Brendan Fegan was the main distributor of cannabis in the North for the criminal gang suspected of murdering Veronica Guerin. The twenty-four-year-old drug dealer was shot dead in Newry yesterday afternoon. On one occasion, Mr. Fegan had been arrested by Gardaí investigating the journalist's murder.
He was also closely connected to another murdered drug dealer, Paddy Farrell, who was shot by his girlfriend Lorraine Farrell in Drogheda two years ago. Fegan took over Farrell's drugs operation after he died.
Brendan Fegan had very close links with members of the gang suspected of murdering Veronica Guerin, which imported over seventeen million pounds worth of cannabis into Ireland between 1994 and 1996. Mr. Fegan was their main distributor in the North. Known to them as Nordie, he bought as much as fifty kilos of the drug a week from the Dublin drugs gang and sold it on at a profit of twenty-five thousand pounds.
Mr. Fegan socialised with gang members in Dublin and had a flat in the same city centre apartment complex as one of the men believed to have murdered Veronica Guerin. He was arrested in Dublin and questioned by detectives about the journalists murder in 1997. Brendan Feegan was also closely associated with two other murdered drug dealers, Brendan Campbell and Paddy Farrell.
Mr. Campbell was shot by Direct Action against Drugs, the organisation which is thought to have links with the IRA, while Paddy Farrell, the Northern drug dealer, was shot dead by his girlfriend Lorraine Farrell in Drogheda as part of a murder/suicide pact two years ago. Fegan took over Farrell's drug dealing operation after his death.
