Donna Maguire
A local couple were among five Irish nationals, a Norwegian and a Spanish lawyer who were arrested last week in what is understood to be a major Spanish police operation against tobacco smuggling linked to south Armagh.
The arrests are understood to include husband and wife, Donna Maguire and Leonard ‘Bap’ Hardy, who served prison sentences in Holland and Germany for their parts in IRA attacks on the Continent in the late 1980s.
Hardy (54) and Maguire (57) are married with four children and live in the Mountpleasant area of Dundalk.
According to yesterday’s Sunday Independent, it is understood one of the other Irish nationals arrested in operations across Murcia, Alicante and Gran Canaria at the start of last week is a Co Antrim man who has been living in the north Louth area in recent years.
He was previously questioned over a major cigarette smuggling operation after gardai and customs stopped a lorry near Castlebellingham, Co Louth in September 2013. The lorry was found to contain cigarettes with a retail value put at €4.3m. Seven people were arrested but no one charged.
The haul was seized after the cigarettes were detected when Islamic terrorists fired a rocket at the cargo ship carrying the container along the Suez Canal in July 2013. The container was inspected when the ship docked in Rotterdam. It was logged as containing furniture for a non-existent company in Dundalk but found to contain boxes of cigarettes, which had originated in Indonesia. No charges were brought in relation to the seizure.
The Independent said the arrests were made after a major investigation into smuggling and money laundering by the Spanish Policia Nacional.
It is understood Hardy and Maguire were arrested at an apartment in Malaga on Tuesday and she was later released without charge. The couple are receiving consular assistance, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed last week. His detention was extended on Wednesday by a judge in Malaga on the application of the Policia.
Talk of the Town 