Caught In The Crossfire - Operation Oak (Episode 3)
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How did Marlo Hyland rise to become Ireland's most powerful crime boss?
By early 2005, armed robberies and gangland murders were escalating at a runaway pace, and not only in Dublin. The Gardaí were under severe pressure, and although doing what they could with the resources they had, things seemed to be getting worse, never better. Even when drug shipments were busted, the top people rarely got caught, and especially not Marlow Highland. The 80s had the General, the 90s had John Gilligan, and in the noughties, it was the reign of Martin Marlow Hyland. He ruled over the drug scene, working his way up the ranks, taking the opportunity to step in when others fell by the wayside. He grew increasingly reckless and paranoid and therefore became a liability. He had to go.
And the circumstances of his death just added to his legacy. That an innocent young man doing an honest day's work lost his life is just terrible. You're listening to Caught in the Crossfire, Episode 3, Operation Oak, The Beginning of Marlowe's End. After every interception, there were follow-up searches in one of the many houses he owned in West Dublin. Guards would often find him casually sitting at a kitchen table with some of his men, just having a chat. He never had anything to fear, because if Marlow was there, you were guaranteed the house was clean. He never took chances by handling his guns or his drugs. He paid his men well to do his dirty work for him. The Gardaí and the government were becoming increasingly desperate and determined to bring him down.
A cohesive plan involving all the different branches of the Gardaí, which is never an easy task, was needed. Something well funded with the full weight of the law behind it. Marlow Hyland was really good at being a criminal, wasn't he? Like he approached it like a business.
Yeah, he approached it like a businessman, of which he was the CEO. He had this desire to get people to work together. He wanted to be a facilitator, not just in the drugs business, but in all the other underworld businesses that were going on at the time. An example of this would have been the VAT fraud, which went on back then and still goes on now. It was a way in which people would fraudulently claim back money from the state effectively. And that had become one of the big fundraisers for the provisional IRA. However, they needed businesses in Dublin and people to be involved in that. And Marlow Highland was a trusted person to do that in the Finglas area. And Marlow Highland liked to build these relationships and I think it made him feel untouchable, made him feel important.
He was like the link man, wasn't he? I mean, he was even probably the first outsider to have made connections with the McCarthy Dundon mob down in Limerick.
Yeah, I mean, I think possibly even unlike the Gilligan gang, Marlow Highland had a national vision where he would be the head of this Ireland incorporated drug dealing business.
What criminal networks and alliances did Marlo Hyland build across Ireland?
And remember, there was a reason for that. At that time, the drugs boom had occurred in Dublin, but it was rapidly spreading across the country. And you had a few gangs that really took advantage of that. One of the primary gangs to take advantage were the Dundon-McCarty gang, who we think of as being very... located in Limerick, but they were also very heavily involved in the drugs trade across Munster. Marlow Highland had formed a particularly close connection with John Dundon in particular, and he became their wholesaler effectively. But he also became a fixer for them as well if they needed other connections.
And he even looked to the prisons to make allies. You know, he used smuggled mobile phones maybe to make friends. He visited Dutchie Holland and I think while visiting Holland, he got friendly with Desi O'Hare.
Yeah, I mean, Desi O'Hare and Dutchie Holland formed a particularly close bond actually in Portlaoise Prison. Desi O'Hare, known as the Border Fox, was probably one of the most notorious Republican gunmen in the history of the Troubles. He'd ended up in prison due to that kidnapping. And Dutchie Holland was in there as well for drug offenses.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Marlo Hyland rise to become Ireland's most powerful crime boss?
0:03–3:20
2
What criminal networks and alliances did Marlo Hyland build across Ireland?
3:20–7:23
3
How did Marlo use prisons and notorious criminals to strengthen his gang?
7:23–15:24
4
What were the Filthy Fifty and how did they fuel Hyland's armed robbery ring?
15:24–18:35
5
Why was Operation Anvil launched and how did it lead to Operation Oak?
18:35–20:16
6
How did Operation Oak dismantle Marlo Hyland's drug and firearms network?
20:16–20:37
7
How did Marlo Hyland's paranoia and arrests culminate in his own death?
20:37–25:09
8
What happened in the murder of Baiba (Bible) Salute and how was Hyland implicated?
25:09–25:13
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Crime World
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