underworld | 

Revealed: How criminal ‘Board of Governors’ laundered cash for rival Limerick gangs

These include the ‘Dead Zoo Gang’, from Rathkeale

, involved in the theft of rhino horn and museum artefacts

Yesterday at 13:21

RIVAL gangs in Limerick’s lethal underworld feud dealt with a ‘Board of Governors’ of criminal businessmen to launder cash and make deals.

A massive secret Garda investigation into the city’s gangland networks laid bare how the major players dealt with senior figures in the Keane and McCarthy- Dundon factions.

Details of how leading gangsters, including Christy Keane and Eds McCarthy, dealt with the same underworld fixers have been laid bare by a Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) case.

The three fixers are linked to a car-dealing firm, Bawn Motors, that CAB said was deliberately set up to launder the gangs’ cash and “designed to hide the proceeds of significa

nt criminal activity”.

A key figure in the operation, Mike Nash, from Newcastle West, Co Limerick, was described in an affidavit from a senior Garda investigator as being involved in smuggling drugs to Ireland from the UK and Europe.

He regularly associates with Christy Keane and Keane’s trusted lieutenant, Dermot ‘Plum’ McManus, who recently pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges at the Special Criminal Court.

Nash’s close associate is convicted drug dealer John O’Donoghue, from Rathkeale in Co. Limerick, who in turn was described by the senior investigating officer as being “closely associated” with Eds McCarthy, a leading figure in the McCarthy-Dundon gang.

The Sunday World previously revealed how Eds McCarthy took control of the gang and forged close links with the Kinahan Cartel’s man in the UK, Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, in Birmingham.

In the CAB case against Bawn Motors, it was highlighted how O’Donoghue had “established himself as a key figure in the international drugs trade” and has “extensive criminal contacts with the wider Traveller community”.

These include the ‘Dead Zoo Gang’, from Rathkeale, involved in the theft of rhino horn and museum artefacts.

The affidavit reveals how O’Donoghue took part in a meeting in January 2019 in a Rathkeale pub with Christy Keane, ‘Plum’ McManus and others.

“I believe that this meeting was arranged to discuss criminal activity arrangements between O’Donoghue and this grouping,” stated the senior officer.

O’Donoghue is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Portlaoise Prison for a savage machete attack on a 74-year-old man in Rathkeale.

A third member of the ‘Board of Governors’ is Shane Curtin, a motor dealer whose involvement in the money-laundering scheme was highlighted in the CAB case against the car firm

Described as “a significant figure in the drugs trade in Limerick”, he has extensive criminal contacts and regularly travels between Ireland the UK.

Counsel for CAB said at a previous hearing that Curtin had denied having anything to do with Mike Nash, even though they had known each other for years.

The senior officer in his evidence said that Nash, O’Donoghue and Curtin “are all heavily involved in joint criminality, primarily in the importation and distribution of controlled drugs and related money laundering activity.”

The affidavit also details how Nash, Curtin and O’Donoghue and others made contact with each other and other criminals through a shared interest in trotting ponies and sulky racing.

When the Criminal Assets Bureau raided the company in March 2019, seizing 111 vehicles, it was one of the biggest such operations carried out by the agency.

Last month, Judge Alex Owens granted the application by CAB to have dozens of the seized vehicles declared to be the proceeds of crime.

The cars had already been sold by CAB and the case centred on the €820,000 they got at auction along with €20,000 in a bank account associated with the firm.

As part of the case to show the firm’s links to crime, a senior officer gave evidence of the Garda intelligence linking the men who controlled the firm to serious gangland activity.

Judge Owens, in a written judgement, said that if the

firm’s records from 2015 are true then “it was a remarkable success”.

He further added that total recorded receipts from sales in 2017 was €5,301,313 and were €8,074,300, the following year.

“The likely source or wherewithal for all of this business activity was proceeds of crime provided by Limerick criminals as part of a money-laundering exercise. No other explanation is credible.

“Value was travelling into the business from sources other than the controllers and was being extracted and used in ways which are not explained by the company’s business records.”

Explanations put forward by Nash and Curtin were “unconvincing” according to the judge.

The CAB investigation also uncovered links with a UK firm which a senior Durham police officer said was run by two criminals who have since been disqualified as company directors.