Republican Criminals Smoked Out

The Anne Scan - "No Smoking"

In the bad old days before the Gerry Adams Gang aka Gerry and the Peacemakers discovered Peace, Love and Understanding one of the more disreputable aspects of the IRA (In Ireland these things are relative) was the euphemistically named “Fundraising Activities.” Indeed these crypto-fascists masquerading as Republicans were the greatest beneficiaries of Partition running numerous rackets in the border areas of Ireland relating to smugglings, fraud on EEC subsidies, diesel rackets etc; Indeed it was never obvious where private gangsterism and “The Cause” began and ended as many fine houses and “businesses” owned by Republican hard men in border areas testify.

Now the group of Neanderthals known as the Real IRA were last night being linked to the largest ever haul of contraband cigarettes in Ireland, in what Gardai described as a significant strike against organised crime. Nine people, including seven Irish nationals, were arrested after a ship “Anne Scan” containing 120 million cigarettes worth €50m was seized in Co Louth following a massive surveillance operation.

The haul, with a potential revenue loss of €40m, was destined for the Irish and UK markets. Regarded as the biggest seizure of its type in Europe and described as organised crime on a global scale, the contraband was uncovered after the chartered ship arrived at 6am on Monday at Greenore Port. Code-named 'Samhna', the operation, which targeted an organised crime group operating on both sides of the Border, involved the Revenue Customs Service, the Naval Service, Air Corps, Gardai, the Criminal Assets Bureau and PSNI officers and HM customs officials.



When customs officers searched the cargo, they found over 1,400 bags containing up to 120 million cigarettes hidden among a consignment of animal feed. While the top quarter of each of the one-tonne bulk bags of feed was genuine, the rest were packets of two brands of cigarettes including Palace, which are sold in Britain. Seven Irish nationals, all male, aged between 19 and mid-40s, one Lithuanian male in his 50s and one Ukrainian male in his 40s were arrested after part of the ship's cargo was loaded early yesterday onto waiting trucks. Gardai and customs officers pounced when the convoy was driven to the importer's premises.


The Anne Scan's cargo of cigarettes

Last night, the men, who included the ship's captain and first officer, were being detained at Garda stations in counties Louth and Monaghan. The Real IRA have funded their terrorist activities partly by smuggling along the Border and by operations bringing material into Ireland. In 2003 a large haul of cigarettes was seized as a Real IRA cigarette smuggling ring was smashed when warehouses in Holland and the Ireland were raided. Six men were arrested after consignments of cigarettes worth millions of euro were found in the searches.

As part of follow-up searches more cigarettes were found in a warehouse in Monaghan. In another incident Gardai and the US authorities investigated links between the terrorists and a major cigarette smuggling ring in the United States. The seizure in Greenore is significant as this port at the end of the Cooley Peninsular (along with Heysham in Lancashire) was built by the LMS Railway based in Euston Station as part of a Rail / Ferry connection to Ireland and Greenore still has Euston and Crewe roads and the remnants of a once fine railway hotel as visible evidence of this connection.


The Greenore Hotel, built by The London and North Western Railway in the 1870s as one of the most imposing railway hotels in Ireland, and one of only a handful to be built of brick.

The Cooley Mountains form the setting for "An Tain Bo Cuailgne" or "The Cattle Raid of Cooley". Recounting the heroic defence of Ulster by the legendary Cuchulainn against Queen Medbh of Connacht and her attempt to seize the prize brown bull of Cooley, the story is at least 1,200 years old and is among the oldest surviving pieces of vernacular literature in Europe. This very beautiful part of the world has suffered greatly from IRA “fundraising” over the years including the murder of a local farmer, Tom Oliver, and the burying of bodies of IRA murder victims. One of these was Jean McConville, a 37 year old Catholic mother of 10, who was abducted from her home, St. Judes Walk, Divis, Belfast, around Xmas 1972 when Gerry Adams was commander of the “West Belfast Brigade”. She was accused of giving water to an injured British soldier. Her remains were eventually recovered, on general instructions from the IRA, buried at Shelling Hill beach, near Carlingford, Co. Louth, on 27 August 2003.


Jean McConville and three of her children

And consider those who suffered from the euphemistically titled “fundraising” which enabled Gerry and the Peacemakers pay for their comic strip patriotism. There was Thomas Niedermayer, the German managing director of Grundig’s Belfast factory where IRA Godfather Brian Keenan once worked who was kidnapped for ransom and whose body has never been found. Of course Brian was not there that wet dark night at Greystones pier in Co. Wicklow some years later when his widow, still consumed with grief, walked off the end of the pier. He was however, in West Belfast when Grundig closed down with a loss of 900 jobs, but he wasn’t at Balinamore Wood in Co. Longford when the Army and Gardai rescued the kidnapped managing director of an Irish Supermarket chain but not before the fleeing IRA gang killed two 19 year olds, a rookie cop and soldier, as they broke out of the cordon. Nor did he know the girlfriend of one of them who worked for me who had a breakdown as her life and future were so cruelly destroyed.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/death-of-brian-keenan.html

So let us praise the security services for frustrating the Neanderthals of the so called “Real IRA” in their gangster activities and remember those who did not live to see the discovery of democracy by Gerry and the Peacemakers. They are remembered on the Cain Index of violent deaths caused by the IRA and others who feel it is right to kill for “Freedom”.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/index.html


Cooley Peninsular