by John Mooney
Gilligan would later taunt Meehan about the botched assassination. Gilligan believed assassinating his opponents was an essential part of being a criminal. ‘That’s the last time I’ll send you to do anything. You couldn’t hit an elephant, even if it stood still in front of you,’ he roared afterwards. The next time he wanted someone shot, he would hire a professional killer who wouldn’t miss.
Responsibility for the attack was blamed on the IRA by the media and the Garda. Gilligan’s gang didn’t even feature, which was what he wanted. If Gilligan thought he had escaped the IRA inquiries, however, he was mistaken. His now visible enormous wealth came to their attention.
The IRA had started making their own inquiries into Gilligan. The story recounted to them was too far-fetched for most to believe. Gilligan, according to just about every hoodlum in Dublin, was supplying tonnes of cannabis to dealers across Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. His clients included loyalist paramilitaries, the INLA and just about every major Irish criminal. Not only did he command what was a sophisticated criminal organisation but he also had corrupted police, bribed officials and even recruited one or two of the IRA’s own members into his fold. They simply couldn’t believe it.
In mid-April, one of Gilligan’s couriers introduced a friend of his to the boss. Russell Warren ran a small industrial cleaning company called D&R. The company cleaned newly built houses and apartment blocks. It wasn’t a very lucrative business but it paid the bills, keeping his head above water. Warren lived with his wife Deborah and her mother, Maureen Cooley. Gilligan’s courier had mentioned Gilligan’s name before, saying he knew him through betting. Warren thought nothing of the introduction. A few weeks later, Gilligan’s courier arrived at his door with a bag of cash. ‘[Named courier] told me it was John Gilligan’s money and it was money from betting. It developed from there,’ he would later admit.
Warren was quickly inducted into the business of money laundering. The courier would deliver cash to his house on Heatherview Lawn in Tallaght. He would count it into bundles and repackage it neatly into a sports bag. Within weeks Warren was delivering cash to Schiphol Airport where Gilligan or Baltus would collect it.
‘At first I was told this money was from betting and the sales of smuggled cigarettes and tobacco. But as time went on and I got more involved I realised that this money was money from the sale of drugs.’
By this time it was too late. He knew too much. The amounts of cash he counted were enormous. ‘When I first started there used to be IR£20,000 to IR£30,000 in it. This figure would be the lowest amount. It would go as high as IR£160,000 sometimes, but most of the time it would be around IR£70,000.’
Warren wasn’t cut out for crime. Instead of keeping his family in the dark about his new sideline, he inducted them into the business. ‘I started to bring money to my father’s and mother’s house and I asked them to count it for me. The reason I asked them to count it was because it took me about two to three hours to count it on my own.’ His parents never asked where the money came from. ‘They were glad to get the few bob,’ he said.
[1] Evidence presented to the Special Criminal Court in the trial of John Gilligan.
[2] Evidence presented to the Special Criminal Court in the trial of John Gilligan.
[3] Evidence presented to the Special Criminal Court in the trial of John Gilligan.
Chapter 11
Pineapple
‘He was no criminal mastermind, just the right fella in the right place at the right time.’
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER KEVIN CARTY ON GILLIGAN
At 8.50 p.m. on 17 March, the feast of St Patrick, Gilligan walked into the Scheveningen Casino in downtown The Hague. Beside him were Meehan and one of his runners. Gilligan loved gambling and was clearly in his element.
To the casino’s patrons, he was an Irish businessman away from home and out celebrating St Patrick’s night. The casino was packed to capacity, which allowed the three to blend in before going their own ways. Gilligan sat down at one table, Meehan strolled over to another and the associate took a seat at a third. Gilligan smiled at the card dealer, produced 150,000 guilders in 1,000-guilder notes and said he wished to buy gambling tokens. Meehan and the associate did the same.
Perched on a stool and sitting with thousands of pounds’ worth of gambling chips within arm’s reach, Gilligan watched the game. However, he didn’t gamble; in fact he didn’t place any bet. This drew the attention of the security staff who kept him under discreet observation. One of the security team went off and reviewed the security footage to see who had arrived in Gilligan’s company. Now aware that the three were clearly not there to gamble, the security men trained the casino’s closed-circuit television system on them. Slowly, one by one, Gilligan, Meehan and the associate left their respective tables, taking their chips with them. None had placed any bets. An hour later the three regrouped.
Later that evening, at 12.10 a.m., Meehan walked to one of the cash desks and presented tokens worth 250,000 guilders. He politely asked the cashier to have his ‘winnings’ transferred to a bank account. When requested by a player, the casino will transfer gambling profits to private accounts. To avail of this service, the player must submit written documents prior to gambling establishing his identity and bank account. When Meehan made the request, the cashier played for time while more checks were carried out. The security team in the casino confirmed that Gilligan, Meehan and the associate had either not played or hardly at all. Hence, the gambling chips were not gambling profits. A more senior member of staff stood in and explained to Meehan that the casino was unable to fulfil his request. Because he was not that clever, Meehan couldn’t understand that the staff member was actually asking him to leave. Meehan persevered. If the casino could not wire the money to his bank, it could hold it on deposit for him. This request was also rejected, as deposits can only be made if it is reasonable to assume that the money to be deposited has been acquired by gambling. The staff member, who was by this stage highly suspicious, then suggested that the gambling chips be cashed in the same form as they were purchased. Gilligan, surrounded by the casino’s security team, watched as the tokens were cashed in 1,000-guilder bills. After their failed efforts to launder the money, they left.
If Meehan’s request had been granted, he would have obtained a seemingly legal origin for 250,000 guilders by means of his bank statement. Alternatively, if the casino had granted his second request, he would have been able to prove at a later date that the money came from the casino deposit. Since only profits made by gambling are deposited, a seemingly legal origin could have been utilised here too.
Convinced that Meehan and his companions had wanted to procure a fake legal origin for the money, which they suspected had been acquired illegally, the casino’s management decided to report the incident. All institutions where cash changes hands in Holland are obliged to report unusual or suspicious transactions to the Dutch Disclosure Office for Unusual Transactions (MOT). Despite its bureaucratic sounding name, the MOT is efficient in combating money laundering. The unit investigates all reported transactions and those deemed to be suspicious are referred to the public prosecutor’s office. The report submitted by the casino caught the attention of the unit, who decided to run Gilligan’s, Meehan’s and the associate’s name past the Dutch National Criminal Intelligence Department. This is part of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS-CRI), which in turn is part of the National Police Force. The check did not yield any results.
The next step was to consult Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organisation, which is a world-wide exchange for police information. Established in Vienna in 1923, it was reconstituted in Paris in 1946, focusing on terrorism, forgery and the narcotics trade. Currently, it serves more than 150 member nations, providing information about international criminals and helping to apprehend them. The MOT sent a file on
the case through to the Dutch police and waited. Two weeks later, Interpol returned the file plus more.
Meehan, and strangely not Gilligan, was flagged as a criminal/drug dealer. Consultation of the Interpol register followed Meehan as No. 6.221.0.0/95.10122. The file contained a letter from the Netherlands Interpol to the Border Guarding Unit of Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport dated 19 August 1995. It said, among other things, that Interpol Dublin had supplied the information that Meehan, born on 7 April 1965 (also using birth dates 8 April 1966 and 8 April 1960), was a well-known drug dealer.
Now what was originally treated as an unusual transaction was upgraded to a suspicious one. Given that Meehan was regarded as a drug trafficker, albeit not one with a criminal conviction for drugs, the file was passed to the National Public Prosecutor, then to the Financial Police Desk or FinPol, a unit within the Dutch Criminal Intelligence Service. The CIS asked the MOT to gather more information.
Officials there started trawling through bank accounts and reports dating back to 1994. The bulk of transactions took place at an exchange office of the GWK bank in the Hall of Amsterdam Central Station where Gilligan and an associate converted British, Scottish and Irish pounds into Dutch guilders. The associate was linked to two transactions in which he changed foreign currencies into guilders worth IR£845,787.
Gilligan, as the MOT correctly suspected, had laundered a good deal more. From 1994, he had changed foreign currencies which converted into 3,535,430 guilders in 13 transactions. Further investigations showed he used two passports, which are demanded as proof of identity, to carry out the exchanges. The passports, like everything else, turned out to be fake. Each carried a different date of birth, 24 March 1952 and 29 March 1952, but gave the same passport number.
Other members of the gang were drawn into the MOT inquiry. In one of the transactions reported by the exchange office in Amsterdam Square, another one of Gilligan’s associates showed up. Security checks were carried out on his name and date of birth. He had used his own passport bearing his name. The GWK bank reported that this man had made 37 exchange transactions in the period from 1994 to March 1996. Like the others, he had changed foreign currencies, mainly British, Scottish and Irish pounds, totalling IR£10,297,025, into guilders.
Gilligan was now compromised. Not only was the MOT investigating his attempts to launder cash at the casino, but now they were examining the transactions that occurred in the GWK bank. The MOT requested details of all transactions carried out at the times when Gilligan’s gang changed currency, particularly those which exchanged British, Scottish and Irish pounds at the GWK branch in the Hall of Amsterdam Central Station. The names of Baltus, Djorai and Rahman showed up.
The MOT knew of Baltus. They cross-referenced their own index files to find that he had changed large amounts of Irish punts into guilders on a regular basis in Amsterdam. Aszal Houssein Djorai was a Dutch criminal who was born in Paramaribo and was living in Gouden in Kent. Transactions by Djorai had also been reported by the MOT as suspicious. Since 1994, the MOT had recorded 5 transactions by Djorai that were regarded as unusual and 27 by Baltus. In nearly all cases it concerned transactions of British, Scottish and Irish pounds, again exchanged in the Hall of Amsterdam Central Station. In the six months prior to the investigation, he had changed Irish currency worth a total of IR£2.7 million into Dutch guilders.
In his negotiations with the Revenue Commiss-ioners, Kevin Carty had sensed few signs of sympathy. Both he and Murphy left each meeting with the impression that it was all a waste of time. No matter what was said, the Revenue made one thing very clear, information relating to any citizen’s tax was secret and confidential regardless of whether the subject was a criminal or not. Ministerial intervention, specifically from Owen and her ministerial colleagues, had failed to break what was clearly an impasse.
Carty was by nature a shrewd policeman and strategist who possessed an uncanny ability to foresee problems before they presented themselves. To combat crime, he knew the tax authorities had to come on board. Instead of feeling demoralised by the negotiations, he decided to set up an investigation that would involve Revenue and Social Welfare investigators.
Since joining An Garda Síochána, Carty had worked almost exclusively in the intelligence sphere, mainly against the IRA. A week after the IRA declared its cease fire in August 1994, Carty had been transferred from Wexford, into the Central Detective Unit in Dublin. CDU, as the unit was code-named, incorporated the drugs squad, serious crime squad and fraud squad. One week into that job, he set about restructuring the unit, breaking down old barriers. Instead of responding to crimes after they had been committed, he encouraged his officers to be pro-active, to recruit informants to glean enough evidence to make arrests and secure convictions. One of his more novel ideas was the creation of a money laundering investigations unit within the fraud squad.
The Chief, as he became known, surrounded himself with men he hand-picked for various skills. Austin McNally, a superintendent who was stationed in County Wicklow, was transferred to CDU. The two knew each other of old and, most importantly of all, McNally understood what Carty wanted to accomplish. In the next four months, CDU secured dozens of arrests and disbanded criminal networks using informants and covert surveillance to achieve its aims. In spite of the successes, Carty believed that a separate drugs squad, which operated independently, was required. His philosophy was that to tackle drug dealing, the force had to distinguish between street dealers and major players. Street dealers should be targeted by local drugs units. Criminals who made the jump into the international scene required an international response, for they were behind the flow of drugs entering the State.
‘We looked at how the drugs problem was being tackled and well, frankly, it wasn’t working. We needed to be proactive, to go out looking for evidence,’ he said.
Garda management accepted his advice and naturally appointed Carty to head a new anti-narcotics squad modelled on his own recommendations. At the request of Commissioner Patrick Culligan, Carty was given the arduous task of fronting the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) a year later. The move was part of an overall police strategy aimed at reducing drug trafficking. Within the ranks of the police, it was now time for Carty to show what he was made of.
It seemed clear to him what he needed to do because the Revenue’s position was unequivocal. If the Revenue didn’t wish to have the gardaí joining them, they could join the gardaí by way of invitation. Bearing in mind that the Government wanted the two sides to bond, Carty took it upon himself to invite the Customs National Drugs Team, which is a branch of the Revenue, to join, rather than assist, an investigation, the subject of which Carty himself was becoming all too familiar with.
The now awesome criminal cartel run by Gilligan, through a series of incidental timings, was brought to the GNDU’s attention from the moment of its inception. Agent handlers were filing reports, which at the time were viewed with a degree of scepticism, stating that Gilligan through Meehan was smuggling the bulk of all hashish sold in Dublin, Cork and possibly Limerick.
Carty’s clever decision to set up a Money Laundering Investigation Unit within the framework of the revamped CDU now validated itself. His decision hadn’t generated much publicity or support at the time, but it came into its own the following year when the working elements of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act came into force. This made it obligatory for banks to report suspicious transactions. When it did, the financial intelligence squad was literally inundated with reports from the banks on Gilligan, Geraldine, their children, Brian Meehan and the rest of the gang.
More reports arrived via Europol, the European Law Enforcement Organisation. Agreed in the terms of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union of 7 February 1992, Europol’s aim is to improve the effectiveness of the police in member countries in preventing and combating terrorism, drug trafficking and other forms of serious international organised crime. But like everything else
created by the EU parliament, it took a further two years to get it up and running. On 3 January 1994, it opened its first offices in Raamweg, a leafy suburb in The Hague, where the Europol Drugs Unit, code-named EDU, is based. This office facilitates the exchange of data, personal and non-personal, between Europol liaison officers otherwise known as ELOs. It was from the Irish Desk that the reports on Gilligan’s international financial dealings were dispatched to Dublin.
The reports confirmed what many were starting to suspect. Gilligan was not pumping all his cash into Jessbrook—the construction costs represented only a fraction of what he was earning. Although he couldn’t read or write properly, had a limited view of life and didn’t strike those who knew him as in any way intelligent, he had transcended himself. He was no longer a Dublin criminal who occasionally did business in Europe. He was now a European criminal who did business in Ireland. The financial reports confirmed this. These proved that he was banking money in Austria, Holland, Britain, France and Belgium. Carty, never one to underestimate or overestimate criminals, was made aware of this intelligence. He approached his superior, Deputy Commissioner Noel Conroy, head of crime and security, seeking permission to mount his joint investigation. It was a bold move because it broke with tradition. Permission was granted.
At 11 a.m. on the morning of 23 April, Carty delivered a speech to a team of some 50 detectives gathered in the conference room that adjoins the GNDU offices on the fourth floor of Harcourt Square Garda Station. To Carty’s left stood McNally. The head of the money laundering investigations unit, Detective Inspector Terry McGinn, was present. At that time, she knew more about Gilligan’s money laundering activities and wealth than perhaps anyone else. She had examined case-loads of financial documents, she had analysed his modus operandi, cross-referenced suspects’ names and investigated them one hundred times over. But she might as well have had her hands tied behind her back, for to try to press charges would have proved futile without knowing details of Gilligan’s tax affairs.
