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Chapter 1: What led to the Garda crackdown on gangs in Limerick?
It's coming on two decades since a Garda crackdown on Limerick promised to break the gangs that had turned the city into a war zone. So where are the key players now and why are so many still involved in drug dealing and organised criminality? Today I'm talking with Eamon Dillon and you're listening to Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com.
We're going to talk about Limerick because as we were sort of chatting there before we came on, it's nearly 20 years since the feud was at its height and there was a major Garda crackdown, which involved some of the armed units moving practically full time down to Limerick and the focus on the leaders of the gangs that were at war.
It saw really the demise of the Dundon gang and in the aftermath, a huge amount of investment, government funding placed into Limerick to regenerate these areas that had been so badly affected by the feud. However, here we are and it seems the same characters
Chapter 2: How did the crackdown affect the Dundon gang's operations?
are still in charge of drug dealing and criminality in Limerick and the same names that, you know, should have been left in the past. Nothing has much changed as such.
Yeah, I suppose we got a little bit of an insight last week. Our colleague in Limerick, David Raleigh, would have reported on a circa court case down there about a 46-year-old guy called Barry Sheehy. Now, he was caught with a relatively small amount of drugs, 51 grams of cocaine, worth an estimated €3,500. But the thing is, it was in this fortified house in St.
Chapter 3: What recent developments have occurred with key players in Limerick gangs?
Mary's Park. And, you know, it was basically a crack den. When the guards arrived, there was addicts sitting in the garden outside and it took the armed units several minutes to breach the house to actually get in. He was sitting there in an armchair, pretty calm about it. You know, he more or less put his hands up, but didn't say anything else. So he got done for that last week.
He got a relatively short sentence for that. And there was, but the point was in a previous case involving Ray Colopy, Jethro Colopy. So this is back to, you know, one of the leading figures of the Colopy gang, you know, who've been part and parcel of the whole underground scene in Limerick City for decades.
all the time we're talking about that this has been ongoing, you know, it's probably the calipers being involved in some of the violence that even kicked off the feud, really, back from the mid-90s. So, like, it would have been said in a previous, the cab case against Jethro that Barry Sheehy was, would have been collated with Ray Colopy over the years.
Chapter 4: How are the Colopy gang and their associates still involved in crime?
And there was times he was stopped by Gardaise and he was with Ray Colopy in Dakar. He was previously convicted for the sale and supply of drugs, a stash of cannabis. Now, this is going back some time to 2001 for 40,000 euro and he got a four-year sentence for that.
This week as well, it was mentioned again, like, you know, that he had no trappings of wealth and he was serving others who were at the top of the drug industry. So it's obviously, he's still working for the Colopys all these years later.
And a lot of them are still living within the sort of social housing schemes where the feud played out.
Absolutely, yeah. And there was another, this is a cousin of his actually, who was just in 2024 was done. He got a six year sentence. He was caught with cocaine worth just over 200,000 and 51,000 in cash. That was Declan Darby, she. And they had a family shop there in St.
Chapter 5: What evidence exists of ongoing drug operations in Limerick?
Mary's as well. And he basically turned the back of that into a cocaine factory where guards found him surrounded by drugs, wing scales, a blender, mixing bowls, all the kind of the paraphernalia. And he admitted that, you know, that all the drugs are his. And this is in November 2022 when he was caught. Now the court case was in 24.
And again, you know, it was described in court as the guard saying, look, he was operating a wholesale drugs business in the back of the property. And again, like his cousin we just mentioned, he was also linked to Ray Colopy. And in the same cab case, he was revealed as being, you know, a longtime associate of Colopy.
So is Colopy the sort of the leader of that family sort of and perhaps the Colopy gang?
Yeah.
What age would he be?
No, Ray Colopy wouldn't necessarily be considered as the main guy.
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Chapter 6: How has the criminal landscape changed in Limerick over the years?
It would be Brian, I think, would be considered the leading member in that sense. Possibly the one calling the shots and Ciarán as well. And funnily enough, there's been dozens of successful... like Garda operations against the Colopys.
I mean, the reason we're talking about this now is because we had some of the information from the CAB case, which was, you know, part of this Operation Coronation where they were targeting the King Colopy, their money laundering operation. And there was a, you know, relatively, you know, medium-sized amount of money that was found in his house or in his girlfriend's house at the time.
And that's why they were after Colopy. There was criminal charges. They didn't go ahead or I think they were acquitted actually in court over money laundering charges.
And what sort of money was discovered?
It was about 30,000 at the time and there was different roles were packed up in socks and all the rest.
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Chapter 7: What role do the McCarthy Dundons play in the current gang dynamics?
Yeah. And again, but then this same money was actually seized then by the Criminal Assets Bureau. So we got a lot of the background and about, you know, over the years, you know, which a lot of it we already knew about the role of the collopies. But like,
But you also had these long, lots of their different associates were kind of being put forward in the belief evidences, which is where the Sheehy's, you know, came up. And the idea that one of them is still, is only just starting like a prison sentence now, it just shows you that, you know, plus a change, everything stays the same.
So the wealth around the Colopy gang was never evident.
No, and we haven't really seen it because like they know of apartments and stuff in Turkey and I'm sure there are in other places, but they were never able to get hold of them. They had evidence that they may have apartments, but there was certainly no way of going after it. And, you know, that's always been, I suppose, a problem for the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Like they can seize assets, but only if they can get their hands on them and... And they're still living within the St.
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Chapter 8: Are Limerick gangs maturing or still engaging in violence?
Mary's Park. They're still operating there. And I mean, even when you consider that, you know, in 2015, I think it was, like Brian and Ciarán were caught on a house on St. Edith Street with heroin worth 40 grand. And they were basically making up the deal. So, I mean, this is really hands-on stuff for two people that you considered like...
you know, fairly major, high level, you know, internationally connected drug dealers and they're mixing up drugs in the Ireland field as were these guys.
Exactly, like hands on. So we had at one point the Keane Colopy merger. I mean, it was more, their coming together was more due to their mutual interest feuding with the Dundon mob, really, wasn't it? More than anything else, they have been independent operators and had been always independent operators, even though they sort of grouped together against the Dundon McCarthy faction.
Yeah, I mean, that was kind of, what would you say, it was a... a marriage of convenience, really, in that sense, when things really started to get out of hand.
But I mean, you know, I mean, the Cuddle Police played a really, like, pivotal role in getting that all started when they attacked one of the McCarthy's and caravans that time after there'd been a number of attempts over, you know, there was back and forth, tit for tat going on, and there was an attempt to wipe out an entire family, essentially, when there was a shotgun attack on, I think it was eight people in a caravan park.
And that really kicked things off then. And, you know, we saw then all the, you know, from the early 2000 onwards. What was it? 19 deaths, I think, have been kind of attributed to the, you know, the feud violence.
I mean, that kind of, that figure has never finalized and we're often vague about it because there's some, like there's quite a number of unsolved murders in Limerick and some aren't entirely unsolved. Is it clear they were killed as a result of the feud or something internal in whatever? And there can be some feuds that happened.
It's very simplistic. And the easiest way to explain to people is in that simplistic fashion. Even though we're calling them the Keen Colopy grouping, they are two separate gangs that come together with one purpose, which is to accept the existence of the other and the wanting to eliminate.
Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, they're both distinct, like organized crime gangs in their own right.
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