Latest gangland victim was known to gardaí for decades

Shot dead apparently because of his association with fellow veteran criminal Gerry Hutch, Noel Duggan was so heavily involved in cigarette smuggling he became known as Mr Kingsize.

Duggan (55), who was shot dead outside his home on a housing estate in Ratoath, Co Meath last night, was behind multiple shipments of counterfeit cigarettes. They were sourced from Asian and eastern European black market factories and smuggled into Ireland in 40ft containers as shipping freight.

However, while his cigarettes flooded the Irish market and earned him vast sums of money at the expense of taxes and duties lost to the State on regular products, Duggan was not regarded as a dangerous criminal.

He is not believed to have been involved in the drugs trade and while he lost his life in a gun attack, he had never been linked with gun crime or armed feuds.

He collaborated on some of his smuggling rackets with members of the Provisional IRA who assisted in the distribution of the smuggled cigarettes on both sides of the Border.

The paramilitaries allowed Duggan to engage in his criminal enterprise in return for a stake in his transactions.

Garda sources said he was regarded as one of the last in a generation of so-called “ordinary decent criminals” who endeavoured to keep their public profile as low as possible in order to continue with his criminal activities.

Like some of his associates including Gerry Hutch, also known as the Monk, he attempted to invest some of his wealth in property assets.

However, when the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) began operating in 1997, it very quickly focussed on a group of established criminals that included Duggan.

In 2003, properties in a development owned by him and another man were offered for auction by the bureau.

Convictions

Eagle House, at Queen Street in

Smithfield

in Dublin’s north inner city, was registered with the Companies Office under the name

Gadbrook

Ltd, a cash-and-carry business. Gadbrook was owned by

Christopher Dunne

(then aged 62) and Duggan (then 42).

Both men had convictions for handling stolen property.

They had been under investigation by the Cab for a number of years before the case reached the stage of the properties, comprising ground floor shops and apartments above them, being offered for sale.

The bureau was pursuing the men for a settlement of more than €4 million. The proceeds of the sale of Eagle House went towards settling this demand.

The five-storey block included 14 apartments above 6,000 sq ft of retail space on the ground floor which could house six or eight retail units.