Gardaí investigating the theft of more than €2 million from cash- in-transit vans in the past year have made two arrests and seized weapons and ammunition following an intensive surveillance operation on criminals in Dublin in the last five months.
The two men, one a League of Ireland footballer, were arrested during a Garda raid on a house at Clonee, Co Meath, at 7 a.m. yesterday morning.
A machine gun, hand gun, sawn-off shotgun and about 100 rounds of ammunition were discovered in a bedroom of the house. The two men, both Dubliners in their mid 20s, were in the house at the time.
They were arrested and taken to Blanchardstown Garda station, where they were still being detained last night under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
The seized weapons were taken for examination by Garda ballistics experts. Detectives are anxious to see if the guns can be linked to a number of recent shootings in Dublin. They are particularly interested to know if any of the weapons were used in a botched raid in Finglas last week, during which a trainee garda was shot in the hand. A bullet and spent cartridge were later retrieved at the scene.
Gardaí will also be examining evidence found at the scene of a raid on a cash transit van in Blanchardstown two weeks ago when raiders fired a shot as they stole a bout €10,000 from security staff delivering money.
The raid and arrests were carried out by a team of detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, gardaí from Blanchardstown, and local gardaí all working under Operation Delivery. The operation was set up in June to combat the worst spate of armed robberies since the late 1980s.
Since its establishment, five Dublin criminal gangs have been placed under close surveillance and intelligence gathered on their movements.
The close scrutiny has resulted in a sharp drop in the number of cash-in-transit raids. Only a handful have been carried out since the operation was set up, compared with about 40 in the first six months of 2004.
Gardaí believe a Finglas gang has been behind most of the robberies and may have organised other raids on behalf of other criminals for a fee.
