Major oil laundering facilities found in dawn raids

Police raids: When about 150 gardaí, Revenue officials and soldiers raided a cluster of homes and farmyards in north Louth yesterday morning, they believed they would find one of the most-profitable oil-laundering facilities discovered to date in the Republic. They were not disappointed.

However, the primary target, former IRA chief of staff Thomas "Slab" Murphy, was nowhere to be found.

Reliable security sources said the illicit fuel-laundering plant discovered yesterday was so professionally run they could not rule out the possibility that Murphy was hiding in an underground bunker somewhere on his property, which straddles the Border at Ballybinaby.

However, senior officers said they were satisfied with how the operation had unfolded and the level of evidence gathered.

Among the evidence and items found at the properties in the Ballybinaby townland were:

Four oil-laundering facilities;

A series of underground tanks linked to the laundries. These were drained throughout the day;

Six oil tankers which were being used to transport laundered oil on the island of Ireland;

A 40ft curtain-sided trailer with oil tanks fitted which Garda and Revenue officials believe may have been used to export laundered oil to the UK by car ferry;

€200,000 in cash stuffed into plastic bags;

30,000 smuggled cigarettes on which gardaí believe taxes had not been paid;

8,000 litres of laundered fuel and a number of small vehicles;

Two firearms, at least one of which - a shotgun - gardaí believed was not legally held;

A large amount of documentation linked to the illicit oil operation; and

Computer hard drives.

Everything seized yesterday will now be examined by the Garda, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and Revenue officials on both sides of the Border.

Nine properties were raided south of the Border. As well as the searches in north Louth, the offices of legal and financial firms were raided in Dundalk and in Crossmaglen, south Armagh.

North of the Border, about 200 PSNI members, Customs officers and British soldiers staged a simultaneous operation. Six properties were raided in Crossmaglen and Newry but there were no arrests. The PSNI helicopter was also involved.

Yesterday's operation in the Republic - Operation Achilles - was the culmination of a major 18-month investigation into Thomas "Slab" Murphy and his circle of close associates.

It was based on intelligence gathered in the course of a UK Assets Recovery Agency investigation last year into a €44 million UK property empire linked to Murphy.

This is made up of 250 houses, mostly around Manchester.

Gardaí have been focusing their investigation into Murphy on a small legally registered old firm in Co Louth.

This is the third of three small oil companies registered in the area in recent years which gardaí believe are controlled by him. Two of the firms have been liquidated but the third is still operating.

Murphy's close circle of associates has also been linked to these firms. This group of people almost all have addresses in Louth or just across the Border.

Operation Achilles was led by the Criminal Assets Bureau and involved detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (the Garda serious crimes squad). Detectives were also drafted in from the Special Detective Unit.

These were backed by armed troops from Dundalk barracks and local uniform gardaí from the Louth-Meath division. Officials from the Department of Social, Family and Community Affairs were also present.