THUG’S EVIL PAST

Notorious mob boss John Gilligan makes frank ‘going to hell’ admission and reveals crime career ‘beginning of the end’

• Published: 18:48, 31 Aug 2023
• Updated: 18:48, 31 Aug 2023

HATED mob boss John Gilligan has reflected on a life of crime and confessed: I’m going to hell.

The notorious drug trafficker has lifted the lid on his career in criminality for the

first time in an explosive new TV series.

The pint-sized thug, 71, admits that the murder of Veronica Guerin “was the beginning of the end” for a him after dedicating decades to crime.

Factory John’s gang was responsible for the 1996 murder of the crusading crime journalist in 1996, a murder which triggered a war on crime including the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau.

In 2002, Gilligan was acquitted of the murder of Sunday Independent journalist Guerin, who had earlier been assaulted by the gangster at his luxury pad while investigating his illegal activities.

But despite escaping the murder rap, he was convicted of drug dealing on an industrial scale and jailed for 28 years, later reduced to 20 years on appeal.

The psychopath discusses his own mortality and fears for the afterlife in the three-part Virgin Media schow.

Asked if he is likely to go to hell for his litany of evil deeds, the drug lord admits: “If there is one, yeah.”

Ireland’s first major international drug trafficker became one of the country’s richest criminals back in the 1990s.

The feared Dublin crime boss is described in the programme as a “dangerous psychopath” who “took on the institutions of the state and lost”.

And now he’s telling his story, in his words, “ what exactly happened”.

Former Garda Assistant Garda Commissioner Michael O’Sullivan tells documentary makers: “John Gilligan was a big player at the time in the mid-90s, but he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.”

Gilligan himself admits on ‘Confessions of a Crime Boss’: “I wanted to be low profile, not to be known”

His long-time nemesis O’Sullivan adds: “That all changed with Veronica Guerin.”

In October 2013 the thug was released after serving 17 years in jail.

But his multi-million assets – including the luxury Jessbrook equestrian centre in Co Kildare – were ultimately seized by CAB.

After being injured in an assassination attempt in 2014, Gilligan discharged himself from hospital and fled the country to live in Spain.

In 2018 he was arrested at Belfast International Airport and charged with money laundering after being found with more than £22,000 in his suitcase.

Gilligan and two other men were arrested in Spain in October 2020, when cops seized weapons and quantities of drugs.

He was released on bail in December 2020 and is still due to stand trial on drugs and firearms charges.

Confessions of a Crime Boss airs on Virgin Media One, Monday at 10pm.