GARDAÍ HAVE foiled the armed robbery of a post office by a gang who planned to hold-up a postmistress at gunpoint. They broke into the post office by smashing through from a vacant apartment upstairs.
Four suspects were arrested after members of the Garda’s Emergency Response Unit (ERU) and Organised Crime Unit (OCU) moved in on them at the height of the morning rush hour yesterday in one of Dublin’s busiest suburbs.
Two of the men were arrested inside the post office on Lower Drumcondra Road, Drumcondra.
Gardaí believe they were just about to take the postmistress hostage and force her to hand over money for the day’s social welfare payments, including old-age pensions.
However, gardaí had the gang under surveillance and put a major operation in place to foil the robbery. Members of the OCU intercepted the postmistress on her way to work and took the post-office keys from her.
Armed members of the ERU used the keys to open the front door of the post office as some of their colleagues rushed into the building through the back door.
The two raiders were arrested on the premises and taken away for questioning. One of them was armed with a handgun. Gardaí have taken it for forensic examination.
Two other men, aged 38 and 32 years, were arrested sitting in a car on nearby Botanic Avenue. Gardaí believe the car was to be used as a getaway vehicle.
The raiders arrested inside the post office are aged 40 and 22 years. The two men broke into the upstairs rear of the building adjoining the post office in the early hours of yesterday.
They knocked a hole in the wall of that building into an apartment next door, which is located over part of the post office. They waited in the apartment overnight.
Early yesterday morning they smashed their way from the upstairs apartment into the post office below. The pair were hiding behind the counter waiting for the postmistress to open up when the ERU ran in and arrested them.
All four arrested were being held under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. They are being detained at Ballymun and Store Street Garda stations and can be held for up to 72 hours without charge.
Yesterday’s operation followed two months of intense surveillance on the gang, who are from Crumlin, south Dublin. They would not be regarded as one of the major crime gangs in the city. Gardaí believe the men had been planning a number of other armed cash robberies in recent months.
However, while gardaí were ready to move in on them as they staged any robbery, the gang did not execute any of their plans until yesterday’s botched attempt.
The gang had been observed studying staff movements and patterns around the timing of the delivery of cash to other post offices and cash businesses in Dublin and surrounding counties.