Gardai investigating a plot to smuggle handguns from the US yesterday arrested a man and two women at a house in Inverin, Co Galway, and recovered eight handguns which had arrived in two parcels through the post. The arrests follow an investigation which began earlier this month when guns in transit to the Republic from Florida were detected by customs at West Midlands Airport in Britain.
A joint FBI, British police and Garda investigation was started which, by yesterday, had resulted in three arrests in the Republic and four in the US. Senior Garda sources were last night reticent about naming which organisation was responsible for the plot, but one Belfast man arrested in the US and a man arrested at the weekend in Cavan are said to have Provisional IRA connections.
It is understood the weapons seized in Galway, including high-powered Austrian-manufactured Glock automatic pistols, were similar to weapons bought by the Irish group from a gun-dealer in Florida.
News of the plot broke yesterday when a Florida newspaper reported that the FBI had detained two men and a woman at Fort Lauderdale, while yesterday a fourth man, from Belfast, was arrested in Philadelphia.
The three people who appeared in court in Florida yesterday were named by the FBI as Ms Siobhan Browne and Mr Anthony Smyth, with addresses in Weston, southern Florida and Mr Conor Anthony Claxton, identified as an Irish citizen, living in Deerfield, Florida.
They were arrested by members of the FBI's joint terrorist task force after a transatlantic security operation involving British and Irish police.
Applications for bail are expected to be made in court tomorrow on behalf of the three in Fort Lauderdale.
The fourth suspect in the US appeared in Philadelphia federal court yesterday to face charges filed in Miami that he was part of a conspiracy to post illegal weapons from America to Ireland. An FBI spokeswoman said Mr Martin Mullan, an Irish national, had been arrested on Monday night in north-east Philadelphia. He appeared in court yesterday for initial hearing and is due in court again on Friday for procedures to transport him to Florida. There are indications that federal officials expect more US arrests in the case.
Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, Warwickshire Police, the FBI and the Garda were alerted to the smuggling operation earlier this month when an X-ray at Coventry Airport detected a .357 Magnum handgun in a package shipped from Fort Lauderdale.
Weapons and ammunition were found in a further packages which had been labelled as containing toys, baby clothes, stereo equipment or computers.
The FBI arrest affidavit said the accused in Florida bought 26 guns from a dealer and were planning to buy machineguns, silencers, magazines and pistols.
The three accused were charged with exporting weapons without a licence, mailing concealable firearms without a licence and conspiracy.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said last night it was "too early and inappropriate" to speculate on who might be involved in the smuggling operation.
The find prompted fresh calls from unionists for Sinn Fein to be excluded from Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive. Senior Ulster Unionist talks team member, Mr Dermot Nesbitt, of the Ulster Unionist Party, said the development "heightens our concern that the implicit threat of terrorism remains and raises further questions about the republican movement's American connections".
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said: "With this evidence, the Prime Minister must proceed without Sinn Fein/IRA and recognise that the republican leopard has not changed its spots and is inextricably linked to violence."