The mob known as ‘The Family’ have been listed as one of the top targets in the Garda’s fight against organised crime for 2021 as transport issues surrounding Covid-19 and Brexit hammer their supply and money-laundering chains.
The gang headed by drug dealer Brian Grendon have grown at an unprecedented level over the past five years and are now estimated to be wholesaling 50 kilos of heroin a-month in a business turning over €20 million a-year.
But the twin forces of the Garda’s Drug and Organised Crime Bureau and worsening transport problems due to border controls from Brexit and European coronavirus lockdowns are expected to chip away at profits.
Greedy trucker Thomas Maher worked for rival criminals in the Kinahan and Hutch mobs and had his illegal transport network back on the road delivering drugs, guns and cash within weeks of getting caught up in the probe into the death of 39 immigrants in the back of a container he once owned.
Maher was jailed this week for 14 years after pleading guilty to transporting cocaine from the Netherlands to Ireland via the UK and laundering cash.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he had used the encrypted phone network Encrochat to plan his black market transport for gangs across Ireland.
Officers say he would stop at nothing to keep the flow of cocaine, heroin and weapons flooding into Ireland even though he was caught up in the investigation into the death of the tragic Vietnamese workers who suffocated on their journey to a new life.
Man who laundered almost â¬350K for Kinahan Cartel jailed for five years
Sources believe much of the travel was to jet key members of the Kinahan and Byrne crime families from in and out of Ireland and their Costa del Sol boltholes
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