A sixth man was tonight released by police investigating the murder of UDA leader John Gregg in Belfast.
Six men were held earlier in police raids in Bolton, England and in the Shankill area of Belfast. The PSNI said the held in Bolton had been released without charge. Later they said the three detained in Belfast's Shankill Road area had also been released without charge.
Jailed terror boss Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair's most senior lieutenant was among three suspects seized during swoops on houses in Bolton, sources said.
Detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, assisted by Greater Manchester Police, made the arrests.
The arrest of three men from the hardline Shankill district stunned UDA chiefs in Belfast who thought all members of a rogue faction had been driven out of Northern Ireland days after Gregg was killed in February.
The UDA brigadier, who once tried to kill Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, died in a docklands ambush along with a second man, Robert Carson, as they returned from a Glasgow Rangers football match.
He had been locked in a bitter feud with Adair's C Company unit, and days after Gregg's killing, his supporters forced their rivals to flee their homes as Adair languished behind bars.
It is believed the men arrested in Bolton were at addresses used by a group of people from the Shankill area of north Belfast who fled to England.
Among those living in Bolton was Adair's wife Gina and some of his closest allies during the feud with Gregg and other mainstream UDA leaders.
Another of those blamed for the killing, Alan McCullough, had returned from exile in England after apparently negotiating to have the death sentence against him lifted.
But he was abducted and killed last month before being dumped in a shallow grave on the outskirts of north Belfast last month. Two senior loyalists have been charged with the murder.
Even though all supporters of the rogue faction were thought to have left Northern Ireland, a UDA source in Belfast claimed: "There are still a lot of worms under stones around here, they are just being secretive about it."
PA