MURDER victim Mr Danny Fanning had been investigated for using the illegal growth promoter known as angel dust in 1992, it was learned last night.
Mr Fanning, a prominent Tipperary farmer and cattle dealer, had been summoned for having 11 heifers at a Co Laois meat plant which were found to have been treated with the illegal drug clenbuterol. The case was delayed because of legal challenges by others accused of similar offences.
Mr Fanning recently paid more than £200,000 for a 52 acre farm.
Gardai were last night searching for three men and possibly a fourth after Mr Fanning's murder. He was shot by armed robbers at his home in Rosegreen on Tuesday night.
Gardai believe the motive for the attack on Mr Fanning (73), his wife Bridget and daughter Rosaleen, was robbery.
Last night gardai were officially playing down any possible links between his killing and the increasingly dangerous trade in illegal animal fattening drugs.
Last June a Department of Agriculture inspector was threatened and samples he had set aside from animals for investigation here seized by a gang thought to be from Dublin.
The incident occurred at the Rathdowney plant where the drugs in Mr Fanning's cattle were allegedly detected in 1992.
The inspector had ordered that the samples be set aside for analysis. As the tests can be carried out only after slaughter, the carcasses were taken away from the production line and liver and stomach bile samples were being assembled by the inspector.
Some hours later the inspector and plant manager were approached by two men, one of them armed. The men threatened them and forcibly removed the test samples.
The two were then driven away by a third man who had waited outside the building.
The inspector's wife later received threatening telephone calls which were investigated by the Garda and the Department of Agriculture.