Veteran drug dealer John Gilligan has been taken into custody again in Spain following his latest arrest during a drugs operation in the south of the country.
The 72-year-old grandfather, who led the gang that murdered journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996, was detained in the Torrevieja area before Christmas.
It is understood the Garda learned of Gilligan’s arrest shortly after it occurred.
Drugs, believed to be cocaine, were seized during the search last month and Gilligan was arrested and detained in custody. It was not immediately clear when he may face the courts in Spain over the allegations.
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The operation resulting in his detention is not believed to have been as significant as raids against him and his associates in Spain in 2020.
Gilligan’s latest arrest comes just over a decade after he was freed from prison in Ireland in 2013. He served 17 years, mostly for drug dealing. He served some additional time for offences committed while in Portlaoise Prison, including being caught in possession of mobile phones and issuing threats against prison officers.
In March 2014, about six months after his release, he was shot and wounded in a murder attempt at a house in Clondalkin, West Dublin. After being hospitalised for a lengthy period, he spent time in England before relocating to Spain.
In October 2020 he was arrested in the Alicante region during an operation that Spanish police said yielded 8kg of cannabis, 26,000 prescription pills and a gun, which was buried in the garden of a large villa Gilligan was staying at in Torrevieja.
It was alleged at the time that Gilligan and a group of other suspects arrested, were selling drugs and delivering them to customers via the postal service. When the case went to court in September, 2023, he received a suspended sentence of 22 months as part of a plea bargain deal.
Prosecutors initially demanded a jail sentence totalling six years for Gilligan for smuggling cannabis and sleeping pills from Spain to Ireland inside consignments of toys and flip-flops.
In a pretrial indictment they said they wanted Gilligan jailed for 18 months over the gun, which Spanish police described as a rare Colt Python -357 Magnum, and claimed after his arrest it could have been used to kill journalist Veronica Guerin.
Garda sources ruled this out, however, saying the Garda never believed it was the same gun.
Prosecutors also warned Gilligan he faced 10 months in prison if found guilty of belonging to a criminal gang. Instead, Gilligan received a suspended prison sentence.
That included nine months for the cannabis charge, nine months for illegal possession of a firearm and four months for exporting prescription-only drugs without licence. The charge of being a member of a criminal gang was dropped as part of the agreement.
Garda sources said, based on the information available to date about Gilligan’s latest arrest, it appears he is again accused of being involved in a retail, or street-level, drugs operation.
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