An estimated €600,000 was taken when raiders armed with machineguns rammed a security van at Donaghmede Shopping Centre in Dublin yesterday.
The attack was one of two armed raids on cash-in-transit vans in Dublin yesterday. A second robbery took place in Donnybrook.
Gardaí believe some of those behind yesterday's highly organised robbery at Donaghmede Shopping Centre were involved in the robbery last year of €2.3 million after an employee of Securicor and his family were held hostage in their Raheny home overnight.
Reacting to yesterday's robberies, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny criticised the Government for its "calamitous handling of the high-octane gangsterism exploding on to Dublin's streets".
He accused the Government of "selling out the gardaí, leaving them to face a new and dangerous breed of coked-up, psychopathic dealers and killers, with too few numbers in their ranks, obsolete equipment and inferior transport".
The first of yesterday's two raids took place at 1.30pm at the rear of Donaghmede shopping centre as the three-man crew of a Securicor van were delivering money to two ATM machines. The van had reversed up to a door leading into the back of centre when the raiders struck.
One of the gang was sitting in a teleporter, a type of heavy-duty forklift. He rammed the teleporter into the front of the Securicor van. The bullet proof windscreen collapsed into the van. At this point the raider driving the teleporter was joined by two other attackers who were in the car park in a black car. The men, armed with machineguns, climbed up onto the teleporter and into the Securicor van through the broken windscreen.
They grabbed bags of cash in the back of the vehicle before climbing out of the van and escaping in their waiting car. However, a short time later gardaí arrested a man in the Bayside area. Gardaí believe a car located during that follow up search at Bayside Boulevard may have been used in yesterday's attack. The teleporter used had been stolen from a building site in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, on Monday night.
Gardaí believe it was transported to Dublin city late on Monday. They believe it was stored in Kilbarrack overnight. Yesterday's attack was the first major robbery of a security van since almost €5 million was stolen in two attacks in Raheny and Artane last year on March 15th and March 30th respectively.
These robberies provoked a major review of the cash in transit industry. In the first of those attacks Securicor worker Paul Richardson and his wife and two sons were held captive in their Raheny home. Mr Richardson was told to go to work as normal the next day and ordered to bring the Securicor van which he crewed to a drop off point at the Strawberry Beds, Dublin.
The man being questioned last night, who lives less than two miles from the scene of the latest attack, was a member of the gang that targeted Mr Richardson last year.
Meanwhile, gardaí in Donnybrook have appealed for witnesses after an armed raid in the area yesterday.
The robbery took place at 2.55pm on Mespil Road. A security van was making a collection from a pub when two men armed with a knife and gun pulled up on a red motorbike. They escaped with an undisclosed sum.
