned gardai to say they had been murdered and their bodies were in a field in Kilnaleck near Ballyjamesduff.

Email us here at online@sundayworld.com

Soccer referee Jim McKenna was attacked in his own home

A sixty-year-old soccer referee has vowed to keep on whistling, after being hospitalised and left requiring surgery in a savage attack.

Both he and gardai believe the attack is linked to his decision to discipline a player in a under-age  match.

Jim ‘Goz’ McKenna, from Drogheda, Co. Louth, was in bed in his apartment in Francis Street, eight weeks ago, when three men burst into his room and viciously attacked him.

He recalled: “I hadn’t even a chance to defend myself, the door was kicked in and these three lads ran at me. I was asleep, but the noise of the door being smashed woke me up.

“One of the three grabbed me by the throat and pinned me to the bed before I realised what was happening, and the other two started lacing punches into me.

“I honestly didn’t know what was happening or why it was happening. Then one of them started screaming that he was going to kill me because a kid had been sent off in a game and had picked up a lengthy ban.

“The attack lasted for a good few minutes and as I was caught completely unawares, there was nothing I could do about it.

Mr McKenna was taken to the Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda for treatment and released later that day. However, worse was yet to come for the popular man in the middle.

“Last Monday week, the bank holiday, I was driving home from a day out in Skerries with my partner and I got a ferocious pain in my head. I had to pull in and ask her to drive the rest of the way back to Drogheda, but the pain was still killing me.

“I went straight to my GP and was brought back into the Lourdes and immediately transferred to Beaumont Hospital, where I was operated on to remove a blood clot on my brain the next morning.”

Mr McKenna believes that pain  was related to the attack on him, as he never had any health issues in that regard previously.

“I have been a referee for almost three decades now, and thankfully nothing like this ever happened me before. I can guarantee you one thing, it won’t put me off the game, and please God I’ll be fit and ready for the new season,” he told the Sunday World.

Joe Dyas, chairman of the Louth branch of the Irish Soccer Referees Society, stated: “If this attack is football-related it’s sickening. However, as the Gardai are currently investigating it, I can’t really say much more on it.”
news@sundayworld.com

It’s been gangland’s bloodiest in years and organised criminals are rising up from the shadows of the Garda crises.

With eight gangland murders since January, 2014 is fast becoming the year of the gun.
This week in the Sunday World we report on the chilling murders, the indiscriminate shootings that threaten innocent civilians and the bloody war on the streets of the capital.
Don’t miss Nicola Tallant and Mick McCaffrey's investigation this Sunday.  

Donal Macintyre

In a week dominated by political comings and goings at home, our man Donal MacIntyre takes a look at some of the stories that caught his eye on the international stage and online.

From the ongoing search in Portugal for Madeleine McCann to a live call to the 'Dapper Dom' Dominic Noonan as he leaves Strangeways prison - it's the week's news that you might have missed, only on Sundayworld.com 

Check out the stories mentioned by Donal

Row threatens digs for Madeleine - click here

Irish mobster brings Manchester to standstill with Protest on city's Big Wheel - click here

Terror Preacher admits running Soho strip club before Islam - click here

School for sex - click here

Scull-cracker back in custody - click here

Drug Smugglers hid cocaine in sandwiches - click here

Gang Boss Barron Rostas

THIS is the Roma Gypsy king who built himself a comfortable pad back home after fleecing kindhearted Irish pedestrians in a begging scam.

Barron Rostas netted thousands of euro a week forcing women and children to beg on to the streets of Irish cities and towns.

Gardai launched a probe into the Begging Barron after discovering he wired €40,000 home to Romania, a Sunday World investigation can reveal.

And this is the relatively luxurious pad that begging cash built for him in his native town. Brazen Barron showed it off to local journalists to boast of how well he has done abroad.

Today a Sunday World investigation can reveal that 40-year-old Rostas was the face of a high-profile sit-in by gypsies on the M50 roundabout some years ago.

Then he pleaded that he was one of a group of marginalised and penniless Romas in need of refuge.

But in the last few years he has conned gullible Irish shoppers and workers out of a small fortune while also claiming thousands in welfare benefits.

A lengthy Sunday World investigation today lifts the lid on the ruthless Roma begging-gang bosses who are getting rich off the kindness of Irish people.

We can reveal that the heads of the Rostas family of beggars are leading lifestyles that many Irish people would find impossible.

They own a fleet of luxury BMW and Mercedes cars, have several mansions in Romania and are exporting huge amounts of money out of our bankrupt country.

The brains behind the large-scale begging operation which sees hundreds of helpless Romas being sent to beg around the capital and beyond each day, is 40-year-old Rostas.

He was the leader of and spokesman for the 100 Romas that were deported from a makeshift camp near the M50 at Ballymun in Dublin four years ago.

Rostas claimed that in Romania he was forced to live in a dump and eat out of rubbish bins but as our exclusive pictures show he actually lives in a large home built in a castle style with its own turrets.

It is one of the biggest houses in the area and is one of just a number he has built over the last four years in his home town near Transylvania.

Rostas is regarded as being a multimillionaire in his Roma community and was happy to pose for pictures outside his mansion while his exploited workers in Ireland are forced to live in squalor and beg for a living.

Gardai suspect that his family has received hundreds of thousands of euro from his gang of child beggars. Rostas and his second in command - his 26-year-old son Raju - routinely threaten their "workers" with violence and have lieutenants monitor them to make sure that they are not siphoning off money for themselves.

Even though Barron Rostas was deported from Ireland in July 2007 he was back in the country within weeks and has been at the helm of the begging racket ever since.

Romanian police told gardai that Rostas was using his begging racket cash to build houses in the village of Vadu Crisului in the north of the country and was regularly travelling back and forth to monitor and manage his property portfolio and to collect the begging cash, which was sent via money transfer using Western Union.

Rostas - who is thought to have fathered dozens of children - has convictions for robbery in his home country and served a four-year jail term.

He has several public-order convictions in Ireland and fled the country last April after gardai came looking for him because of an outstanding warrant.

He is regarded as being extremely intelligent and when he arrived in Ireland five years ago, he quickly identified that Irish people were very generous and were willing to hand over loose change to Romas.

He also saw that Irish women were easily intimidated and came up with the idea of putting Roma beggars at ATM machines and car park ticket machines where people were handling or using cash.

He realised that if his beggars became aggressive and intimidating that, more often than not, women would give them money to simply go away. It was a plan that has netted him thousands of euro and made him a wealthy man in his native Romania.

When he is not in Ireland, Raju Rostas takes over as the head of the lucrative family business.

Raju lived in a house in Manor Street near Dublin city centre until recently when it was raided by gardai as part of an operation to smash the gypsy gang.

When gardai raided the house in April they found €400 in €50 euro notes, which they believe was made from begging and was about to be exported to Rostas in Romania via Western Union. Rostas claimed that the cash was actually bail money.

He is very well known to gardai here and has been arrested on at least 30 occasions over the last three years for begging. His wife is also a well-known Roma beggar and he has fathered two children with her.

Raju has a string of convictions for begging, theft and road traffic offences and each time he is detained he pretends that he cannot speak English so that gardai have to waste his time in custody trying to track down an interpreter.

He has admitted to gardai that he is involved in organised begging and that the proceeds were being sent back to Romania to his family.

When his house in Manor Street was raided the landlord threw him out and he moved his family to another house in nearby Phibsboro.

The Sunday World has observed many members of the extended Rostas family leaving the new address and heading to town where they spend the day begging before returning home and handing the cash over to Raju.

A number of other men also left the house on several occasions and broke into a derelict factory where it is suspected they were stripping copper wire and scrap metal for sale.

Officers discovered that 20 people were living in the house and they would be made to walk to Dublin each morning to beg and would not be allowed home until they collected a minimum amount of money.

Undercover lieutenants regularly pass by and plant marked notes in the workers' begging jars. If the marked note is not handed over to the boss at the end of the shift, then they know the person is stealing.

Children as young as seven are sent to beg for the Rostas clan and teenage girls are made to cradle their young children to gain sympathy and cash from naïve Irish people unaware that their money is actually going to a cynical crime syndicate.

Some of the child beggars are also put to work around bars and restaurants, stealing handbags and mobile phones.

Pintea Rostas, who is 21, is also on the radar of gardai. As well as begging, Romanian police believe that he was involved in trafficking another Romanian national to Ireland in February of this year for the purpose of begging.

The trafficked man was arrested by gardai and charged but has since fled the country and escaped the clutches of the Rostas family.

Another Roma being investigated by gardai is 28-year-old Vasile Drama. Drama came to Ireland in 2000 and was arrested for begging a number of times when he was still a juvenile.

In 2005 he was arrested with a number of other Romas for demanding money for supplying forged passports. He was never charged.

Despite having no visible means of income, Drama leads a luxurious lifestyle and drives a BMW and Mercedes and lives in a large house in Celbridge, Co Kildare.

He recently paid €4,000 as a cash down-payment on a Mercedes car. He is an associate of another Romanian who lives in Portlaoise and is the suspected head of a human trafficking gang.

Vasile Drama's wife, Claudia Radu, is a convicted beggar who was slammed by a judge for "dragging" her young child between cars at traffic lights where she was harassing motorists to hand over money.

A 41-year-old Roma is also being probed by the authorities here. He has convictions for robbery in Romania and moves between Dublin and Cork. He is at the helm of the gang that controls the selling of roses in pubs, which is a regular sight around the country.

The sellers are mainly after wallets and mobile phones though and the 41-year-old drives an Audi car. He has built a luxury home back in Romania and like Barron Rostas travels back and forth between the two countries.

It only became illegal to beg on streets in February after the previous law forbidding begging was struck down.

Gardai are concerned about the activities of Roma gangs and have successfully cracked down on their activities and have charged nearly 200 people with begging, including dozens of minors.

Most of those arrested and charged have pleaded guilty but because the maximum fine that can be imposed is €250, the heads of the Rostas betting gang believe the money they make is worth the odd setback when the beggar is detained.

Oscar Pistorious has been painted as a control freak

Oscar Pistorious with Reeva Steenkamp

IT’S the trial that has gripped the world – and it now hinges on seven unanswered questions.

Defence lawyers for South African athlete Oscar Pistorius expect to conclude their case this week after  eight weeks of evidence.  

That Pistorius (27), killed his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp (29), is not in doubt.

He claims he mistook her for an intruder. The prosecution allege he callously killed her following a row.

The prosecution and defence agree that at 3.17am on Valentine’s Day 2013, the amputee and Olympic sprinter known as the ‘Blade Runner’ approached the door of his bathroom in his Pretoria home. 

Armed with a 9mm handgun, he fired four times through the door and hit girlfriend Reeva in the hip, arm and head. The bullets he used were infamous ‘Black Talon’ ammunition which expand on impact and cause greater damage than conventional bullets. 

There is no jury, so Judge Thokozile Masipa will have to decide if Pistorius is telling the truth. The case will hinge on seven key questions...  

WHAT TIME DID COUPLE GO TO BED AND EAT LAST MEAL? 

According to Pistorius’s version of events, Steenkamp last ate at 7pm and the couple went to bed around 10pm on February 13. However, medical experts said the contents of her stomach suggest she ate around 1am – two hours before the killing. 

When asked how Steenkamp had eaten when they were supposed to be asleep, Pistorius said: “I don’t have an explanation for it.” Neighbour Estelle Van Der Merwe also said she heard people arguing around 1am – a time Pistorius claims to have been asleep. 

WHAT SIDE OF THE BED WERE THEY SLEEPING ON?

Pistorius claimed he woke up shortly after 3am and spoke to Steenkamp in bed. He claims he then went to move fans from a balcony, placing Steenkamp’s jeans over an LED light that was bothering him. 

He says he mistakenly thought Steenkamp was in bed when he heard a noise from the bathroom which he thought was a burglar and went to investigate armed with his handgun. 

However, the prosecution claims he is lying about what side of the bed he was sleeping on. He said he usually sleeps on the right of the bed, but because of a shoulder injury he changed and slept on the left side on the night of the killing. 

However, his iPad and prosthetic legs were on the right side, while Steenkamp’s bag and sandals were on the left side of the bed. The gun holster was found under the side of the bed where prosecutors say Steenkamp was sleeping, proving, they say, that Pistorius knew she was not in the bed when he got the gun. 

The prosecution have also questioned how Pistorius did not notice Steenkamp passing behind him and going to the bathroom when he woke up, as he admitted she probably would have had to use her mobile phone to light the way.

WHY DID REEVA NOT CALL OUT FROM THE BATHROOM?

 Prosecutors said the most “improbable” part of Pistorius’s story is that Steenkamp never uttered a word from the toilet before she was shot.

According to Pistorius, he walked on his stumps towards the bathroom door and yelled for the “intruder” to get out of the house before calling to Steenkamp to alert the police. As he approached the bathroom, he said he heard the sound of wood moving and thought the door was opening. He said he was “overcome with fear” and fired four shots through the door.

Prosecutors say it is extremely hard to believe Steenkamp made no attempt to communicate with Pistorius during the whole episode, despite the fact he was shouting at the apparent intruder.

DID HE MEAN TO FIRE? 

Pistorius claims he didn’t consciously fire the weapon. The prosecution says he knew Steenkamp was in the toilet and she was talking to him when he shot her. 

The trajectory of the bullet shows the first shot was aimed towards the toilet before Pistorius changed position and fired three more in the direction of a magazine rack on the floor – one of which missed her.

The prosecution says the first bullet struck Reeva in the hip, Pistorius heard her fall, and then he changed his firing position. He denies this and said he couldn’t hear her fall as his ears were ringing.
did she Scream?

Pistorius maintains that Steenkamp did not scream during the entire ordeal. However, several neighbours claim to have heard a woman screaming. A ballistics expert said he believed there was a pause between the first and second shots. The prosecution said it would be improbable that Steenkamp didn’t scream after the first shot, which hit her in the hip.   

WAS HE A GUN-OBSESSED, ‘CONTROLLING' BOYFRIEND?

The prosecution put forward the suggestion that the athlete was a controlling and jealous boyfriend. In a text message, sent a few weeks before her death, Steenkamp wrote: 

“I’m scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and how you will react to me.” 

It was also revealed how he fired his gun in a restaurant a month before the killing and asked a boxer who was with him to take responsibility. An ex-girlfriend also told how he fired a gun through the sunroof of his car after he was angry at being pulled over by police.

 
DOES HE DESERVE AN OSCAR FOR COURTROOM DRAMA? 

Through the trial Pistorius has been extremely emotional. 

He has vomited, retched, cried and held his head in his hands at various stages and had to be removed from court. His evidence and apology to the Steenkamp family was delivered through dramatic tearful outbursts. 

The prosecution allege he was using emotion to dodge difficult questions and the athlete has been accused by others of exaggerating his distress.

Sean Quinn

Quinn vandalism

Quinn vandalism

Quinn vandalism

Quinn vandalism

Quinn vandalism

Quinn vandalism

Quinn vandalism

The campaign of terror waged by a group determined to return Sean Quinn to the head of his former company is putting the jobs of 1,150 employees at risk, the company has warned.

The owners of Aventas, which mainly comprises U.S. and U.K. hedge funds, are known to be frustrated with the slow pace of the investigation by both the PSNI and the gardai.

They believe that if the attacks are allowed to continue then foreign investors will be put off Ireland because of the lawlessness that exists along the Cavan and Fermanagh borders – which has traditionally been an IRA and smuggling stronghold.

However, garda sources say that Acting Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and her senior staff based in Cavan recently met with Aventas management and pledged to do more to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Gardai and the PSNI are liaising closely with each other in the investigation and hope to arrest more people in the coming months.

Aventas had a turnover of €670m last year and it is easily the biggest employer in Cavan and Fermanagh. 

The company has a number of plants in Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan, and Derrylin in Co. Fermanagh, producing concrete blocks, cement, plastic packaging, glass and construction products. 

And despite the claims of people who want Sean Quinn back in charge, the number employed by Aventas is the same today as when Quinn was ousted in April 2011 – in an area where other employment opportunities are very scarce. 

However, an internal Aventas memo seen by the Sunday World warns that if the attacks are allowed to continue then jobs are at risk. 

“For a period of almost three years now the Group has been subjected to continual arson attacks on property and equipment, sabotage, intimidation, character assassinations and flagrant and persistent attempts to damage and disrupt our relations with major customers and investors,” the memo states. 

“These outrageous activities have put not only the jobs in the various plants seriously at risk, but as the level of attacks increases, there is a real fear that jobs will inevitably be lost. 

“On top of that, there have been recent threats to the life of the Group CEO which are particularly serious.

“There is also a growing concern by the investors that Ireland and, in particular the Border counties, is not a place in which to invest as there is no respect for law and order. 

“It is important to note that these American/U.K. investors are the same investors being courted to invest in Ireland in other sectors as well.

The memo then warns: “It does not help the case that, in all of this, over a period of almost three years, no individual has been arrested and charged in respect of any incident or act.

“It is clear what is at stake here; it is the safety and welfare of employees, it is the increasing risk of job losses, it is the potential loss to the local economy and community, it is the reputation of Ireland as a place where business can be done in an atmosphere of law and order, it is the real threat to the lives of senior management. 

“It is not unreasonable to ask ‘what is the motive behind all of this?’ and ‘who stands to gain from it?’ We are asking that a police task force be applied to this situation immediately.” 

The PSNI issued a statement to the Sunday World this week about its investigation into the 70 arson attacks. 

They said: “There have been a number of arrests and searches of premises over the past two years in relation to persons suspected of being involved in attacks against the former Quinn Group, now known as Aventas. 

“During this time the PSNI and our colleagues in An Garda Síochána have been working in close cooperation on both the operational and investigative response, as crimes have occurred on both sides of the border. 

“These attacks have been reckless in the extreme and any occasion when crimes of this type occur there is always going to be a risk to the public. 

“Police will continue to devote considerable effort in addressing this criminality, but this is much bigger than the PSNI. We would appeal to the local community to continue to report suspicious activity and to pass on any information they have on those involved. Whilst we understand there is a risk to people’s livelihoods there is a greater risk to life.”

Quinn attacks

Quinn attacks

Quinn attacks

Quinn attacks

Quinn attacks

Anglo Irish Bank took over control of the former Quinn Group in April 2011 and ousted Sean Quinn because he owed the bank €2.8bn due to reckless share dealing.

The Aventas Group then purchased the former Quinn manufacturing businesses and from the very first day Quinn was booted out of the company, his so-called supporters have waged a sick war against Aventas, putting 1,150 jobs at risk.

All told, there have been 70 serious incidents and attacks. 

APRIL 2011

April 15: Power outage at Aventas HQ.
April 16: HQ entrance blocked with dumper.
April 18: Security followed from Belturbet to Cavan.
April 20: Power outage at HQ – sabotage.
April 21: HQ entrance blocked by 40ft trailer.
April 22: Power outage Glass plant – sabotage; Security tailed aggressively from Belturbet to Cavan.
April 23: Power outage Glass plant – sabotage.
April 24: Power outage Glass plant – sabotage.
April 27: Power outage Glass plant – sabotage; Member of management reports receiving threatening texts and phone calls.

MAY 2011

May 1: Power outage Glass plant – poles cut.
May 2: JCB digger driven into the weighbridge office – badly damaged.
May 5: Multiple phone threats to senior management team – at restaurant in Belturbet.
May 6: Power cable from Windfarm cut; Serious power outage Glass plant – sabotage.
May 7: Power outage HQ – sabotage.
May 9: Security followed from Derrylin to Cavan.
May 13: Phone call threat to chief financial officer.
May 15: Arson attack on Slieve Rushin sub-station.
May 16: Senior management car tailed from Ballyconnell towards Dublin.
May 20: Three threatening letters received by three senior management.
May 22: Poles cut at Kinawley – serious Glass plant outage.
May 25: Isolator keys removed from vehicles at five locations.

JUNE 2011

June 12: Pole cut but no disruption.
June 21: Pole cut.
Up to June 30: 17 Northern Ireland Electricity poles reported to have been cut down.

Mid 2011: Threatening text messages to key middle manager.

JULY 2011

July 23: Five vehicles destroyed by fire at Tarmac plant (pictured above).

AUGUST 2011

August 8: CEO’s car firebombed and destroyed outside his house. Some damage to house.

NOVEMBER 2011

November 8: Three trucks destroyed by fire at Williamstown Quarry.

DECEMBER 2011

December 12: Lorry driven into canteen – structural damage (pictured top right).

JANUARY 2012

January 13: Arson attack on ‘Devine’s House’ – Group Property.

FEBRUARY 2012

Tractor cab burnt out; Unsuccessful attempt to move dumper – probably to do damage; Hydraulic lines cut on four dumpers and bulldozer; Tractor of senior manager burned and cattle put on public road.

Feb/Mar/Apr/May: Steel spikes scattered on roads to shred tyres of security vehicles.

APRIL 2012

April 12: Iron gates damaged at Swad Road.
April 21: Barrier damaged at Old Cement plant.

NOVEMBER 2012

November 5: Blockade of public roads to prevent customers/employees getting to premises.
November 9: Windfarm electric sub-station destroyed by fire (pictured below left).

JANUARY 2013

January 2: Fibre optic cable cut.
Bullet posted to Lagan Group employee.

FEBRUARY 2013

February 2: NIE poles cut.

MARCH 2013

March 20: NIE poles burned at Doon.
March 24: NIE poles cut down.
March 27: Fibre optic cable cut.
March 28: Fibre optic cable cut.

APRIL 2013

April 4: Mobile crane destroyed in arson attack in Ballinamore.
April 15: Hoax bomb threat to glass plant.

JUNE 2013

June 28: Fibre optic cable firebombed.
June 29: Fibre optic cable manhole firebombed; Security vehicle tyre shredded by steal spike.

JULY 2013

July 14: Fibre optic cable firebombed.
July 26: Fibre optic cable damaged.
July 27: Internal damage to electricity cabin.

AUGUST 2013

August 27: Electrical cable damaged.

DECEMBER 2013

December 11: Oil tanker driven into HQ and set alight.
December 31: Attempt to damage fibre optic cable.

JANUARY 2014

January 7: Bus burned at entrance to Packaging/Therm plant.

FEBRUARY 2014

February 22: British Telecom cabinets demolished and firebombed – slight disruption to HQ communications.

MARCH 2014

March 5: Arson attack on transformer at Glass Plant – serious damage – factory disputed.
March 6: Tarmac spreader destroyed by fire at Donagh.
March 13: Suspicious arson attack on Packaging plant – considerable damage.
March 28: Van driven through gates of CEVA depot and firebombed.

APRIL 2014

April 6: Two excavators destroyed and third seriously damaged by arson.
April 15: Bomb threat at Glass Plant.