An arsenal of weapons, including rocket launchers, assault rifles, submachine guns and semi- automatic pistols, was intended for use by a Limerick organised crime gang to wage war on their enemies in the city, a court heard yesterday.
The haul of some 24 weapons, including two RPG rocket launchers, five AK 47 assault rifles, five AR 15 semi-automatic assault rifles, two Uzi submachine guns and 10 semi-automatic pistols was being sought by the Dundon gang, which is involved in a feud in the city. The assertion regarding the weaponry was made by prosecution counsel, Tom O'Connell SC, when opening the State's case against two men, Glen Geasley (27), Innishmore Drive, Ballincollig, Co Cork and Seán Callinan (21), Pearse Park, Tullamore, Co Offaly.
Both men have pleaded not guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to three conspiracy charges relating to the arms and ammunition cache while they have also denied a fourth charge of attempting to possess the arms and ammunition between February 22nd and April 20th, 2007.
Opening the State's case, Mr O'Connell said "it came to the notice of Garda Intelligence that a criminal organisation was seeking to acquire a large cache of arms - the criminal organisation in question was a Limerick criminal gang involved in feuding in the city of Limerick.
"Having got this information and having become aware that this criminal organisation was shopping for weapons, the guards enlisted the aid of an intelligence organisation set up under statute in the United Kingdom, the Serious Organised Crime Agency - Soca."
Mr O'Connell said that undercover agents belonging to Soca using the names "John" and "Raj" had a meeting with Mr Geasley at a railway arch warehouse in London on February 22nd, 2007 and that meeting was secretly filmed and audio recorded.
Mr Geasley introduced himself as "John" and said the purpose of the meeting was "the proposed purchase of firearms" and that he was representing Wayne Dundon and was authorised to act on his behalf, said Mr O'Connell.
Mr Geasley was shown a series of photographs of arms and a price list and he was also given the numbers of two mobile phones used by undercover agents, John and Raj, each of which was "clean" and had been procured solely to communicate with Mr Geasley.
The undercover agents were keen to establish that Mr Geasley was acting for Wayne Dundon and in order to verify this, he was asked to arrange a meeting with Dundon, who Mr Geasley described as "the decision man", in Wheatfield Prison.
Mr O'Connell said that a meeting was set up for April 5th, 2007 when "Agent John" went to visit a prisoner called Thomas Flood. The prisoner in the adjacent cubicle was John Dundon, a brother of Wayne Dundon, and Agent John left a copy of the Irish Independent. behind him in the area. Agent John had replaced two pages of the Irish Independent with pages of a paper called London Lite which contained an ad for mobile phones. The mobile number of the ad was the contact number for Agent John.
Around April 9th, contact was made between Wayne Dundon and Agent John and Mr Geasley and Agent Raj and agreement was reached on a consignment of arms with further contact between Mr Geasley and Agent Raj on April 16th agreeing a price of £45,000 sterling.