GARDAÍ BELIEVE they have disrupted the activities of a criminal faction in west Dublin that has been supplying weapons and ammunition to criminals in the city.
Gardaí raided an address in Finglas and found about 600 rounds of ammunition suitable for several firearm types, including handguns. A silencer for a Glock handgun was also found at the property.
Two men and two women were being questioned by gardaí last night. The two women, aged 27 and 30, and one of the men, aged 30, were detained when the ammunition and silencer were found at the Finglas property late on Thursday night.
A second man, who is in his 20s, was arrested during a follow-up operation in Cabra, Dublin, at 11am yesterday.
Gardaí believe he owns the apartment where the cache was found and he is now the main focus of the Garda’s investigation.
Garda sources said the people arrested were not well-known criminals and were not members of any wider criminal gang.
However, detectives are working on the theory that the person who owned the seized items was running an illegal weapons-supply business for drugs gangs.
“We’ll also be looking at whether he was also storing some of the ammunition and other items for large gangs,” said one Garda source.
The operation resulting in the seizure and arrests was intelligence-led. It involved members of the Organised Crime Unit and Garda National Drugs Unit.
The suspects are being detained at Ballymun and Finglas Garda stations. They are being questioned under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and can be held for up to seven days without charge.
The items seized are undergoing forensic testing to see if any fingerprints or DNA samples taken from them can link them to the people in custody.
The find is the latest in a series of incidents linked to gun or gang crime in Dublin over the past week.
Last Saturday the body of Coolock drug dealer JP Joyce (30) was found in a ditch close to Dublin airport. He had been shot in the head.
Last Sunday evening Paddy Cooney (58) and Brendan Molyneux (46) were shot dead at Mr Cooney’s flat off Pearse Street in Dublin’s south inner city.
A shopkeeper was kidnapped at gunpoint from his shop in Coolock on Wednesday. He was later released unharmed in Clondalkin after being held for four hours. A ransom demand was made to his family but it is unclear if any money was paid.
In response to the incidents, the Garda’s Emergency Response Unit has been deployed to patrol flashpoint areas, including Finglas, Coolock and Ballymun.
Gardaí were also called to deal with two explosive devices this week. One was found outside a house in Drimnagh, south Dublin, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, while another was discovered in the early hours of Wednesday morning at a flats complex on Clanbrassil Street in Dublin’s south inner city.
A suspect device found in Beaumont, north Dublin, on Thursday night was declared a hoax.