Elite Garda team that uses gangster Liam Byrne’s €30,000 car to hunt down gangs to be ‘disbanded’

The officers are to be sent back to normal policing duties and critics of the move say the team has now been disbanded, but that has been disputed by Garda headquarters

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Members of an elite Garda team that uses Liam Byrne’s high spec car to target other gangsters are being sent back to normal policing duties.

The Irish Mirror has learned that the remaining two officers working in a special team that uses this Golf R seized from the Kinahan cartel boss to hunt down marauding burglary gangs are being moved out of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and have been sent back to their regular units.

Critics of the move said they believed the team has now been disbanded, but that has been disputed by Garda headquarters.

And sources there stressed that Operation Thor, the Garda crackdown on burglary gangs that the special team corks on, is still hunting down criminals. “The only thing that has changed it is the process – Thor is just as strong as ever,” a source insisted last night.

But news of the moving of the two highly trained and well regarded officers away from the special squad, known as the IV unit within the force, has infuriated gardaí on the ground. “Nobody can believe it,” one source said last night. “These lads do an unbelievable job and are a massive help to the regular units.”

There used to be around half a dozen members on the IV unit and they used the Golf R seized from Byrne in 2016 – a vehicle that can hit speeds of up to 250kph – to mount pursuits of burglary gangs roaming around the country. The special-trained gardaí use the Golf and other high spec vehicles to chase gangs who outrun normal Garda cars.

The officers have been involved in hundreds of pursuits – and have dozens of suspects that gardaí in normal cars would simply not have been able to pursue. But in recent months, several officers have left the IV squad on promotion or after being appointed to other units.

That meant only two officers were left in the squad – and now they have been told they are to return to their original units, from where they were temporarily transferred to DOCB several years ago.

Sources say the Golf R will remain with DOCB, which is the main Garda anti-gangland unit The car, which is worth over €30,000, was one of 29 cars and jeeps seized by CAB in a major operation against the Byrne gang in March 2016

That was the first major garda crackdown on the outfit – heavily linked to mobster Daniel Kinahan (42) since the war with the Hutch gang erupted the previous month. That was when the Hutch gang attacked the Regency Airport Hotel in north Dublin and killed Byrne’s brother David (33).

The Kinahans then went on a rampage of murder in revenge – in a war that has now left 18 men dead. As part of the Garda fightback against the Byrne and Kinahan gangs, the CAB mounted a series of raids in Dublin at the start of March 2016 – and seized the Golf and other vehicles.

The officers in the IV unit have been using the Golf to great success – but have been told to go back to their normal divisions. A Garda spokesman said anti burglary operations were still fully resourced.

He said: “Operation Thor, launched in 2015, is an ongoing initiative that undergoes periodic review, reinforcement, and adaptation to address emerging trends and challenges in burglary and related crime.

“It continues to effectively tackle individuals and organised crime groups engaged in burglary through a range of strategies and tactics aimed at preventing burglaries, apprehending offenders, and enhancing community safety.

“The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) serves as the national lead for Operation Thor and continues to fully resource it in support of Regional and Local Units.”