GARDAÍ BELIEVE they have prevented a gangland murder attempt following the arrest of a well-known criminal carrying a loaded gun.
The incident occurred in Dublin’s north inner city late on Sunday night. The arrested man is an armed robber from the area who was involved in a feud with dissident republican figures.
The suspect was arrested when stopped by an armed Garda patrol at 11pm on Charleville Avenue off the North Strand.
Gardaí believe the 24-year-old was on his way to a pub in the north inner city with the intention of shooting a man he knew would be on the premises.
The arrested man was taken to Store Street Garda station where he was still being held last night under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. He was carrying a loaded handgun which gardaí believe originated in the Czech Republic.
The suspect is related to a well-known senior gangland figure originally from the north inner city.
The arrested man has found himself at the centre of a number of Garda investigations into major robberies over the past year. Gardaí believe Sunday night’s incident is linked to one of those robberies.
The man being held was among five men arrested in May when gardaí foiled the attempted robbery of a G4S cash van as it was delivering money to an ATM in a shop in the Foxborough estate in Lucan, Co Dublin. On that occasion gardaí opened fire on two of the alleged gang. Both men were wounded.
One of them, Gareth Molloy, died from his injuries. Molloy, a 28-year-old from Lower Sheriff Street in Dublin’s north inner city, was known to gardaí but would not have been regarded as a major gangland player. Garda sources expressed surprise at the time that he was involved in a major armed robbery attempt.
It later emerged that Molloy had only agreed to take part in the raid to get money to pay compensation demanded from him by the INLA. The compensation was to be paid to a man linked to the INLA who Molloy had injured in a fight some weeks earlier.
Gardaí believe the man arrested on Sunday night was on his way to shoot one of the men who had demanded money from Molloy.
The suspect, who is originally from the Sheriff Street area, was linked to a number of other recent armed robberies apart from the attempted raid in Lucan in May.
He was released without charge in relation to the Lucan robbery attempt after being arrested in a car close to the crime scene but not while directly involved in the execution of the attempted robbery.
He was arrested in April in connection with an armed raid in East Wall when a shot was fired at a cash-in-transit van worker delivering money to a post office. He was also a suspect for another raid in Clontarf, north Dublin, in July 2008, when a crew member of a cash-in-transit van was shot at. He has also appeared before the courts on drugs charges.
