The Dunleer robbery involved up to eight men. Four men were held hostage throughout the operation, which one garda said "went like clockwork" for the gang. The operation began yesterday morning when a man claiming to be from a Belfast company telephoned the Dublin-based Crane Hire Ltd company.
He said he needed a crane to move a container off a manhole cover in Drogheda, as it was obstructing builders. The mobile telescopic crane weighed 120 tonnes and cost close to £500,000.
The crane and its operator arrived at the bus station in Drogheda at about 11 a.m. yesterday. The operator expected to meet a representative of the Belfast company but instead he was forced to bring the crane to the disused railway station in Dunleer.
It is believed he was then forced by the armed gang to operate the crane, which is computerised and requires specialised knowledge.
At the railway station, which was last used as a stop on the main Dublin-Belfast line in the mid-1970s, the men took an Irish Rail linesman hostage. He was working on the line close by the station when an armed man ordered him to hand over detonators he was carrying. These are used regularly by linesmen to warn train drivers of an obstruction ahead and to slow down. It appears the gang placed two on the line. They detonated when the train went over them and the driver then slowed down as expected. The train leaves Dundalk every weekday at 2.15 p.m. and was due to pass through Dunleer 15 minutes later.
When the driver slowed down in response to the detonators on the line, another gang member boarded the train. He then threatened the driver and a security guard with a gun and told them not to move the train. In a matter of minutes the gang had removed the container, using the crane, and placed it on an articulated truck. The gang then left with the truck and container of nearly six million cigarettes which had come from the Carrolls cigarette factory in Dundalk and were on their way to the North Wall in Dublin for export.
One of the gang remained in the driver's cab and told the driver to drive to Portmarnock, north Co Dublin. The driver, linesman, crane man and security man were tied up and the gang member then escaped. Shortly afterwards the staff freed themselves and raised the alarm. Gardai did not arrive at Dunleer train station until about 90 minutes after the gang had left.
Irish Rail has launched an investigation. A rail spokesman described the robbery as "a very worrying development".
The empty container was recovered at about 7 p.m. yesterday near Rathkenny, Slane, Co Meath. The robbery is almost identical to one carried out six years ago at Dromiskin, Dunleer. Again, a crane was hired then used to remove goods from a train. Gardai are investigating the possibility that the same gang was involved in both robberies.