Cocaine Wars (30 page)

Under the law, a person cannot be charged with murder if their victim stays alive for more than one year and one day after the initial attack. Although Jonathan Dunne was a relative innocent when he was sent to jail, it did not take long for prison life to get the better of him, and whatever remorse he had soon disappeared. Ian Kenny's father, Jon, claims that Dunne has constantly mocked his other son over the murder. ‘When he sees my other son, he makes jokes about what he did. “Is it vegetable soup we're having today?” he shouted, in reference to Ian's condition, before he finally passed away. He also tells [him] that our family should expect his car valeting bill because of all of my son's blood that was spilt in his car,' continues his father, anger in his voice. ‘Are those the words of a remorseful man?'

Jon Kenny does not believe that Freddie Thompson was behind the murder. ‘Jonathan Dunne told a story to the judge and the judge believed it. Dunne killed my son; why did the court believe the story of a killer? I know who was responsible for my son's murder and he wasn't killed because Dunne owed a drug dealer money. I don't care what the Gardaí have been saying, I can tell you without any doubt in my mind that Freddie Thompson was not behind my son's killing. I know Crumlin and everyone in it. It was not Thompson who gave the order.'

After Ian Kenny's death in hospital, his girlfriend's mother placed a cross and chain around his neck, but the cross fell to the ground. According to Jon Kenny, she said, “The heavy cross that he's been carrying around has been lifted off him”. Truer words about my son have never been spoken.'

T
IMES WERE GOOD
for Freddie Thompson. With Wayne McNally out of the picture after being shot, and the Rattigan gang in its weakest ever position, the way was theoretically clear for Thompson and his gang to take over and assume near total control of drug dealing in the south of the city without much impediment. However, it wasn't to be, and instead of enjoying the fruits of the murder and mayhem that they had created, the Thompson gang found itself confronted by an unlikely enemy – the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). In February 2007, one of the leading figures in the INLA, thirty-five-year-old Declan ‘Whacker' Duffy was released from Portlaoise Prison after completing a nine-year sentence for his role in the ‘Ballymount Bloodbath' in 1999.

During the infamous incident, an INLA active service unit took six men hostage when they went to a factory in the Ballymount industrial estate to demand money from the owner. The men were viciously tortured. Then twelve of their friends arrived. A mass brawl ensued and INLA volunteer Patrick ‘Bo' Campbell died after being struck with a machete. The INLA man in charge of the operation was Declan Duffy. He was convicted on the strength of a note to the INLA leadership that was discovered in his possession, detailing exactly what happened at the warehouse. The Northern leadership had been horrified at the unwanted publicity surrounding the brawl and was conducting an internal investigation. The fact that Duffy was caught with his statement on him showed that although he was big on brawn, he was rather less well endowed when it came to brains.

‘Whacker' Duffy was involved in a long-term relationship with a Dublin woman and had two children with her. When he was released, he moved to an apartment on Dean Street in Dublin 8, to be close to his family. His apartment was a mere stone's throw away from Freddie Thompson's family home. Duffy started drinking with his INLA cronies in various pubs around the south inner city, and surveyed the state of the drugs scene there. He decided that he would become the INLA's Dublin commander. So he set about reinvigorating an organisation that had been in almost terminal decline. There were only an estimated twenty core members, mainly from Tallaght, Blanchardstown and Finglas. Duffy was a believer in quality, not quantity, and set his merry band of men to work to earn some serious money. He liked what he saw in Dublin 8. There were dozens of pubs where his men could be put to work as bouncers on the door, a trade which was often little more than a protection racket to get cash from the establishments' owners in some areas of the city. The Provisional IRA was already supplying bouncers to several pub doors, but Duffy simply stated that he was now in charge and if anybody refused to pay, there would be consequences. Of course, frightened publicans had to cough up, and Duffy did not care what the Provos thought. He went about establishing himself and stepped on a lot of toes in the process.

The INLA traditionally ‘taxes' drug dealers to allow them to continue in business. Duffy was only in Dublin a matter of weeks when he paid a visit to three medium-sized dealers who were being supplied by the Thompson gang. He told them that he expected a weekly retainer or they would be driven out of the area. The dealers didn't know what to think. Duffy had acquired a fearsome reputation since the Ballymount Bloodbath. It was also common knowledge that he acted as the bodyguard of ‘Border Fox', Dessie O'Hare, one of the most feared terrorists in the history of the Troubles, while he was in jail. The dealers went to Freddie Thompson for advice, and a meeting was set up between the two men. Declan Duffy explained the situation and said that he was in the area to stay and that everybody – including Thompson himself – would be expected to share the proceeds of dealing. Thompson told him to f*** off, and that he wouldn't see a single penny either from him or any dealers around the south inner city who were supplied by him. ‘Fat' Freddie wasn't afraid of Duffy and told him that if he wanted a war he could have one. The meeting ended amicably, but both men left in little doubt that if one of them didn't back down then there was potential for serious bloodshed.

Over the next few weeks and months, a series of threats was issued by both sides, and there were stories circulating that each man was taking out a contract on the other. Freddie and the people he was sub-contracting his drugs to were nervous because of the threats – as a result business pretty much ground to a halt, while people waited to see what Duffy's next move would be. While Thompson should have been cleaning up because of the weakness of the Rattigan gang, the money simply wasn't coming in. Freddie was not a happy camper. Gardaí were forced to warn both Duffy and Thompson that their lives were in danger and gave them the usual security advice. Duffy didn't react well to the news. He had always been a fan of talking to the media, and in June 2007, after reports that Thompson had taken a contract out on him because of how his drug dealing operations had been disrupted, Duffy gave an interview to a newspaper. He vowed that the INLA would kill anyone who threatened him or hurt his family. ‘If any member of the INLA or our political wing is harmed, the INLA will wipe them out. If they think they can run off to Spain and live happy ever after, they should think again. They will be hunted down and executed,' he said. Duffy did the interview a day after being warned that his life was in danger. He went on to say about the feud with Thompson: ‘I did not start any feud with them and I haven't carried out any attacks. I am aware that they are trying to hire a gunman to kill me. They have approached criminals in Spain to do their dirty work but no one will get involved.'

Duffy's move to Dublin seriously put out the Provisional IRA. The Provos had traditionally been strong in the area, and although the movement was on a permanent ceasefire, its leaders had moved to criminality and extorting money for allowing drug dealers to operate in the area. Several medium-sized dealers, who would have been supplied by the Thompson gang, were making weekly payments to the Provos. So Duffy decided that the IRA would have to be put in its place. In early July 2007, he held a meeting with the head of the IRA in a crowded pub in the Coombe. Duffy informed the Provos that he would be taking over its territory. The IRA leader laughed in Duffy's face and threatened to have him shot – a brawl ensued between around a dozen INLA and IRA members. One of the IRA men received serious stab wounds. Declan Duffy beat up the Provo boss. As a result, Duffy effectively took over after that night and started to make very good money from the INLA's protection rackets. The IRA did not respond to the beating of its boss, because it was unable to retaliate with extreme violence because of political considerations.

Senior Gardaí were alarmed by how quickly Duffy's control was growing, and members of the Special Detective Unit started to take a keen interest in him. The SDU didn't have to wait long to meet him face-to-face. In August, Gardaí received a tip-off that a man had been kidnapped and was being held hostage at a house in Tallaght.

When armed ERU officers, led by Inspector Mike Larkin, raided the house, they discovered a twenty-one-year-old man bound and gagged lying naked in the bath upstairs. He was in agony and covered in blood, having been attacked with a wheel-brace and a broom handle. The torture went on for a number of hours. The victim was a son of a small West Dublin businessman, who the gang was trying to extort money from. Nine people were arrested in a downstairs room and Duffy was among them. Gardaí believe that those in the house constituted an active INLA service unit, and say that the victim could easily have been murdered had they not arrived in time. The man was so scared of the gang that he refused to make a complaint.

Duffy was a man who revelled in violence and causing people needless pain and suffering. He had previously bragged that he enjoyed kneecapping people and hearing them scream. Duffy was from Armagh, so you would assume that he would head back to his roots in Northern Ireland. However, he couldn't go anywhere near the six counties, because he was wanted for questioning over the murder of Sergeant Michael Newman, who was shot dead by the INLA outside an army recruitment office in Derby in 1992. Duffy joined the INLA when he was just thirteen, after his older brother was shot dead by the British army in 1987. Duffy has previously served a five-year sentence for escaping from custody at gunpoint.

Because of its experience fighting the British forces, the INLA had experts in bomb making. When he was freed from jail, Declan Duffy saw the potential to make some easy money by selling pipe bombs that its members had either made themselves or imported during the Troubles. In June 2007 Duffy became involved in a petty dispute with a small-time criminal in Dublin 8. He threw a hand grenade at his home but nobody was injured. Weeks later another fragmentation grenade attack occurred at a house on Slane Road in Crumlin, following the death of an inmate in Mountjoy Prison. Garda forensic experts linked these two incidents. An investigation determined that the INLA sold a South-Dublin criminal gang the fragmentation grenade for around €2,500. The two grenades were part of a batch smuggled by the INLA from the former Yugoslavia. It appears that the Dublin INLA was only too happy to sell them in a lucrative sideline. In the summer of 2007, the army bomb disposal unit was called out on sixteen separate occasions, in just six weeks, because of pipe bomb and grenade attacks, many originating from the INLA. It got to the stage where the INLA was selling crude devices for just €350 each, because they had so many and it became easier to source a pipe bomb in Dublin than a gun. People were throwing pipe bombs at each other over even the most minor of squabbles. Before Duffy's release from jail, pipe bombs and fragmentation grenades had never been seen on the streets, so Duffy became the Gardaí's public enemy number one.

Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy ordered that a special unit be established to investigate and limit the number of pipe bombs. It was led by Detective Superintendent Padraig Kennedy from Store Street Garda Station. It gradually managed to put a dent in the number of bombs available on the streets. In September 2007, a car that was used by Freddie Thompson was found with a pipe bomb underneath it, although Thompson wasn't in Dublin at the time. Nevertheless, it was a serious escalation by Duffy, and Freddie took out a fresh contract on his life. Duffy again ran to the papers, after Gardaí told him that a €10,000 price had been placed on his head. Duffy warned that anyone who threatened him would face the consequences, and he put off would-be assassins by saying: ‘Anyone who even considers taking up the contract will be held as accountable as those taking it out.' He then added: ‘The Gardaí told a relative of mine that someone is offering €10,000 to kill me. Others are saying that I am out to kill members of that gang. It is also said that I am in hiding and I am in fear of my life.' He was obviously concerned enough to take precautions to avoid assassination though: ‘Even if I am out for a drink with my family, I have people looking after my back. They might not be as obvious as the men here today, but they will be a couple of tables away.' Duffy said that he had taken to wearing full body armour and had bodyguards protecting him in case of an attack. The previous six months had been a bit of a phoney war between Duffy and Freddie, but things then started to get really serious between them in November 2007, with ‘Fat' Freddie being told that he would be shot on sight if he was seen by INLA members. On 22 November, a passing patrol car spotted a young INLA volunteer, Denis Dwyer from Jobstown, walking briskly up Camden Street. The apprentice plumber was carrying a sports bag and what looked like the barrel of a gun was sticking out of it. He was stopped and searched and found to be carrying an AK-47. It was 8.45 p.m., and, when he was searched, two magazines were also found, one of them fully loaded with twenty-one rounds of 7.62mm ammunition. Investigations by Gardaí in Harcourt Terrace, assisted by the Organised Crime Unit, revealed that this AK-47 had just been transported from Limerick on behalf of Duffy, who had organised for Freddie Thompson to be shot. Dwyer was arrested and claimed that he didn't know what was in the bag and had picked it up for somebody else and was only going to drop it off. Dwyer would later be jailed for four years. Gardaí believe that he was on his way to deliver the gun to another INLA member, who was going to shoot ‘Fat' Freddie. Freddie was again warned that his life was in danger. He knew that he had had a lucky escape and decided to leave the country while he was still able to.

The obvious place for Thompson to go to regroup was the Spanish Costas, where Paddy Doyle had headed after the three murders in November 2005. Doyle was by now well established in Spain, and had built up a reliable network of contacts who made sure that the drugs kept arriving into Ireland. Doyle was comfortable in Spain because the Costa del Sol was like Little Ireland with many of the country's biggest villains calling the region home. Spain had taken over from the Netherlands as the main place where the Thompson gang was sourcing its drugs from.

There are several reasons why the Spanish Costas are so attractive for Irish drug dealers. There is a perception that the Spanish police are particularly lax and simply do not have the will to crack down on the drug importers and exporters that give the country such a bad name. It doesn't help that the country's coastline measures a massive 4,900 km, which means that drugs can be smuggled in from South America via countries like Morocco and Algeria without much fear of getting seized, because it is impossible to police that amount of coastline. From there the drugs are broken up and then smuggled to other European countries. So southern Spain is the European clearing house for organising large scale drug importation.

The Costa del Sol is not known as the ‘Costa del Crime' for nothing. In the early 1980s it developed its reputation with the exodus of major criminals from Britain to Spain because of the complicated extradition laws. The British criminals set up their drugs businesses in Spain and were soon followed by their Irish counterparts.