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Crime gang using OAPs and vulnerable people as drug mules to avoid suspicion

A 69-year-old pensioner was jailed last week after being caught with €420,000 of cocaine in the boot of a car he was driving. He is one of up to a dozen vulnerable runners for the criminal network

69-year-old OAP Eamon Larkin jailed after being caught with €420,000 of cocaine

Yesterday at 07:30

A criminal network with links to Dublin’s so-called Monkey Gang is using vulnerable adults to move money and drugs because they attract less suspicion.

A 69-year-old pensioner was jailed last week after being caught with €420,000 of cocaine in the boot of a car he was driving. He is one of up to a dozen vulnerable runners for the criminal network, it has emerged.

Eamon Larkin of Jenkinstown, Kilcock, Co Meath, was handed a two-year prison sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last Tuesday.

The court heard how Larkin told gardaí he was approached by a stranger in a pub and offered €200 for his role.

However, the real target of the garda operation, that led to the seizure in June of last year, is a young man who is very close to him. The man has long-established links to the crime gang, which is based in Co Meath and in Finglas, north Dublin.

The main target was not prosecuted in relation to the seizure, which happened in The Ward, Dublin 11

It is understood the crime network has close links to Dublin’s Finglas-based Monkey Gang, which has an alliance with the Kinahan cartel and continues to grow in influence in north Dublin’s drugs trade.

The wider gang has been the subject of a number of operations by the Criminal Assets Bureau. This includes a raid in Co Meath in November, 2018, when officers seized €1.5m in cash as well as other items.

Gang member Bernard ‘Gan’ Joyce (51) previously served a four-year jail sentence for possession of more than €900,000 in illegal cash connected to the Kinahan cartel after a garda seizure in Co Wexford in 2018.

Apart from the drugs trade, the gang have also previously been involved in organising cash-in-transit raids, particularly in north Dublin, and are key players in the booming organised car-theft trade.

The court last week heard how gardaí had information that a Skoda would be involved in the movement of a large quantity of drugs in the Ashbourne area.

Larkin was driving this car, which gardaí later stopped and searched. Six kilos of cocaine was found in a shopping bag in the boot of the car, valued at €420,000.

Larkin told gardaí he was aware he was transporting drugs, but didn’t know what type.

Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, told the court his client has been living in a “modest home” in Portugal and intends to return there.

He suggested that his client received a request from “someone close to him” and this subsequently resulted in the offending.

Counsel said his client found himself under financial pressure at the time of the offending.