Gardaí fear gang leaders may attempt more tiger robberies

Surveillance on four men regarded as the leaders of some of the country’s biggest organised crime gangs is to be increased following Thursday’s

tiger kidnapping in Dublin in which a gang escaped with €200,000 in banknotes.

The gang broke into the Dublin home of a GSLS cash-in-transit company employee and held his family hostage until he went to work and handed over the money from his security van to a gang member at a rendezvous point at Dublin Airport.

The men under surveillance are all due before the courts next year in connection with a variety of serious offences related to the drugs trade and major robberies.

Gardaí fear they may try to organise more tiger robberies, which they have carried out in the past, in a bid to add to their wealth before their possible imprisonment.

Criminals on bail facing potentially long prison sentences have sometimes committed further crimes in the period before their trials because they think they have little to lose.

Concurrent sentences

They believe any prison sentence for the additional crimes would probably be served concurrently.

Thursday’s robbery came after a lull in tiger raids in recent years.

Improved security procedures in the financial sector and the cash-in-transit industry have made it much more difficult for criminals to carry out such robberies successfully.

It is understood Garda profiling and criminal intelligence gathered by the force earlier this year suggested the cash-in-transit route to Dublin Airport, which was targeted on Thursday morning, was vulnerable to attack.

However, sources stressed intelligence about a large number of potential crimes, including tiger robberies, was received across the State on a daily basis.

It is understood the need to collect foreign currency deliveries from aircraft landing at the airport was regarded as a risk factor.

There were specific concerns about some cash collection runs, including the GSLS run targeted on Thursday.

However, a seven-figure delivery of foreign currency into the airport on the day was unaffected by the robbery, in which at least €200,000 was surrendered by the GSLS employee to a gang member at the Corballis Road Business Park on the airport campus.

Held in van

Earlier on Thursday, the employee’s wife and daughter were taken from their home in north Dublin.

They were being held by other gang members in the back of a van in the Chestnut Grove estate in Dunboyne, Co Meath, at the time the money was handed over at the airport.

The attack on the employee and his wife, both in their 50s, and their adult daughter began when raiders forced their way into the family home on Gracefield Road, Artane at about 8pm on Wednesday.

They were held in the house until 5am on Thursday when the three masked and armed gang members took the mother and daughter away in the back of a VW Caddy van.

The man was told they would be harmed if he did not go to his place of work as normal on Thursday morning.

He was told to drive his security van carrying cash on its usual route to Dublin Airport and to surrender the money to one of the gang at a rendezvous point.