Cocaine Wars

by Mick McCaffrey

  The week after the seizure of the drugs found in Stephen Carlile’s apartment, Gardaí received a massive and unexpected boost after Freddie Thompson was arrested in Rotterdam. He was nabbed in close proximity to 7 kg of cocaine and six machine pistols at an apartment he had rented. The seizure was the result of a phone tap laid by Dutch police and not Garda intelligence after the Clondalkin seizure. It came about through co-operation between the GNDU and its Dutch counterpart that had been going on for over a year. Thompson was arrested on 27 October, although when police swooped he was in the lobby of the apartment complex in a middle-class part of the city. To cast further doubts on the strength of the case, the drugs and guns were found in a garden adjoining the apartment, but police were confident that fingerprints and DNA would link them to the gang boss. Thompson was in the Netherlands with a twenty-three-year-old female friend from Ireland and an Irish couple – a fifty-one-year-old man and a forty-one-year-old woman with an address in Hull. The three people were also detained, but were later released without charge. However, ‘Fat’ Freddie was remanded in custody by a magistrate while police investigated him. Under Dutch law, suspects can be sent to jail while the authorities try to build a case against them. The remand period can only be for a maximum of three months, however, before the evidence has to be presented to the magistrate who then decides whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution. At the time the three people were released without charge, a spokeswoman for the Rotterdam Public Prosecutions Office said: ‘They are not allowed to leave the country; they are still suspects in the case and they have to make themselves available for questioning during the investigation. The man we are holding, Freddie T, is the main suspect in the case. He will be brought to court again within fourteen days. We will seek to have his period of detention extended. It is going to take some considerable time to complete the investigation and we want him kept in jail.’

  A spokesman for the Rotterdam police confirmed that the Irish authorities had not been in contact with them about extraditing Thompson, and added: ‘This is a Dutch case. There was information from Ireland concerning these people’s activities and that they were suspected of having large amounts of drugs and weapons, but there was no Irish involvement beyond that. None of the Irish people arrested were armed. They were taken completely by surprise and they had no time to make a run for it. It was a smoothly run operation; there were plenty of officers waiting for them.’

  The Dutch arrest was a massive blow to ‘Fat’ Freddie. He had, seemingly, been caught with a large haul of drugs and was looking at a prison sentence of at least ten years, maybe even life, depending on the quality of intelligence and evidence garnered by the Dutch. It is believed that he was in Rotterdam arranging shipments of drugs to be imported back to Dublin to sell on the streets. It had long been suspected that the Thompson gang moved several million euro worth of drugs through Rotterdam Port each year. The arrest was proof positive, if it was needed. However, not for the first time, Thompson struck it lucky and managed to beat the rap. In the first week of February 2007, the magistrate struck out all the charges. The Dutch police moved too quickly and arrested Freddie while he was in the apartment complex, even though he had not actually touched the drugs or guns. Had they waited and kept him under surveillance, they might have caught him red-handed, but Thompson was too cute. There was also no DNA or fingerprint match, so there was plenty of room for him to wriggle out of any charges. It was a serious error by the Dutch police, and one that the Gardaí would come to regret. Freddie could scarcely believe his luck, and to rub salt into the wounds, Dutch law dictates that if a person is remanded in custody while their case is being investigated they are entitled to a payment of €50 per day when they are released. Thompson was in jail for nearly three months and received the princely sum of over €4,000. He booked himself a business class ticket back to Dublin. He arrived in the airport hopelessly drunk, after treating himself to champagne during the flight. Gardaí from the National Immigration Bureau literally could not believe their eyes when the drunken Freddie fell through customs taunting them. The Dutch police toyed with appealing the decision of the judge, but it came to nothing. They had no choice but to move on – as did Freddie.

  On 26 February 2007, Detective Sergeant Barry Butler arrested Freddie’s former neighbour Stephen Carlile. He was brought from Cloverhill remand prison, where he was in custody following the Clondalkin drugs seizure and was taken to Sundrive Road Garda Station for questioning about Gary Bryan’s murder. He told Gardaí that he had nothing to do with Bryan being shot. He said he owned the phone that had been in regular contact with Graham Whelan. However, he knew better than to name Whelan, and denied that he had ever heard the name or even met the drug dealer. He couldn’t explain why he had spoken to a complete stranger on fourteen different occasions in only a few hours, but Gardaí had little option but to send him back to jail after he had been interviewed for more than six hours.

  David Byrne was also arrested as part of the murder investigation. The twenty-four-year-old from Raleigh Square in Crumlin was Thompson’s cousin. He was also a key member of the gang and was one of Graham Whelan’s best friends. He was arrested on 14 May 2007, because Whelan’s phone records showed that a phone registered to his mother was in frequent contact with Whelan on the day of the murder. Gardaí believed that Byrne had been using his mother’s phone. While he was in custody, Byrne refused to answer a single question and would not account for his movements or acknowledge his friendship with Whelan. When Graham Whelan was first arrested in relation to the murder on 7 February 2007, he was held for nearly two days. On 8 February, David Byrne called into Crumlin Garda Station, where Whelan was in custody. Byrne handed newspapers and other items to Sergeant Andrew Duncan for Whelan. Sergeant Duncan examined the newspapers carefully and found a message on one of them which said: ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ Gardaí believe that Byrne was telling his mate not to co-operate with Gardaí, but there was little in the way of proof, so he was released without charge.

  Gardaí also arrested Freddie Thompson on a separate offence and they used this opportunity to question him about the murder, but he was not taken in until 10 September 2007. When he was questioned, the offence he was being held for was not the Gary Bryan murder.

  Gardaí got their chance to arrest him after an incident at about 9.00 p.m. that day, when they received a call saying that a man from Clogher Road in Crumlin received minor gunshot wounds to the chest, after he was hit with rounds fired from a sawn-off shotgun. The incident was to do with Vicky Dempsey’s previous friendship with the man Thompson stabbed in 2004; Thompson was still jealous and out for revenge. The shots had been fired from a passing car. Thompson was arrested, not far from the scene at Kildare Road, and was held on suspicion of having information about the shooting. While he was in custody, Gardaí took advantage and quizzed him about Bryan’s murder. They had little doubt that while Thompson may not have been directly involved, he knew what was going on as the leader of the gang. That coupled with the fact that an Irish Independent newspaper taken from the boot of the Fiat Punto that left the scene of the murder was found to have his fingerprint on it. Even putting questions to Thompson was a waste of time. He was released without charge. He was not charged with either the shooting on Kildare Road or any aspect of the Bryan investigation.

  With little prospect of building a case against the actual gunman and the getaway driver for Bryan’s murder, detectives pinned their hopes on getting a conviction against Graham Whelan. They were confident that they had built up a decent case against him, and outlined their case in correspondence to the DPP’s office. At around 4.45 p.m. on the day of the murder at Old Country Road, Dublin 12, Garda Ciaran Nunan and DS John Walsh were on a routine patrol and stopped a 04 D blue Volkswagen Golf. The car was stopped because the driver was speaking on his mobile phone while driving. The driver turned out to be Graham Whelan. Gardaí believe that this sighting was significant because it placed Whelan in the Cruml
in area two hours before the murder. Old Country Road is only half a mile from where Gary Bryan was shot dead. Gardaí argued that Valerie White’s statement that Gary Bryan had seen Graham Whelan driving by Margaret White’s house twenty minutes before his murder was also significant. Two days later, on 28 September 2006, Graham Whelan was arrested at Liffey Street for the purpose of a search under the Misuse of Drugs Acts 1977 and 1984. He was taken to Store Street Garda Station for the search. He was released without charge, after it was found that he was not carrying anything illegal. However, Gardaí seized Whelan’s Nokia 1600 ‘ready-to-go’ mobile phone. They analysed it in order to determine what calls Whelan both made and received on the day of Gary Bryan’s murder, and to ascertain where those calls had been made from. From 2.32 p.m. to 4.57 p.m., Whelan’s calls were processed through five different phone masts in the Crumlin village area. From 4.57 p.m. to 5.55 p.m., his calls went through masts situated in Dublin 8, away from Crumlin and the murder scene. From 5.58 p.m. to 6.46 p.m., his calls were processed through phone masts in the immediate vicinity of the murder scene at Bunting Road. The four masts were located at the Ashleaf Shopping centre, Star Bingo on Kildare Road, Spar in Walkinstown and Crumlin Taxi in Crumlin village. From 6.47 p.m. to 7.25 p.m., Whelan’s calls went through masts at the Long Mile Road, Red Cow Hotel, Firhouse and Rathfarnham Golf Club. Gardaí argued with the DPP that this phone site analysis proved that Graham Whelan was in the vicinity of the murder scene before, during and after Gary Bryan’s murder. When he was arrested for questioning about the murder, he refused to account for his movements around Bunting Road.

  On 9 February 2007, Graham Whelan was again arrested and he declined to take part in a formal identification parade. Gardaí wanted a witness who had seen Whelan driving on Bunting Road before the murder to see if they could pick him out of a line up. The witness had never seen Graham Whelan before the day of the murder and did not know anything about him. At around 1.00 p.m. that afternoon, Sergeant Peter McBrien accompanied the witness to the radio workshop office at Crumlin Garda Station from which they had an unobstructed view of the station yard. Eight volunteers plus Graham Whelan had been lined up to take part in the informal parade. Four of the volunteers walked out in single file, and the witness said that the man they saw on the day of the murder was not any of them. When the fifth man, Graham Whelan, walked into the yard, the witness stated: ‘That’s him, that’s the man.’ Sergeant McBrien asked if the witness was certain. The witness answered: ‘Yes.’

  Gardaí wrote to the DPP’s office requesting that Graham Whelan be charged with Gary Bryan’s murder. They wrote, ‘Graham Whelan is a ruthless criminal. Mr Whelan is heavily involved in the Freddie Thompson/Paddy Doyle gang. He has amassed a total of fifteen previous convictions at twenty-four years of age. It is suspected that Mr Whelan organised the brutal murder of Gary Bryan along with several other suspects. Due to the nature of the evidence, I would recommend that Graham Whelan be charged with the Murder of Gary Bryan at Bunting Road, Dublin 12, on 26/09/06, contrary to common law.’

  Gardaí were confident that they had enough evidence to at least put to a jury for consideration against Whelan. Phone evidence and an eyewitness had put him at the scene of the murder minutes before it happened, and although there was no suggestion that he had actually pulled the trigger, detectives felt that the murder would not have happened had Graham Whelan not driven past Gary Bryan when he did. However, it was not to be. After several months the DPP came back and said there was not enough evidence to charge him. It was a blow to Gardaí who had worked tirelessly to try to get justice for Bryan. The case still remains open, but in the absence of new information, it seems unlikely that anybody will have to answer for Gary Bryan’s murder.

  Gary ‘Tipper’ Bryan was a tragic figure who was controlled by his drug addiction. Just before he was freed from Mountjoy, after serving his drugs sentence, he had applied for a passport. Detective Garda Terry McHugh, who was the liaison officer attached to the prison, signed the application for him. Bryan told him that he wanted to leave Ireland permanently with Valerie White because he feared for his life. He was only out of jail for a little over three weeks when it is believed that he murdered Wayne Zambra. For all his good intentions, Gary Bryan was a cold-hearted gun for hire who thought nothing of looking a man square in the eye and blowing his brains out. When he was using drugs, Bryan was a changed man. While he was soft-spoken, gentle and never violent when he was sober, he became a different person when he was injecting heroin. Although he did not look like a gangster, he certainly behaved like one, and once the twenty-nine-year-old had murdered Paul Warren and Wayne Zambra, it was clear that it was a matter of when, rather than if, Bryan himself would fall victim to a gangland assassination.

  Bryan was the ultimate loose cannon, and sources say that he would have shot literally anybody for as little as €2,000. Because he was so addicted to drugs, Bryan had no loyalty and was happy to freelance for anyone who would pay him. That unpredictability and ability to turn on anyone at the drop of a hat is what made him so dangerous. Detectives have described Gary Bryan as a ‘ruthless killing machine’ who would murder anybody who got in his way, without conscience or a moment’s thought. It is likely that both sides of the feud breathed a sigh of relief when he died. Valerie knew that Bryan was far from an angel. He stopped telling her what he was involved in when he was released from prison, so she never knew for certain whether he had murdered Wayne Zambra. He understood why she felt she had to make a statement to Gardaí about the Warren murder, and he never gave her a hard time over it. Friends of White say she blames herself for Gary’s death. She feels that if she had gone ahead and given evidence in court, then he would be alive today, albeit in jail. They were together for six years; Gary was behind bars for twenty-seven months of their relationship.

  The couple planned to move away to England and start a new life together. It was not to be. Gary Bryan was murdered before the plans came to fruition. His new passport arrived in the post two weeks after his murder. He never got to use it.

  10

  Making New Friends

  PRISON AUTHORITIES TOOK the decision to house Brian Rattigan at the highest security jail in the state – Portlaoise. This decision was made because of his notoriety and the fact that people were being murdered as part of a feud he was directing from behind bars.

  Portlaoise Prison was once used to house IRA prisoners, with army snipers on the roof to make sure that nobody attempted to escape. It is still home to convicted members of the Real and Continuity IRA, but today it is not renegade republicans that the Irish Prison Service has to be concerned about. It is the coterie of the country’s most serious criminals who are on the notorious E1 landing. E1 reads like a who’s who of the criminal underworld. Its thirty-four residents are the most dangerous and feared criminals in the country. Its most infamous inhabitant is probably John Gilligan, the Don of drug dealing before his empire came crumbling down after Veronica Guerin’s murder. Because Brian Rattigan had started out working for ‘Factory’ John, the pair had a good relationship. Rattigan would have regarded Gilligan as yesterday’s man, because he was in prison for so long and was well out of the loop when it came to importing drugs. Gilligan’s partner in crime, Brian Meehan, was also an inmate on E1. He had driven the motorbike that was used to transport the hit man to murder the Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin, and was given a life sentence for his role. Sources say that forty-four-year-old Meehan and Brian Rattigan do not get on well. There is tension between them, and as a result, both men keep their distance from each other. Harry Melia was another inmate who Brian Rattigan would have heard stories about when he was growing up. Melia was one of ‘The General’, Martin Cahill’s, top henchmen and is notoriously violent. He once cut the tips of Seamus ‘Shavo’ Hogan’s ears off to make him resemble a rat, because there were suspicions that Hogan was an informer. Melia has since been released and his drugs conviction quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
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