by John Mooney
Traynor could always be relied upon to seize an opportunity and he embraced Gilligan’s idea. With Traynor in position, the gangster’s next move was to ingratiate himself with Dublin’s criminal hierarchy, some of whom were unaware that he was a free man. He was also looking for work, any means of raising cash.
His first port of call was to the General, the undisputed No. 1 gangster in Ireland. The two men knew each other of old, having taken part together in several robberies. They were first introduced by George Royal about three months after Cahill heisted the O’Connor’s jewellery factory in Harold’s Cross in July 1983, a crime that netted him IR£2 million. Cahill and Gilligan, helped by one of the latter’s Ballyfermot neighbours, George Mitchell, hijacked the ADC cigarette factory in Johnstown, County Kildare. They got away with IR£100,000 worth of cigarettes, which Gilligan fenced.
‘Cahill didn’t trust Gilligan because he was always shouting his mouth off, giving orders, telling people what to do. He was an arrogant little bastard. But Cahill knew he had the contacts to sell anything and that’s why he worked with him,’ said Royal, who participated in the ADC heist.
From his cell in Portlaoise Prison, Gilligan had watched Cahill’s reputation reach staggering heights; Cahill fascinated the press and public. Newspapers devoted pages upon pages to the elusive criminal, declaring him unstoppable, a cunning genius who not only outwitted the law but taunted it. The General was the ultimate antihero.
The truth, which Gilligan and everyone else who worked with Cahill knew, was far different. Cahill was a fat, balding diabetic. He had been caught carrying out an armed robbery early in his career but escaped incarceration through a legal technicality. The truth was that he should have been in jail when he committed the catalogue of crimes for which he later became famous. Yet he was a dangerous adversary. Anyone who got in the way was shot or threatened. Dr Jim Donovan, the head of the Government’s Forensic Laboratory, was the subject of two assassination attempts. His first escape happened in December 1981 when a bomb planted under his car failed to detonate. Weeks later, in January 1982, he wasn’t so lucky. His left leg was completely blown off when his car fireballed, blown up by a booby trap.
‘He did it to impress other criminals,’ believes Donovan. ‘It would have been like another feather in his cap. It’s only when misfortune, pain and suffering come to your door that you know his reality.’
Always mindful of a bullet with his name written on it, Cahill told Gilligan he was planning on early retirement. He still had in his possession parts of the Beit art collection and asked whether Gilligan would like to fence the paintings. With his scruffy dress code, hard accent and small stature, Gilligan made an unlikely art dealer. The General himself had failed on numerous occasions to sell the collection and in his endeavours to get a monetary return from the theft, he was nearly arrested in undercover police operations mounted by the gardaí in conjunction with Scotland Yard. Before his incarceration, Gilligan had shown himself to be able to sell anything, so why not paintings? He accepted the offer.
But Cahill also had hard cash at his disposal and offered to loan Gilligan any amount to set himself up in the drugs distribution business. The General accepted Traynor as a guarantor. Gilligan asked for IR£600,000. Cahill said he’d be in touch.
A stroke of good fortune then came Gilligan’s way when one of Traynor’s contacts acquired hundreds of stolen bank drafts and cheques, worth hard cash to anyone who could launder them. Just weeks out of prison, Gilligan was strapped for cash and offered to rub the drafts through a friend from Tallaght, John Bolger.
Bolger was a fool of a man. He was greedy, asinine and incapable of bettering himself; in short, he wanted to get rich quick through crime. He was 31 years old and married with three children. He had not accomplished much else. He had several convictions, mainly for petty crime, but saw himself as a serious player in the underworld. He knew Cahill, and this was his only claim to fame.
When Gilligan asked him to launder or sell the consignment of stolen bank drafts, he could smell the money. Gilligan knew Bolger of old and made him an irresistible offer. The bank drafts made an ideal commodity for fraud. All you have to do is either lodge them in an account or cash them. Gilligan wanted Bolger to find a buyer for the drafts or to set up a deal whereby another firm would get the drafts cashed. They would then return a percentage of the proceeds to Bolger who would pass it on to Gilligan. The trick was to convince people with legitimate bank accounts to lodge the drafts. Bolger accepted the deal and approached the Provisional IRA leadership in Dublin offering the blank drafts.
‘He arrived up to the house with copies of these drafts offering them to us. He wanted us to either buy them for a fee or launder them and give him a cut of the money,’ recalled one IRA figure. ‘I was looking at the drafts, then Bolger mentioned Gilligan’s name. We told him to fuck off. There were suspicions that Gilligan was an informer. We weren’t getting involved.’
Drafts in hand, Bolger went to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He approached the organisation’s commander in Dublin. This man knew as much about left-wing politics as Gilligan did. He was a bully and, under his control, the INLA became nothing more than a criminal outfit available for hire. It was a perfect match. Bolger and the INLA cut a deal whereby all three parties would get a third of the profits.
All the paramilitaries had to do was recruit locals to lodge the drafts in their bank accounts and withdraw the cash. The deal was sweet for everybody concerned. Gilligan took a back seat, content to allow Bolger to front the operation. Because bank drafts are effectively cash, once they were lodged, the account owner could draw money from his credited account without having to wait for the draft to be cleared. Bouncing or kiting drafts was all about sleight of hand. The immersion stage where the draft is passed over is vital. If the person passing the draft looks penniless or nervous, the conspiracy comes unstuck.
The fraudsters also had to convince those lodging the drafts that they would inevitably be arrested because their identities would be exposed. Gilligan prepared for this, telling Bolger to instruct the people lodging the drafts to have a cover story when cautioned by the police. Under no circumstances was his name to be mentioned; he was paranoid about being implicated for fear of ending up in Portlaoise. Then again, the INLA felt confident that no one would betray them for fear of reprisal. And they were right—no one did.
The drafts were put through a cycle of transactions to obscure their origins. No sooner would one of Gilligan’s stolen drafts be lodged than it would be endorsed and cashed at another location. By the time the bank discovered the draft was fraudulent, the identity of the people who lodged it was obscured, or they would have prepared a cover story for investigating police officers.
The scam got under way with Gilligan, Bolger and the INLA earning thousands between them. It was the perfect crime. There were no victims—just the banking institutions. Everyone was happy. Everyone was making money. In the following weeks, Gilligan and Traynor got to know the INLA staff. The two criminals were firmly apolitical; they knew nothing of left-wing politics, republicanism or the vicious internal feuds within the Official IRA that had caused the birth of the INLA. Nor were they interested, for that matter.
Gilligan, though, was at least able to converse with the paramilitaries on their own level. He had served his sentence alongside influential republicans, one of whom was Dominic McGlinchey, a man with an unequalled reputation for extreme violence. In his dealings with the INLA, Gilligan came to understand the concept of a cell-structured organisation and the importance of staying three steps removed from the scene of a crime. All this was irrelevant, though. Only one thing was important as far as Gilligan and Traynor were concerned. It was brutally simple: the INLA were a force to be reckoned with, they would do business and they could be manipulated. This prevailing wisdom would, in time, bring about an unholy alliance, with Gilligan and Traynor becoming de
facto commanders of the INLA in Dublin.
The scam also brought Bolger prosperity he could only have dreamed of. The INLA were, in theory, involved in an effort to generate cash for their armed struggle north of the border.
‘It became the biggest joke. I’d say a fifth of what they made was redirected to Belfast,’ remarked one of the team. ‘If they got IR£10,000, they would send a message to GHQ in Belfast and someone would be sent to collect the cash in Drogheda, which is close to the border. But Dublin [Brigade] were just spending it on themselves. There were about six of them involved and they were all living it up. They were buying clothes, watches and drugs with the cash. I remember one occasion, where they turned up with a couple of hundred left out of IR£10,000. There was no discipline in the organisation because McGlinchey had just been shot and no one was in charge. It was a free-for-all. And Gilligan capitalised on it.’
Gilligan trusted Bolger to the degree that he allowed him a free rein. Once he wasn’t costing him money or inviting attention from the gardaí, the boss, as Bolger named him, was blithe. He had more pressing business interests preoccupying his mind—drugs.
There is no doubt that Gilligan thought long and hard before taking his first step into the lucrative world of drug trafficking. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, he was scared of the consequences, particularly fearful of the IRA and the odium that drug dealing attracts. He had seen people overdose from heroin and children turn themselves into addicts, selling their bodies for their next fix. For all his immorality, Gilligan’s mind told him to say no, but his greed urged him to say yes. The lure of easy money for Gilligan was more addictive than heroin. Cahill, as promised, had produced the IR£600,000 loan, allowing Gilligan and Traynor to enter the big league.
Traynor was at the time already importing small consignments of heroin from Liverpool, later sold through a network of dealers protected by the Tallaght Brigade of the INLA. Gilligan, with an intense craving for power, saw this as small time. If nothing else, his instinct told him it would end in failure. The threat of the gardaí didn’t perturb him much; it was the IRA that did. Should his name be associated with heroin, of all drugs, he would be a target. Traynor, ever the fool, could not see his partner’s logic.
Gilligan had other plans. He believed it would be better to change the product from heroin to cannabis or cocaine and start supplying the suppliers. The distinction was important as far as he was concerned. First, the gardaí rarely went after international traffickers, instead concentrating on jailing local dealers. His second reason was more practical; if Traynor kept importing heroin, he would inevitably cross swords with the IRA. Gilligan stood firm on this point, and Traynor conceded. Anyway, they had Cahill’s money to deal with the serious players.
In this whirlwind of crime, Gilligan went to the young criminals he had taken under his wing in Portlaoise Prison. They were now free men. They too found the capital a transformed city, bustling with business, money and new-found prosperity. Youth culture had undergone a transformation; dance culture was no longer an underground trend but the mainstream choice. The idea of a DJ playing to a frenzied crowd of clubbers dancing to the repetitive rhythm of hard house music under a canopy of strobe lights and flashing colours was the celebrated image. The music, which had a tempo slightly faster than the human heartbeat, was the driving force behind this new fashionable trend.
House music had first established itself in the gay clubs of New York where it became synonymous with a new drug called ecstasy. Methylene Dioxy Methamphetamine (MDMA), to give it its proper title, was originally invented for use as slimming pills in 1912 by two German scientists. In the late ’70s, pharmaceutical companies started selling it as a slimming tablet. Few used it to lose weight though. Instead, people out partying swallowed it because it made them want to dance. MDMA soon became an essential ingredient for the enjoyment of dance music, in much the same way that LSD became an intrinsic part of the ’60s hippie culture. The narcotic swept through Ireland, crossing the social divides, introducing teenagers to the notion of recreational drug use.
It was into this environment that Meehan was released. They flung themselves into the subculture, partying five nights a week to make up for lost time. Meehan, more than the others, was enamoured of the scene. For the first few months of his release he lived the high life. Clubbing and cocaine became his routine. Like the ecstasy pills he swallowed, he crossed the social divide and mixed, mingled with and bedded socialites. He supplied cheap cocaine to impressionable young women who, impressed by this new breed of gangster chic, were only too happy to return the favour between the sheets. ‘We’re talking about dozens of women here,’ one of his friends later remarked.
During such early nocturnal outings, Meehan met Peter Mitchell, a clumsy, overweight pusher from Summer Hill, in Dublin city, who was capitalising on the burgeoning dance economy. Ecstasy was earning him serious cash, far more business than he could handle. In the false belief that he could open a distribution ring in Crumlin through Meehan, he got him involved in the dealing, asking his advice and taking him into his confidence. Meehan, however, soon took control. Within months, he was flagged by Garda intelligence as one of the biggest dealers in the city.
Gilligan realised the drugs business operated through the people involved; the most prolific dealers, he realised, were the ones who always showed themselves adept at finding the people they needed. When he met Meehan, he outlined his future plan and enquired if he would be willing to sell hashish. He trusted Meehan. First, he had proved himself, having served time in Portlaoise Prison. That he was already dealing was an unexpected bonus. Gilligan could place himself at arm’s length from the product while reaping the rewards. Meehan readily agreed. All that was left for him to do was find a supplier.
Gilligan looked to Amsterdam. The city has a long history of broad-minded liberalism and toleration. Coffee shops serve cannabis, although many do not even sell alcohol. Prostitution is legal. But the Netherland’s liberalism has been worn thin by violation. The city of Amsterdam has through time become a Mecca for organised crime, a city where illicitness flourishes. Its location makes it a strategic point for smuggling to any part of Europe. The fact that Rotterdam is the largest entrepôt in Europe, with thousands of freight containers arriving each day, makes trafficking narcotics easier than in most ports.
In his life, Gilligan showed himself prone to proverbial good fortune. And it was a stroke of good luck that paved his way to the suppliers in Amsterdam. While he was endeavouring to get an introduction to a supplier, one of his associates in Dublin was arrested with a small consignment of hashish. Once he was charged, the associate thought it prudent to disengage from the drugs business, at least for the time being. But he offered to introduce Gilligan to his supplier.
His supplier’s name was Simon Rahman. He was born in the Paramaribo district to Moroccan immigrants and therefore spoke English with a slight Arabic accent. Trafficking in arms and hashish allowed him to climb the social ladder, buying an expensive house in the district of Meedervoot in The Hague. Although Gilligan didn’t know it at the time, Rahman represented the interests of a pan-European organisation that smuggled cannabis and guns from suppliers in Morocco and Tunisia via an assortment of routes into Europe. Several criminals, who like Gilligan bore the status of wealthy businessmen, controlled the organisation, which had representatives in Denmark, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and England.
A 32-year-old Dane who lived on Palmones Algeciras, a fashionable road in Madrid, held authority over the others. He dealt in cannabis by the tonnage. Naturally he was a wealthy man whose lifestyle was opulent. He owned all the toys—a BMW convertible and a yacht, and was, of course, married to a beautiful Spanish woman. The cartel had a man in Copenhagen. Another man, a robust 44-year-old from the tax-haven island of Curaçao, was the link in Belgium. He lived between two addresses to avoid surveillance. If he suspected the Belgium police were watching
him, he left his home in a small town on the Dutch-Belgium border and drove across the border into the Netherlands where he owned a modest apartment in the Heerlen district.
The Dane, though, was the boss. He sourced hashish from wherever he could. He bought from North Africans living on the Costa del Sol, and if they could not meet the demand, he would fly to Agadir in Morocco and buy directly from producers who farmed cannabis plants in remote villages in the mountains. If he could not bribe a trawler captain to smuggle the load across the Mediterranean, he would send it to the Gambia, where it would be concealed inside shipments of rice and smuggled directly to Rotterdam or Antwerp.
The associate arranged a meeting and Gilligan flew at once to Amsterdam. Rahman was more than willing to supply, and the two struck a deal that would see Gilligan buying up to 100 kilos of cannabis every second week at IR£1,200 a kilo. Rahman said he could package the cannabis whatever way he liked. He could also provide whatever documentation and invoices were required, but passage to Ireland was his client’s problem.
After he returned to Dublin, Gilligan set about finding a safe way of smuggling drugs into Dublin. Transporting hashish in articulated lorry containers, he believed, was a precarious method of smuggling. The chances of shipments being intercepted was high, given that any truck en route to Ireland would have to pass through Britain or France before clearing the Irish port authorities, thus doubling the risk.
Around the same time, he was given a chance introduction to a transport manager living in Cork. John Dunne was a 38-year-old married father of three from Middleton in County Cork. Dunne worked for a reputable freight company called Sea Bridge. He first crossed paths with Gilligan in the Silver Granite Pub in Palmerstown. Dunne was drinking with a friend when Gilligan walked in.[1]
