EXCLUSIVE | 

Kinahan cartel criminals caught growing cannabis inside Portlaoise Prison

Investigation is launched by wardens as growing cannabis herb found in open area of Portlaoise’s A-block

Yesterday at 20:00

An investigation is under way after Kinahan cartel aligned criminals were caught growing cannabis inside Ireland’s only maximum-security prison.

Sources have confirmed to the Sunday World that a cannabis plant was discovered in an open area in Unit 1 on A-block of Portlaoise Prison during a routine inspection on Wednesday morning.

The unit is home to cartel figures including Liam Brannigan, Thomas ‘Nicky’ McConnell and, up until last weekend, ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson.

Shocked officers are understood to have immediately removed the plant and a probe is now under way to establish which inmates were responsible.

A source said: “The plant will have to be tested to chemically confirm it is a cannabis plant — but you don’t need to be a horticulturalist to recognise a cannabis plant.”

Contacted this week, the Irish Prison Service declined to comment on the incident.

However, it’s understood the plant has now been sent for analysis.

“The difficulty in trying to establish individual responsibility is the plant wasn’t found in any one individual’s cell,” a source said.

“It was in an area on the landing accessible by all the inmates and no-one is likely to put their hand up.”

Asked how the plant could have made its way into the prison, the source said it may have been grown from seeds smuggled into the facility.

“How it got in or whether it was grown from seed is something that will have to be looked at,” the source said

One inmate who cannot be blamed for ownership of the plant is ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson.

Thompson — who is currently appealing his conviction for the murder of David ‘Daithi’ Douglas — was transferred out of Portlaoise last weekend following an incident in which he kicked over a meal trolley, causing hot food to land on a staff member.

A decision was made to temporarily transfer him to Limerick Prison over fears he is becoming increasingly volatile the longer he is allowed to settle in Portlaoise.

Prior to knocking over the food trolley, the gangster was caught with a phone as he made his way from the prison exercise yard back to his cell.

After a detector went off, Thompson smashed the phone off the ground and swallowed the SIM card.

Thompson also kicked-off last month after learning of the death of his mother Lisa.

On that occasion he smashed a TV, a toaster and microwave oven on the landing.

He was also in hot water last November after he assaulted two prison officers who were attempting to search him for contraband.

Sources say one of the main reasons prison authorities believe the cannabis plant was not present on the Kinahan landing for a long period of time is that a full search was carried out after Thompson was discovered with the phone.

Another Kinahan cartel member currently housed on the landing is Freddie’s cousin Liam Brannigan.

Nicknamed ‘Mr Smooth’ by his fellow inmates, Brannigan is serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring with Kinahan cartel associates to assassinate Dublin man Gary Hanley.

Sentencing Brannigan (40) at the Special Criminal Court in April 2020, Mr Justice Paul Coffey said the planning and organisation of the execution meant that the defendant was culpable to a very high degree and had a “central role” in the management and oversight of the plan to kill Mr Hanley.

The judge said the conspiracy was at all times carried out with “a staunch and unyielding determination” to carry out a “gangland-style execution type of murder”.

The plan was elaborate and lengthy and Brannigan had been “intimately involved” in all aspects of the planning, he said.

Referring to the father-of-two, the judge said he had ten phone calls with the hit team on the evening of the planned murder.

Brannigan, of Bride Street, Dublin 8, was convicted by the non-jury court of conspiring to murder Mr Hanley at a location within the State between September 15 and November 6, 2017.

He denied the charge.

A third Kinahan-linked inmate on the landing is Thomas Nicky McConnell.

McConnell is currently being held on remand awaiting trial at the Special Criminal Court for the murder of Gareth Hutch.

He was extradited back from Turkey, where he had spent a year in custody in Soke prison, in June 2021.

Gareth Hutch, a 36-year-old father of one and a nephew of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, was gunned down as he was getting into car outside the Avondale House flats on North Cumberland Street in Dublin’s inner city on the morning of May 24, 2016.

He suffered four gunshot wounds in the back of the neck, lower back and his upper chest.

A European Arrest Warrant was later issued for McConnell’s arrest.