Gangster (6 page)

Her endeavours prompted him to take an appeal to the High Court seeking his return to Portlaoise. It was here that Gilligan first met Donal Ó Siodhacháin and Pat Herron from Paralegal and Technical Services (PATS). Ó Siodhacháin was a former member of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle and the Provisional IRA. He met Herron, whom he describes as a fiery redhead, whilst seeking help for a complex legal case, and the two went on to set up PATS in 1985. Neither were solicitors, but both had a good understanding of the courts system and judicial process.

‘We’d prepare briefing documents for solicitors and help people fight cases against the Garda, ESB, corporation and the like,’ said Ó Siodhacháin.

The meeting with Gilligan was purely accidental. ‘He was in the High Court and had just made an application to the judge, but he wasn’t able to get across what he wanted. He was in very bad shape physically. He was being held in Cork in solitary confinement. He looked shell-shocked, he wasn’t wearing any stockings in his shoes,’ remembered Ó Siodhacháin.

The judge delayed hearing Gilligan’s application, so he took a seat at the back of the courtroom where Ó Siodhacháin was sitting. ‘He was anything but the figure he was made out to be later. The prisoner officer handcuffed to him dozed off to sleep, and I passed a card under his nose. I’d written on the back of it, “Apply for a two-week adjournment, ask for legal aid under the Attorney Generals Act and do you want our help?”’

Gilligan did not know what to make of him but nodded to all three. Ó Siodhacháin pointed to his red-haired companion, Herron, who visited him the following day. Ó Siodhacháin was dubious about Gilligan, having no idea about his background and his story. Because of these fears, which he kept to himself, he arranged to meet Geraldine.

‘We asked about their income. They were living in Blanchardstown, and she produced photographs of the land in Kildare with a few buildings on it. This was long before they built Jessbrook. She had photos of it, and it looked run-down and grotty. In fact, it was so bad at that stage that when she tried to get some grant to upgrade the stable, it was condemned as being not fit to keep horses in it,’ recalled Ó Siodhacháin.

Unknown to them, they were dealing with a man who was a serious criminal. They put a briefing document together for Gilligan to approach a solicitor. ‘We had no idea he was such a heavyweight criminal.’

By this stage, Gilligan had been charged with common assault in Portlaoise District Court on 5 February 1993 and was convicted. He was sentenced to six months in jail, which was subsumed into his sentence. But he was still being held in Cork Prison.

Ó Siodhacháin soon realised that his best intentions were being lost on Gilligan. Having succeeded in being removed from solitary confinement, Gilligan pulled a stunt.

‘We prepared the legal papers for him and he got a further adjournment. Our mistake was to include a judicial review. When he saw how it was done, he photocopied the papers and started passing them around to other cronies, and they all went applying for judicial reviews, and he was put back in solitary confinement.’

It was Geraldine who approached them once again begging for help, prompting Ó Siodhacháin to take action again. ‘On the information she gave me, I went before a judge in the High Court and was granted a habeas corpus application. I gave notice to the Governor of Cork Prison to bring him before a court within 24 hours.’

In spite of his efforts, Gilligan would not listen to their advice—in short Ó Siodhacháin believed he was a liar and would cut a deal behind their backs, or anyone else’s for that matter.

‘In our experience of dealing with criminals, they would sell out their own mother, so I asked Geraldine out straight, would he deal straight and would she deal straight? She said she would, but that he would cut a deal. So once I knew he would do this I pulled away.’

Ó Siodhacháin would later get the occasional call from Geraldine to say thanks. ‘My recollection of Geraldine at that time and afterwards was that she was fed up with criminality and the situation. This was going to be the last time she stood by him and that she was going out on her own. They were separating, that was it,’ he recounted.

‘That’s what she said from day one to me. That she wanted to get on with her life and develop this place in Kildare to do a bit of a riding school, bring people out from the city. I think she believed she could make a go of it financially. I had no reason to disbelieve her. She displayed none of the trappings of wealth. We were doing this on a voluntary basis, we had no reason to disbelieve them.’

Gilligan was eventually returned to Portlaoise Prison. He had lodged an appeal against the assault conviction by sending a letter written in his own illegible handwriting, but he later withdrew it. He settled back into prison life, even managing to get temporary release in the run-up to his release date. He was permanently released from Portlaoise Prison on 15 November 1993, having served just three years of a four-year sentence.

He emerged a professional criminal with a master plan and the determination to carry it out. Whatever crimes he had committed in the past were about to pale into insignificance. He learned a great deal in Portlaoise. He learned much from his fellow inmates. He learned the essentials of crime: how to run an efficient criminal organisation using a cell-structured system, how to intimidate—and most importantly of all he had the bones of a new gang, a young and improved version of the warehouse gang. Its members respected him, regarded him as a father figure and could be trusted. But most importantly of all, and most staggeringly, they looked upon him as the boss. He didn’t have to soften his tone around them; they were willing to follow his instructions without question.

In criminal terms, Gilligan was now light years ahead of his contemporaries and was about to show society just how far he’d travelled. Perhaps the best indication of this could be seen in the video made of the soccer tournament played in 1991 that featured Gilligan’s narration. It later became something of a tradition for inmates to receive a duplicate video on their release as a keepsake. The prisoners who edited it could have been successful in many occupations but not as video editors. They overdubbed the soccer matches with music and in naming the players gave them nicknames like Dessie ‘The Fox’—unsuitable names for undesirable characters. Only one was appropriate because of its foreboding nature. They called Gilligan Mr Big.

Much of what follows is based on evidence presented to the Special Criminal Court in the trials of Brian Meehan, Patrick Holland and John Gilligan.

Chapter 6

A Whirlwind of Crime

‘No one even knew it was happening.’

a Detective speaking about the Meteoric Rise of GILLIGAN’s Gang

Having spent over three years in jail, Gilligan wasted no time getting back into crime, creating the illusion that he was still someone to be reckoned with. The truth, however, was far removed from what he had people believe. He was cash starved. He no longer had surplus funds, hidden stashes of hard cash or stolen property to sell. Not since his childhood had he been so vulnerable. With no money and a lengthy criminal record under his belt, his future looked bleak. He and his family were poor and they had no future.

The warehouse gang was now a defunct gang of ex-convicts, incapable of carrying out the spectacular heists of previous years. The fearsome reputation afforded to Gilligan in the ’80s was all but a distant memory. Crime had changed. Companies took security seriously. They installed systems that were not easily bypassed. Drugs, contraband, computer chips and arms, rather than stolen washing machines and tools, were the new currencies of the black market. A new generation of hoodlum had arrived, and they did not yield to the threat of violence; they readily embraced it. Armed confrontation was their first resort.

Nevertheless, Gilligan was clear-sighted about his situation. He wanted back into crime. He knew drug trafficking was the gateway to certain riches and he wanted his slice of the burgeoning market. Listening to Meehan and his tales of the wealth that narcotics could provide had convinced him of that. But he had three obstacles: lack of cash, muscle and a partner.

John Traynor was one of Dublin’s most celebrated criminals. Gilligan had known Traynor since his youth when the latter worked for Irish Shipping, later getting involved in the Seaman’s Union whilst Gilligan was at sea. Traynor, in Gilligan’s view, was a militant criminal and had the trophies to prove it. For a start he was wealthy. He was also a man who could be relied upon because of his impeccable criminal credentials. The Coach, as he was sometimes called, had been in trouble with the law all his life. He was first charged for housebreaking at nine years of age and he went on to amass over a dozen convictions, ranging from housebreaking to possession of firearms and ammunition in the following years. He was a portly looking man who maintained many mistresses whilst supporting a wife and family. He could socialise with anyone from the petty thief to the banking executive. With his middle-class accent, large frame and casual appearance, he could carry off elaborate deceptions. Duplicity was an art form at which he excelled.

His most glorious moment as far as Gilligan was concerned had come years earlier when he relieved the Revenue Commissioners of close to IR£1 million. Traynor had recruited an insider who stole confidential lists containing the names and addresses of people due to receive tax rebates. His magic trick was simply to change the address of the payee to the address of his laundry on Aungier Street. No sooner would the cheque arrive than it would be endorsed and cashed at another location—a pub, shop or bank. When the gardaí finally caught up with him he responded by issuing threats.

Detective Garda Dominic Hearns, who investigated the crime, named him as being the brains behind the scam in a subsequent court case. ‘Traynor is a major fraud criminal known to travel the world and is away at present,’ he said. That he was named in court was bad enough, but when his name appeared in the following morning’s newspapers, Traynor’s impulsive nature prompted him to call Hearns directly and issue threats. He was in hospital at the time and made the call from his bed, specifying that he would kill the policeman if he should ever mention his name again.

Gilligan approved of such recourse. He saw in Traynor a viciousness coupled with respectability. Of course, what Gilligan could not see was his dual personae—that of the informer, a criminal willing to negotiate his way out of anything. This was the secret side to Traynor.

In 1992, he was asked by Scotland Yard and the gardaí to ‘assist’ with their inquiries into the theft of art from Russborough House in Wicklow. Martin Cahill, the criminal forever known as the General, had stolen the paintings.

The Coach was just two years into a seven-year sentence imposed for handling when he was mysteriously granted a weekend pass from prison. Once released, he quickly made his way to Dublin. The gardaí soon began locating the stolen paintings. Traynor was also instrumental in securing the safe return of some 145 files stolen from the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions, files of a highly sensitive nature that Cahill had also stolen. These were ‘found’ in a disused launderette in Arbour Hill in Dublin.

All this was lost on Gilligan, although he was certainly aware of Traynor’s unusual sexual habits. The Coach engaged in several relationships with prostitutes. The affairs were not simply of a sexual nature; they were perverse. His girlfriends worked in brothels where they offered a variety of sexual services to clients, whom Traynor secretly filmed. He told friends the films were for blackmail purposes, but anyone familiar with his private life knew they were for his own gratification. ‘He always had prostitutes around him. I don’t think he was gay, but I think he got blowjobs from fellas in prison,’ Gilligan would later remark.

Traynor could always be relied upon to seize an opportunity and he embraced Gilligan’s idea. With Traynor in position, the gangster’s next move was to ingratiate himself with Dublin’s criminal hierarchy, some of whom were unaware that he was a free man. He was also looking for work, any means of raising cash.

His first port of call was to the General, the undisputed No. 1 gangster in Ireland. The two men knew each other of old, having taken part together in several robberies. They were first introduced by George Royal about three months after Cahill heisted the O’Connor’s jewellery factory in Harold’s Cross in July 1983, a crime that netted him IR£2 million. Cahill and Gilligan, helped by one of the latter’s Ballyfermot neighbours, George Mitchell, hijacked the ADC cigarette factory in Johnstown, County Kildare. They got away with IR£100,000 worth of cigarettes, which Gilligan fenced.

‘Cahill didn’t trust Gilligan because he was always shouting his mouth off, giving orders, telling people what to do. He was an arrogant little bastard. But Cahill knew he had the contacts to sell anything and that’s why he worked with him,’ said Royal, who participated in the ADC heist.

From his cell in Portlaoise Prison, Gilligan had watched Cahill’s reputation reach staggering heights; Cahill fascinated the press and public. Newspapers devoted pages upon pages to the elusive criminal, declaring him unstoppable, a cunning genius who not only outwitted the law but taunted it. The General was the ultimate antihero.

The truth, which Gilligan and everyone else who worked with Cahill knew, was far different. Cahill was a fat, balding diabetic. He had been caught carrying out an armed robbery early in his career but escaped incarceration through a legal technicality. The truth was that he should have been in jail when he committed the catalogue of crimes for which he later became famous. Yet he was a dangerous adversary. Anyone who got in the way was shot or threatened. Dr Jim Donovan, the head of the Government’s Forensic Laboratory, was the subject of two assassination attempts. His first escape happened in December 1981 when a bomb planted under his car failed to detonate. Weeks later, in January 1982, he wasn’t so lucky. His left leg was completely blown off when his car fireballed, blown up by a booby trap.

‘He did it to impress other criminals,’ believes Donovan. ‘It would have been like another feather in his cap. It’s only when misfortune, pain and suffering come to your door that you know his reality.’

Always mindful of a bullet with his name written on it, Cahill told Gilligan he was planning on early retirement. He still had in his possession parts of the Beit art collection and asked whether Gilligan would like to fence the paintings. With his scruffy dress code, hard accent and small stature, Gilligan made an unlikely art dealer. The General himself had failed on numerous occasions to sell the collection and in his endeavours to get a monetary return from the theft, he was nearly arrested in undercover police operations mounted by the gardaí in conjunction with Scotland Yard. Before his incarceration, Gilligan had shown himself to be able to sell anything, so why not paintings? He accepted the offer.

But Cahill also had hard cash at his disposal and offered to loan Gilligan any amount to set himself up in the drugs distribution business. The General accepted Traynor as a guarantor. Gilligan asked for IR£600,000. Cahill said he’d be in touch.

A stroke of good fortune then came Gilligan’s way when one of Traynor’s contacts acquired hundreds of stolen bank drafts and cheques, worth hard cash to anyone who could launder them. Just weeks out of prison, Gilligan was strapped for cash and offered to rub the drafts through a friend from Tallaght, John Bolger.

Bolger was a fool of a man. He was greedy, asinine and incapable of bettering himself; in short, he wanted to get rich quick through crime. He was 31 years old and married with three children. He had not accomplished much else. He had several convictions, mainly for petty crime, but saw himself as a serious player in the underworld. He knew Cahill, and this was his only claim to fame.

When Gilligan asked him to launder or sell the consignment of stolen bank drafts, he could smell the money. Gilligan knew Bolger of old and made him an irresistible offer. The bank drafts made an ideal commodity for fraud. All you have to do is either lodge them in an account or cash them. Gilligan wanted Bolger to find a buyer for the drafts or to set up a deal whereby another firm would get the drafts cashed. They would then return a percentage of the proceeds to Bolger who would pass it on to Gilligan. The trick was to convince people with legitimate bank accounts to lodge the drafts. Bolger accepted the deal and approached the Provisional IRA leadership in Dublin offering the blank drafts.

‘He arrived up to the house with copies of these drafts offering them to us. He wanted us to either buy them for a fee or launder them and give him a cut of the money,’ recalled one IRA figure. ‘I was looking at the drafts, then Bolger mentioned Gilligan’s name. We told him to fuck off. There were suspicions that Gilligan was an informer. We weren’t getting involved.’

Drafts in hand, Bolger went to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He approached the organisation’s commander in Dublin. This man knew as much about left-wing politics as Gilligan did. He was a bully and, under his control, the INLA became nothing more than a criminal outfit available for hire. It was a perfect match. Bolger and the INLA cut a deal whereby all three parties would get a third of the profits.

All the paramilitaries had to do was recruit locals to lodge the drafts in their bank accounts and withdraw the cash. The deal was sweet for everybody concerned. Gilligan took a back seat, content to allow Bolger to front the operation. Because bank drafts are effectively cash, once they were lodged, the account owner could draw money from his credited account without having to wait for the draft to be cleared. Bouncing or kiting drafts was all about sleight of hand. The immersion stage where the draft is passed over is vital. If the person passing the draft looks penniless or nervous, the conspiracy comes unstuck.

The fraudsters also had to convince those lodging the drafts that they would inevitably be arrested because their identities would be exposed. Gilligan prepared for this, telling Bolger to instruct the people lodging the drafts to have a cover story when cautioned by the police. Under no circumstances was his name to be mentioned; he was paranoid about being implicated for fear of ending up in Portlaoise. Then again, the INLA felt confident that no one would betray them for fear of reprisal. And they were right—no one did.

The drafts were put through a cycle of transactions to obscure their origins. No sooner would one of Gilligan’s stolen drafts be lodged than it would be endorsed and cashed at another location. By the time the bank discovered the draft was fraudulent, the identity of the people who lodged it was obscured, or they would have prepared a cover story for investigating police officers.

The scam got under way with Gilligan, Bolger and the INLA earning thousands between them. It was the perfect crime. There were no victims—just the banking institutions. Everyone was happy. Everyone was making money. In the following weeks, Gilligan and Traynor got to know the INLA staff. The two criminals were firmly apolitical; they knew nothing of left-wing politics, republicanism or the vicious internal feuds within the Official IRA that had caused the birth of the INLA. Nor were they interested, for that matter.

Gilligan, though, was at least able to converse with the paramilitaries on their own level. He had served his sentence alongside influential republicans, one of whom was Dominic McGlinchey, a man with an unequalled reputation for extreme violence. In his dealings with the INLA, Gilligan came to understand the concept of a cell-structured organisation and the importance of staying three steps removed from the scene of a crime. All this was irrelevant, though. Only one thing was important as far as Gilligan and Traynor were concerned. It was brutally simple: the INLA were a force to be reckoned with, they would do business and they could be manipulated. This prevailing wisdom would, in time, bring about an unholy alliance, with Gilligan and Traynor becoming de facto commanders of the INLA in Dublin.

The scam also brought Bolger prosperity he could only have dreamed of. The INLA were, in theory, involved in an effort to generate cash for their armed struggle north of the border.

‘It became the biggest joke. I’d say a fifth of what they made was redirected to Belfast,’ remarked one of the team. ‘If they got IR£10,000, they would send a message to GHQ in Belfast and someone would be sent to collect the cash in Drogheda, which is close to the border. But Dublin [Brigade] were just spending it on themselves. There were about six of them involved and they were all living it up. They were buying clothes, watches and drugs with the cash. I remember one occasion, where they turned up with a couple of hundred left out of IR£10,000. There was no discipline in the organisation because McGlinchey had just been shot and no one was in charge. It was a free-for-all. And Gilligan capitalised on it.’