After that the Provos teamed up with other members of the same criminal pool, including Brendan ‘Wetty’ Walsh and Thomas Tynan, both members of the General’s gang. Walsh was 34 and from the Charlemont Gardens Flats in the south inner-city; Tynan was 29 and from South Circular Road. Walsh was a brutal hoodlum with a long criminal record for armed robbery, violence and false imprisonment. Tynan was a heroin-user with form for violence, theft, burglary and drugs. Despite his habit, Tynan was trusted because he kept his mouth shut and he was an adroit robber. The fifth member of the soon to be infamous mob was 26-year-old Austin Higgins from Donaghmede. He came from a respectable middle-class family but had decided, like Mickey Boyle, that he wanted to be a criminal.
The five robbers made up what Garda intelligence would later identify as the ‘A’ team in the ‘firm’. Five other hoods made up the ‘B’ team. Gardiner and Loughran used their IRA training to organize the gang like an Active Service Unit. Secrecy and meticulous planning were the hallmarks of their modus operandi. They began targeting banks, mostly branches of the Bank of Ireland, within a 120-mile radius south of Dublin. The chances of running into armed Gardaí in country towns were substantially less than in the capital, and the cops weren’t geared up for the same level of rapid response as their city colleagues.
There was also the added incentive of getting more cash. By 1990 there were two types of robberies taking place: those carried out by well-organized, professional gangs and strokes by strung-out addicts, desperately looking for money to buy heroin. The majority of robberies were being carried out by junkies, armed with a syringe, knife or gun, who might do two or three ‘jump-overs’ in a typical day. The Athy Gang knew that, as a result of all the hold-ups in Dublin banks, limited amounts of money were now being kept behind the counters – and Garda response times had dramatically improved.
Gardiner and Loughran had plans for up to four robberies in different counties at any one time. Detailed reconnaissance was carried out on each target and they made sure they knew every back road in the area. The IRA men treated the rest of the gang on a need-to-know basis and, to prevent careless leaks, only informed them of the location on the morning of a heist. The gang had a pool of five or more stolen high-powered cars, fuelled up and stashed in hotels and apartment blocks around the south-side of Dublin. The gangsters had a large arsenal of powerful firearms and used scanning equipment to listen in on the Gardaí. Wigs and false beards were used as disguises. The weaponry and the cash from each robbery were hidden by Loughran and Gardiner in pre-planned hides, in a number of forests along the getaway routes.
Loughran was normally the ‘wheels man’ on each job while the other four sprinted into the bank, ordering staff and customers to lie face-down. They threatened to shoot anyone who moved. Each raider would carry a hold-all bag, strapped across his body. Three of them would vault the security screens and empty the tills while the fourth covered the terrified occupants. The gang were in and out of a bank in between two and four minutes. One or more of the other high-powered, stolen cars would be parked within a ten-mile radius of the job. The team would split up and make their way back to Dublin along separate routes; sometimes they even took the train.
The gang’s modus operandi became their calling card and it soon became obvious to the Gardaí that the same gang was responsible for most of the bank jobs taking place. In September 1989, the Central Detective Unit (CDU) launched ‘Operation Gemini’, tasked with spearheading the investigation to catch the gang. The CDU had already enjoyed considerable success apprehending a string of major criminal players and the man in overall command of Operation Gemini was Detective Chief Superintendent John Murphy. He appointed his deputy, Detective Superintendent Noel Conroy, to lead the operation. The officer in charge of the investigation on the ground was Tony Hickey. Gemini was launched on 4 September at a special conference of detectives held in the CDU’s offices in Harcourt Square, Dublin. A few hours before the conference started, the gang hit another bank in Edenderry, County Offaly. It reinforced the urgent need for the investigation.
Four days later the gang struck again, this time at the Bank of Ireland at Emily Square, Athy. In less than four minutes they got away with £47,000 – it was their largest score yet. Three days after that, the bearded robbers vaulted the counter of the Bank of Ireland in Coolock – Loughran’s local branch. This time they got just £3,000. On 14 September, the gang hit the Bank of Ireland branch in Dunmanway, County Cork and a week later the Bank of Ireland branch in Gorey, County Wexford. During one month their haul from five robberies was almost £100,000.
The initial breakthrough in the case came from an informant. He tipped off the Squad that Thomas Tynan and another robber from Dolphin House Flats were involved in the robbery spree, which was the talk of gangland. Another source revealed that Brendan ‘Wetty’ Walsh was involved with Tynan. The Operation Gemini team mobilized the Squad’s surveillance unit to monitor the three suspects, in a bid to identify the rest of the gang, but it was difficult because the gang members employed counter-surveillance techniques. Eventually, however, the discreet watch paid off.
Tony Hickey recalled the challenge his unit faced: ‘When Operation Gemini was set up in September 1989 the Loughran/Gardiner gang were our top priority. In the beginning we didn’t have very much intelligence to go on but after a period of time we identified the gang members and mounted a surveillance operation. Loughran had been a hardened terrorist and so was Gardiner. They used the expertise they gained in the IRA. They were very conscious of surveillance and good at counter-surveillance. When they left Dublin, they invariably travelled over the Dublin Mountains and always used back roads. During the robberies they used gratuitous violence on bank staff and fired shots. We also had high-grade intelligence specifically stating that they intended using lethal force if they were confronted by Gardaí either going to or coming from a robbery. If we were to put them out of action we knew we had to catch them carrying weapons. It was a very difficult operation from the start and there were plenty of wild goose chases during the five months we were after them. But they had to be lucky all the time and we only had to be lucky once.’
Covert surveillance was going to prove extremely difficult, especially in the case of trained professionals like Gardiner and Loughran. The Squad would have to be innovative if they were going to catch the mob.
In the meantime the Athy Gang continued their robberies, unaware the Serious Crime Squad was on to them. In the first two weeks of October they carried out another four heists from banks in counties Kilkenny and Tipperary. It was after the last one in Roscrea that their luck began to run out. Austin Higgins and another gang member were arrested when they were stopped in County Offaly on their way back to Dublin. Two detectives from Operation Gemini were sent to interview the pair in Portlaoise Garda station. During his interrogation Higgins began to talk and admitted his part in the robbery. There was a single piece of forensic evidence that directly linked him with the robbery – a boot-print on the bank counter he had vaulted in Roscrea. The other robber was released because of a lack of evidence and Higgins was charged with the robbery the next day. He had never faced a serious charge and the prospect of a long stretch behind bars before. After his release on bail he agreed to turn informant.
In the initial stages Higgins gave the Operation Gemini team an invaluable insight into the operation of the gang. But he couldn’t give them what they needed most – specific information on a target – because he never knew until the morning of the job. Three days after Higgins’s arrest, Loughran, Gardiner, Walsh and Tynan robbed the AIB in Ranelagh, Dublin to get his bail money. They got just £4,622. Two weeks later, on 3 November, the gang hit the Bank of Ireland in Bray, taking £11,693. Following the ‘job’ the Gemini team raided the homes of all the gang members, including Higgins, but found nothing to connect them with the heists.
After assessing what they knew of the gang’s behavioural patterns, the officers in charge of Operation Gemini realized
that they would need serious armed help if they confronted the robbers. They requested the assistance of a newly formed specialist Garda unit called the Emergency Response Unit (ERU). It had been quietly established a year earlier and was intended to eventually replace the Special Task Force. In 1990 most members of the force were unaware of its existence. Its inception followed a recommendation in an internal review that the force needed a more specialized squad to deal with sieges, hijackings and heavily armed gangs. Membership of the unit was, and still is, a closely guarded secret. Members were handpicked, after undertaking a rigorous selection course, and were intensively trained in tactics and firearms. The ERU was based on similar police SWAT-style teams in America, Germany and Britain and members had additional training with the Irish Army’s Special Forces unit, the Army Ranger Wing (ARW). The ERU’s 32 members were equipped with the Smith and Wesson Model 59 semi-automatic pistol, Uzi submachine-gun, Heckler and Koch assault rifle and the Winchester pump-action shotgun. A major shock was in store for the criminal underworld.
The ERU and the Operation Gemini team drew up an elaborate plan to intercept the gang. A list was drawn up of 165 potential targets within the gang’s operational radius. It detailed banks in ten counties and each bank branch/town was given a specific code name. All the gang members and cars being used also had codes, to prevent the robbers identifying themselves when they tuned into police frequencies. Loughran was VIP 1, Tynan was VIP 2, and so on. The plan also identified every road leading from the towns listed. It was an awesome task and there were several false starts.
On 14 November, the investigation team learned that the gang planned to rob the bank at Mountrath, County Laois the following day. A major operation was put in place around the town as SCS and ERU officers waited for the raiders to turn up. The surveillance team confirmed that the gang had left Dublin in a stolen red car around dawn, but they couldn’t follow them without being spotted. The Laois tip-off came to nothing as, that afternoon, the ‘A’ team hit the Bank of Ireland in Tullow, County Carlow, 35 miles away. The extraordinary game of cat and mouse continued.
Meanwhile the investigation team had located four of the gang’s getaway cars. They planted a number of eavesdropping devices in one of them, as it was used to carry out surveillance on targeted banks. A homing device, which could be monitored by air, was also placed on one of the vehicles. The Air Corps made a Cessna spotter-plane available for the job. It was one of the first occasions that the Gardaí had used such sophisticated electronic equipment in their fight against organized crime. But unfortunately they didn’t have enough equipment to bug all the cars. The operation then ran into trouble with Garda management. The SCS, the CDU surveillance team and the ERU were gobbling up considerable resources in their efforts to catch the blaggers. The top brass was still averse to long-term operations and wanted to see results. As Christmas approached there was mounting pressure to call it off. Chief Superintendent Murphy pleaded for more time.
Operation Gemini was given a reprieve when, that December, the gang pulled another two heists in Enniscorthy, County Wexford and Thurles, County Tipperary. The investigation and ERU teams watched an area of the Killakee Woods in the Dublin Mountains and waited for the gang to return with the money and weapons, but they never showed. The detectives later learned that Loughran was using another hide, in a wooded area near the village of Windgap, County Kilkenny.
Loughran and Gardiner continued to identify new targets during the Christmas holidays. Loughran called the gang together for another job on 28 December and Higgins dutifully relayed the information to his Garda handlers. He didn’t have a specific location for the raid so squads of officers were dispatched to cover banks in counties Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny. The homing device was no help because the military plane was unable to operate in the poor winter conditions. The ERU watched the two wooded areas in Dublin and Kilkenny – and waited. Loughran decided to abort the robbery, however, when the gang failed to rendezvous at a pre-arranged time in Kilkenny. Higgins later revealed that Loughran would have been prepared to carry out the raid, even though there were Gardaí near the bank, if the rest of the team had turned up on time. The gangsters took a break for the New Year and the waiting game dragged on into a fifth month.
The breakthrough finally came on 4 January 1990. The gang were planning to hit the Bank of Ireland in Athy for a second time. This time the intelligence was rock solid – the information came from a tape-recording of a conversation which took place on the reconnaissance run to Athy. The investigation team sat back and listened as Gardiner and Loughran unconsciously shared the whole plan with them. If the local Gardaí appeared the ex-Provos had a brutal contingency plan ready for them: ‘We’ll blow the fuckers away; take them out; shoot them.’
The robbery was set for the following morning. The Operation Gemini and ERU teams took their positions around Emily Square – but the gang aborted the raid at the last minute. There was a second false alarm on 8 January, the same day that Martin Cahill almost got caught.
Four days later the gang finally walked into the trap in Athy. Eleven members of the ERU were deployed in the local fire station and a nearby yard at Leinster Street, while 15 members of the Serious Crime Squad were positioned in an outer cordon. The local uniformed and detective units were also alerted and on standby around the town. A detective sat in a car facing the bank, ready to raise the alarm when the gang arrived. At 12.20 p.m. he gave the signal as the raiders drove into Emily Square in a stolen BMW and parked outside the bank. ‘The eagle has landed, the eagle has landed,’ he calmly reported. Loughran stayed behind the wheel, while Gardiner, Higgins, Walsh and Tynan walked quickly towards the front door. They wore long coats, false beards and wigs. As they got to the door, they took out their guns. They pushed the porter, Noel Reddy, back inside and ordered staff and customers, including young children, to get down. Three gangsters vaulted the counter and emptied the tills, just like they had done four months earlier.
As soon as the signal was given all hell broke lose. Detective Sergeant Nacie Rice and his team of five ERU men sped from the yard. They raced down Leinster Street into Emily Square in two cars, blocking the BMW from the rear. Simultaneously the second ERU team, under Detective Sergeant Michael Shanahan, sped from the fire station and cut the raiders’ car off at the front. Loughran frantically tried to shunt his way out from between the ERU cars, by driving backwards and forwards. The screams of the car engine and the squeal of tyres added to the confusion.
The armed detectives fired a total of 20 shots at the wheels of the getaway car to immobilize it. When Loughran was ordered to put his hands up and get out, he lifted a pistol and pointed it at the driver of the squad car in front. Two officers opened fire on him at the same time, hitting him in the neck and head. The leader of the Athy Gang, who’d vowed to fight his way out, slumped sideways in his seat seriously injured.
Inside the bank the gang heard the gunfire and began to panic. Brendan Walsh looked out and shouted to the others: ‘We’re set up, we’re set up; the cops are everywhere.’ Higgins cried: ‘It’s over, it’s over, we’re fucked … I don’t want to die anyway. They’re shooting on the street, I don’t want to die.’ Walsh shouted at Higgins: ‘It’s not over, get a hostage … get a fucking hostage.’ Higgins turned and grabbed bank official John Condron, holding his neck in an armlock. William Gardiner grabbed a customer and Walsh pulled the porter off the ground. Tynan lurked among the terrified hostages.
The group shuffled to the front door. Higgins was very agitated and shouted at the police: ‘Get back or we’ll shoot.’ The ERU officers told them to put down their weapons. But in the confusion of the initial confrontation with Loughran the keys had been left in one of the squad cars and the engine was still running. The rear door of the car nearest the bank was open and the gang began to inch towards it. The cops continued shouting at the gunmen to give themselves up. Then Higgins moved his gun to the back of John Condron’s head and screamed: ‘I’ll blo
w his fucking head off if you don’t move back.’ As the robber moved his finger to the trigger, Detective Sergeant Rice took aim and fired a single shot, hitting Higgins on the right side of his forehead. Other detectives fired at the wheels of the abandoned police car to immobilize it. At the same moment Tynan was shot four times when he turned and aimed his gun at the officers.
The shooting was over in seconds. Tynan, Higgins and their hostage John Condron were lying seriously injured on the pavement. Three of the detectives involved in the operation were also hurt. Two of them suffered minor grazes and the third had a shotgun wound to the left leg. A pedestrian who was standing on the street 300 feet away suffered a graze when he was hit by a ricochet.
Walsh and Gardiner retreated back into the bank with their hostages. The two hoods were in a panic and sweating so much that their disguises fell off.
Gemini’s Tony Hickey took command of the situation and phoned the bank from the hotel next door. During an hour-long stand-off, he calmly negotiated with Brendan Walsh and assured him that no one would be harmed if they surrendered. Walsh said that he wanted a priest and an ambulance. Hickey first convinced the robber to agree to hold fire while the injured men lying on the pavement were moved for urgent medical attention. The gangsters also allowed eight of the hostages to leave. Hickey contacted the local priest, Father Patrick Mangan, who volunteered to go into the bank and bring Walsh and Gardiner out with him. Before they gave themselves up, Gardiner laughed as he dumped his weapon and fixed his hair. Walsh handed a bullet to the prettiest lady in the bank as a souvenir. Then they walked out on either side of the priest and were promptly arrested.
Badfellas Page 29