A UK transnational drug trafficker who worked with an Irish organised crime gang facilitator to move large quantities of drugs and cash between Ireland, the UK and Europe, has been jailed in England for 21 years.
Paul O'Brien, 56, from Uxbridge in West London was a career criminal who worked with the Kinahan gang facilitator, Thomas Maher, who is currently serving 14 years in prison.
Maher organised for €300,000 of O'Brien’s money to be collected in Co Louth and driven to the Netherlands in April 2020
The following month a second pick-up of €600,000 was arranged by Maher for O'Brien, again to be taken by couriers from Ireland to the Netherlands.
However, gardaí intercepted the handover on 11 May 2020.
A garda surveillance operation monitored the exchange at a bus station in Drogheda and watched as the cash was transferred to care worker Catherine Dawson's company car.
It was being used to move the cash because, as a health care vehicle, it was permitted to be driven around during the Covid lockdown and was unlikely to be stopped by gardaí at checkpoints.
Dawson, along with her former partner Thomas Rooney, both from Betaghstown, Bettystown in Co Meath, and Jason Reed, from Maelduin, Dunshaughlin in Co Meath, were arrested.
Dawson had been used by Rooney, who was a trusted mid to high level member of the gang. He had a black Mercedes S350 as part of his limousine business which he also used to move the money.
Reed was not previously known to gardaí. On the face of it he was a plasterer and a volunteer who helped feed the homeless.
He was, however, also a senior figure in the organised crime group.
Reed was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court for money laundering. Rooney was sentenced to six years also for money laundering, while Dawson received a fully suspended three years and nine-month prison sentence.
O'Brien is the last of the transnational gang to be jailed.
He arranged for the transport of up to £1m worth of cocaine and €900,000 cash with using EncroChat messages. His handle was 'ONEDIAMONDGEE’ on the encrypted network.
Maher first came to the attention of the UK National Crime Agency during the investigation into the deaths of 39 Vietnamese nationals in a lorry in Purfleet in October 2019.
The tractor unit involved was previously owned by Maher and was still registered in his wife’s name after it was sold.
This led to the discovery of his wider involvement in transnational organised crime, running a network which spanned Europe, moving drugs, dirty money and other illegal commodities for organised criminals.
The senior investigating officer in the case, Martin Clarke, said today that O'Brien and Maher moved cocaine and hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash across Europe, but that the crucial evidence obtained from his EncroChat handset left him with no option but to plead guilty.
He said the NCA is committed to targeting the controllers of international organised crime who see themselves as "criminal kingpins" and think they can distance themselves from their illegal activity and evade justice.
