Dublin’s gangland feud erupts in bullets and bloodshed as kingpin’s brother killed in revenge attack
The blood-letting focuses on the international drug-trafficking empire of Christy Kinahan, a Dubliner who, following prison sentences in Ireland and the Netherlands, has run operations from a villa in Spain’s Costa del Sol.
As Dublin’s gangland tensions deepened, Ireland’s justice minister urged gang members to seek police protection on Tuesday after gunmen shot to death the brother of a Dublin crime kingpin in apparent retaliation for last week’s deadly attack on a boxing ceremony.
Police have put in roadblocks, increased surveillance on high-profile targets and placed an imprisoned relative of a crime boss into protective custody.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald spoke hours after the most brazen assault yet on the authority of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch, the Dublin crime figure behind many of Ireland’s most daring bank heists. His faction has been blamed for Friday’s attack on a boxing weigh-in at a Dublin hotel, where a henchman from a rival gang led by the Spain-based Christy Kinahan was targeted and killed.
Members of gangs who have fears for their safety should come forward to the gardai
In apparent retaliation, police say at least four gunmen on Monday night broke into the Dublin home of Hutch’s brother Eddie and fatally shot the 59-year-old several times in the hallway. Police found the attackers’ getaway car abandoned about 2km away with balaclava masks and a can of fuel inside, a sign that the attackers didn’t have enough time to torch the car and destroy any forensic evidence.
Fitzgerald said police were staking out the residences of the most likely targets in Dublin’s gangland feud and set up road checkpoints to make it harder for any killers to operate. But she said gang associates who feared they might be targeted next should tell police – called the “gardai” in Ireland – directly.
“Members of gangs who have fears for their safety should come forward to the gardai,” she said before meeting the police commander, Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan.
The blood-letting focuses on the international drug-trafficking empire of Kinahan, a Dubliner who, following prison sentences in Ireland and the Netherlands, has run operations from a villa in Spain’s Costa del Sol. Police in Ireland and Spain opened a probe into his operations in 2008, the same year Kinahan jumped bail in Belgium over money-laundering charges.