Cocaine Wars

by Mick McCaffrey

  With Freddie Thompson moving back and forth between Ireland and Spain because of the various threats to his life, Declan Duffy in prison, and now Wayne McNally locked up, a vacuum developed in Crumlin and Drimagh with new opportunities to move in on territory that Thompson and Rattigan once controlled with iron fists. Much like the way that Declan Gavin and Brian Rattigan had seen an opportunity with the break-up of the Gilligan gang ten years previously, six young upstarts from the local area also saw their chance to make a name for themselves and began to get involved in the feud. Rattigan and Thompson were inclined to turn a blind eye to this next generation of drug dealers, because the youngsters aligned themselves with the two gangs. The six youngsters didn’t go out on their own and take on Thompson and Rattigan, because in many cases they were either related to or close associates of some of the main players. Three of the new generation took Thompson’s side and the other three joined Rattigan’s mob. The new generation, while effectively working for the two gang bosses, pretty much did what they wanted to do, and started to target each other with gusto, much as their bosses did when Declan Gavin’s gang split after the Holiday Inn seizure. However, due to legal reasons their identities cannot be revealed. They are all in their late teens or early twenties. The leader of the three that were aligned to the Thompson side is known as ‘Mad Dog’, from Crumlin. He was the individual who had been Freddie Thompson’s driver and who had convinced Thompson to have Jonathan Dunne murder Ian Kenny in July 2007, because he had been involved in a bitter feud with Kenny. The second man is also from Crumlin. He is the son of one of Martin ‘The Viper’ Foley’s closest friends. The third is a relation of one of Freddie Thompson’s close associates. On the Rattigan side two of the young men are from Drimnagh, one of whom is distantly related to John and Noel Roche, who were both murdered in the feud. The third young member is from Crumlin.

  The six men also have their own followers and junior gang members and there is a total of twenty individuals in the second generation of Crumlin-Drimnagh criminals. Unlike the Thompson and Rattigan gangs, who preferred drug dealing to carrying out actual physical crime, the youngsters saw big potential in robbing jewellery stores. There was a spate of armed robberies on jewellers from Dublin to Galway, with members of both sides being arrested and charged with armed robberies. From the summer of 2008 onwards, this next generation of criminals really came into its own and went on the rampage, making sure that Gardaí did not get a second’s respite investigating a feud that really should have been coming to a natural end, because most of the main players were either in prison or dead. In July 2008, it seemed – for a day at least – that the youngsters would get their chance to take over one side of the gang completely, when a rumour started to circulate that Freddie Thompson had been murdered in Spain. Several informers contacted their Garda handlers with the news, and Gardaí made informal contact with police in Spain, but there was no truth to the stories. It is believed that Thompson himself spread the rumour as some sort of tactical ploy to see what the reaction would be back in Dublin to his death. The youngsters would just have to bide their time before taking over completely.

  In August 2008, the Gardaí suffered a very public humiliation when a top secret and highly sensitive intelligence document containing the names, addresses, photographs and car registrations of twenty feuding criminals was stolen from the back of a Garda squad car that was parked at Blackrock Garda Station in South Dublin. The highly-restricted Criminal Intelligence Bulletin was stolen from the car when it was parked in the private car park at the station. Gardaí in the Organised Crime Unit had compiled the confidential dossier after learning that both sides of the feud had been renting houses in some of the most salubrious areas of Dublin, including Stepaside, Blackrock, Leopardstown and Dun Laoghaire. The houses were being used as ‘safe’ accommodation, and the criminals had no idea that Gardaí knew where they were. The list was compiled so that local Gardaí would not be surprised if any of the safe houses were attacked. Garda management was also concerned that innocent people living in houses next to the ones being rented by gang members – or new tenants in houses previously occupied by the criminals – could also inadvertently get caught up in the feuding if their home was pipe bombed or shot at in error. The intelligence report was circulated to detectives around South Dublin stations with a warning that it should not be left where members of the public could access it. The car was left unattended while a detective went into Blackrock station to do some work, and by sheer coincidence, the younger brother of one of the next generation of criminals saw the empty squad car and decided to break into it. As luck would have it, he happened upon the list, which was a veritable treasure trove of information on both the Thompson gang and the Rattigan gang. The names and updated addresses would be highly valuable to the opposite side and it would pay thousands of euro to know the locations of their rivals. Gardaí have little doubt that the list was photocopied and distributed to the Thompson gang to be acted on, but once the story of the break-in appeared in the Sunday Tribune, the criminals knew their addresses had been compromised, and, nearly without exception, moved away from the addresses. The following week Ken Foy, Crime Correspondent of the Irish Daily Star Sunday, received a copy of the dossier in the post. The sender said he was from an organisation called ‘Black Watch’. Gardaí have no doubt that the document was sent to Foy so it would be published and the Gardaí embarrassed. Foy printed non-sensitive extracts of the report, and his newspaper received a sizeable circulation boost in the process. In a statement to the Sunday Tribune when the story broke, the then Garda Press Officer said: ‘The Gardaí are aware that a criminal intelligence document is in the possession of a member of the public. The document was compiled for Garda use only and contains aspects of criminal intelligence, including some personal information. Gardaí are endeavouring to contact those named in the document, and appropriate advice will be given. The circumstances in which this document ended up outside of the Garda organisation are being actively investigated.’ Nothing ever came of the investigation though.

  During this period Freddie was frequently travelling between Ireland and Spain. He even grew a full beard in a futile effort to avoid recognition. On 19 August, he was stopped in a car, along with his brother Ritchie, on Dolphin Road in Drimnagh. He was wearing a bulletproof vest and joked with Gardaí about his new look. With not a hair on his head and a massive beard, his attempt to go incognito back-fired, and he was more recognisable than ever. He soon shaved the beard off and went back to his tried and tested wig.

  ***

  On 9 September 2008, Christopher ‘Git’ McDonagh was watching TV in the bedroom of his home at Woodavens Estate in Ronanstown, West Dublin, when he was startled by the sound of the front door being kicked in. It was just before midnight and by the time the twenty-seven-year-old realised what was happening, he was confronted by two gunmen who opened fire on him, with one bullet hitting him in the chest. McDonagh’s girlfriend was lying in bed next to him. She ran for her life into the next bedroom. The father-of-one desperately tried to escape and stumbled across the room to the window, where he jumped onto the porch of the front door before leaping onto the bonnet of a car parked in the driveway. When the two shooters saw him flee they took the sensible option and ran down the stairs into the front garden. Because he had been badly injured after he was shot, McDonagh could only manage to crawl away on his knees and hadn’t even made it past the front gate. One of the gunmen ran over to him and fired four shots into his head from close range. He died just minutes later, and the two gunmen escaped in a waiting car, which was driven by a third man. The car had been fitted with a taxi plate so as to not attract people’s attention while it was casing the area to check if McDonagh was home. The shooting took place just metres from Ronanstown Garda Station, but by the time officers arrived at the scene, the car was gone, in the direction of Lucan. McDonagh’s girlfriend was obviously extremely traumatised by seeing her partner murdered in front of her and she was comforte
d by friends and relations. The day after the murder, McDonagh’s mother left a floral tribute of red and pink roses in the front garden with a note saying: ‘All my love my son... I love you, Mam. XXX’

  ‘Git’ McDonagh was a second-hand car dealer and owned a company that operated out of premises on the Naas Road. McDonagh was involved in criminality and was suspected of laundering drugs money through his company. He was also suspected of associating with several well-known criminal gangs, including Freddie Thompson’s and Karl Breen’s. McDonagh was originally from Raphoe Road in Crumlin, and had only moved to Ronanstown four months before his murder. He was well known to Gardaí. In 2006, he handed over €60,000 to the CAB, after he could not account for €40,000 in cash that was found in his possession when Gardaí stopped him in Crumlin in 2004. In 2005, he had been given a three-year suspended sentence for possession of a firearm. Both Gardaí and McDonagh knew that his life was in danger, and he had been told that he was being targeted on several occasions before his death. McDonagh obviously took these warnings very seriously and had installed an expensive, high-quality CCTV system in his home, and was paranoid about his personal safety.

  Christopher McDonagh’s fate might have been sealed on 31 July 2006, when members of the OCU, led by Detective Superintendent Dominic Hayes, stopped two cars at Browns Barn near Tallaght. One of the vehicles contained 350 kg of cannabis resin – the haul had a street value of €2.7 million Four men were detained at the scene and ‘Git’ McDonagh was arrested later in Terenure. As is commonplace, several criminal gangs had clubbed together to buy the cannabis shipment. Among those involved in the deal was the Thompson gang, the mob led by Karl Breen and the gang that had once been led by ‘Marlo’ Hyland in Finglas. McDonagh was told to drive out to Dublin 22 to act as a scout around the area and to make sure that no Gardaí were around carrying out surveillance. The drugs run was so secretive that McDonagh was only told a short time before where the drop was going to take place. Twenty minutes after he was told, the Gardaí moved in and arrested the five men. Luckily – or unluckily – for McDonagh, he was not near the location of the drugs bust when he was lifted, so he was released without charge. The fact that McDonagh escaped prosecution, when three of the other four men were charged, coupled with the fact that the arrests had taken place just minutes after he had been told where the drugs delivery was taking place, obviously led the criminals behind the shipment to put two and two together and declare that he was a Garda informant. McDonagh swore that he was not a ‘tout’ but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The drugs syndicate would obviously want a scapegoat for the Browns Barn seizure and he was going to be it. After the seizure, McDonagh told several Gardaí that he knew he was being blamed for the captured haul and would be shot because of it. McDonagh was never a Garda informant and was not in fact the source of the information received by officers on the day of the bust. Following the seizure, McDonagh concentrated on his used car business and stayed away from dealing drugs. Because he knew his life was under threat, he was ducking and diving and making sure that he did all he could to remain alive. He stopped associating with gangs and probably thought that he had escaped vengeance, as over two years had passed since the Browns Barn seizure. However, two years later his past caught up with him, and revenge, when it came, was ice cold.

  Despite not being an informant, ‘Git’ McDonagh had been a marked man since the day he avoided the drugs rap. The fact that he had only received a suspended sentence after he was found guilty of possession of a firearm didn’t help his reputation as a supposed ‘tout’. The fact is that several people wanted him dead and there were several gangs in the frame for the murder. McDonagh had been close enough to Freddie Thompson, but detectives favoured the gang that had been led by Karl Breen prior to his jailing as the most likely to have taken McDonagh out. One of the members of the Breen gang, 36-year-old Michael Hendrick, was arrested by Gardaí on suspicion of withholding information in relation to McDonagh’s murder but was released without charge. Then Michael Hendrick was murdered in February 2009, as part of an internal gang dispute.

  Superintendent Pat Clavin led the investigation into McDonagh’s murder, assisted by DI Richard McDonnell and his staff at Ronanstown Garda Station. The officers received a break when the CCTV camera installed at McDonagh’s home captured images of the two gunmen. Because the shooting took place at night, the pictures were not very clear, but when officers studied the evidence, they were all in agreement that the stills looked incredibly like Freddie Thompson, although the shooter had been wearing a balaclava. A man who was the same height and weight as Thompson was identifiable, although the images were not strong enough to bring any charges. Gardaí from Crumlin called to Ronanstown Garda Station to offer a second opinion, and they too were in agreement that the stills looked uncannily like Thompson. Detectives in the ‘G’ District had initially been very sceptical when Freddie Thompson’s gang had been mentioned as being possibly involved in the murder. Thompson had been involved in the group purchase of the seized drugs, but his exposure had been less than other criminals, so it was thought that he just simply moved on and got over it. The Browns Barn incident was hardly the first time that his drugs had been seized by Gardaí. ‘Touts’ were then leaned on for information and several people came back to say that the Thompson gang – although maybe not Freddie himself – may have in fact carried out the murder because they owed money to another gang because of another Garda seizure. Murdering McDonagh was a way of significantly reducing the debt.

  The investigation into McDonagh’s murder is still very much open, and Gardaí called in the technical experts to help them catch his killer. They used a UK firm to try to enhance the CCTV images. The system used by this company is tried and tested by British police forces, and has proved successful in UK court cases, but has yet to be tested before the Irish judiciary. The system can measure the facial features of the killer, the length of his nose and ears, for example, or the distance from his nose to his chin. This information can then be cross-referenced against any suspects in the case, and if it does not confirm the identity of the person caught on camera, it will at least eliminate possible suspects. In mid-2010 the Gardaí received a hammer blow when the UK firm informed them that the state-of-the-art technology could not determine whether the man who escaped from the murder scene was in fact Freddie Thompson. Although the CCTV footage was good, it was simply not of sufficient quality to either implicate or clear Thompson. Detectives were bitterly disappointed but not greatly surprised. They always believed it would be good old-fashioned police work that would lead them to McDonagh’s killer. Unfortunately, because of the length of time that has passed since Git was gunned down, it now seems unlikely that his murderer will ever be brought to justice unless somebody comes forward with new information.

  Gardaí policing the day-to-day feud made a very interesting discovery on 29 September 2008, when they raided a luxury apartment in Foxrock after receiving a tip-off that it was being used to store drugs. The detectives from Crumlin and Sundrive Road Garda Stations found quantities of cocaine, cannabis and a weighing scales, as well as documentation about a property that was being rented in the Castleknock area. The registered renter of the apartment in Foxrock was a twenty-nine-year-old from Rathfarnham, who went by three different aliases. He was a known member of the Thompson gang, and Gardaí believed that he was the frontman used to rent properties on behalf of the gang. The apartment in Foxrock cost €2,800 a month to rent, and investigations led Gardaí to discover that this individual had rented, using three different aliases and false documentation, at least sixteen apartments throughout South Dublin. It was in these apartments that the criminals, whose names had been accidentally leaked in the Garda intelligence bulletin, had stayed in. A number of properties were raided, but all Gardaí found were empty spaces with no personal belongings, except, in almost every case, two bin liners full of top of the range Gucci, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger clothes. The criminals were obviously well prepared if
they had to make a quick getaway for any reason. They would simply abandon the apartments after spending a few weeks there and walk away. This was despite the fact that six months’ rent had often been paid in cash to the landlord up front. The only thing that would even have given a hint that they had ever been occupied was the mountains of takeaway cartons and empty pizza boxes stacked in the kitchens. After searching the address in Castleknock, Gardaí found 2 kg of cocaine worth about €100,000, as well as weighing scales. The only other item found on the premises was a pair of size four shoes, the size worn by the frontman. He was an elusive, dapper sort. Although he had tiny feet, his mouth was big and his silver tongue was well able to fool landlords into thinking he was a businessman and not a gangster. The man was subsequently charged with possession of the cocaine. He is currently before the courts, so cannot be named for legal reasons.