Gardaí in Ballymun have seized 17 scramblers, four quad bikes and a motorbike as part of an operation targeting dangerous driving, drug dealing and anti-social activity in north Dublin city.
Thirteen cars and four XL bully dogs were confiscated and €20,000 in cash seized, along with drugs and weapons. A house was also repossessed.
More than 50 gardaí from Ballymun and Finglas manned checkpoints, and carried out searches of nine houses in the Ballymun area.
Three people were arrested.
The operation targeted teenagers and young men believed to be engaged in drug dealing and anti-social behaviour, illegal and dangerous driving and owning dangerous dogs.
Many of the juveniles were in school when the searches were carried out by uniformed officers supported by armed detectives and co-ordinated by the Community Policing Unit.
The scramblers, quad bikes and motorbike did not have tax or insurance, and were seized along with €500 worth of crack cocaine, drugs paraphernalia and an imitation firearm.
The bikes were being used for drug dealing and by young people driving around at speed on the roads with no helmets, doing wheelies.
The 13 cars seized also had no insurance and were being driven without a licence, or by an unaccompanied learner.
The four XL bully dogs were seized from one of the Ballymun houses by Dublin City Council officials.
This dangerous type of dog has attacked and seriously injured at least four people in Ireland, and is being banned in the UK from next month.
The dogs had previously been let out of the house and had attacked and killed several other dogs which were family pets in the area.
The tenant in the house was found to be no longer living there, and the four people present who owned the dogs were evicted and the house repossessed.
It has now been boarded up.
Gardaí seized the scramblers under new legislation introduced last summer.
An amendment to the Road Traffic Act allows them to seize quad bikes and scrambler motorbikes when used unlawfully, particularly on the roads, in public parks and on green spaces.
Gardaí have also appealed to people not to buy their children quad bikes or scramblers for Christmas, and have warned of further operations targeting the illegal use of these motorbikes.
Two of the three arrested - two men - have been charged with drugs offences and are due in court next month.
The third, a juvenile male, has been released pending a file to the DPP.
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