Armed detectives have launched one of their biggest crackdowns on the INLA terrorist mob in years after a secret operation was conducted by the Special Detective Unit in Louth recently.
Four properties were searched in the county earlier this week and a suspected dissident gang boss was later stopped by armed gardai as he drove in Tyrrellspass, Co Westmeath – but no arrests were made in the operation.
A source told the Herald: “Even though there was no arrests and nothing was seized this was an important operation – gardaí clearly need to know what these thugs are up to.”
One of the main targets of the operation is a highly feared veteran thug from Dundalk, who is suspected of involvement in terrorist offences for over three decades.
In 1986 he served six years of a 10-year prison sentence for the IR£60,000 robbery of a fuel wholesalers in Dundalk. No weapons were used in that offence.
He also has convictions for burglaries and possession of petrol bombs.
Previously the dissident Republican gave a speech at a conference in 1997 about evictions of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
These were “cowardly attacks on defenceless men, woman and children”, he said.
Soon afterwards he pleaded guilty to intimidating a woman, after being hired by her landlord to force her out of a Dublin flat.
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