Listening to veteran crime correspondent Paul Reynolds describe the activities of the “Family” drug gang on the radio over the weekend, you could be forgiven for thinking you had tuned into the business news.
Reynolds leant heavily and deliberately into corporate jargon to describe their structure, which includes a “main administrator” who manages their communications and phone system. The same person also seems to be responsible for human resources in so far as they decide who goes on what job.
Another key member of the management team, according to Reynolds, was the “head of logistics” who operates a “sophisticated transport network” using “deep concealment methods” that require heavy engineering and precision design.
The respected reporter went on to elucidate the competitive advantage of the new incumbents at the top of Ireland’s criminal underworld. Their unique selling point appears to be that they don’t do gangland killing.
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Another element of brand differentiation between the Family and the Kinahan cartel they have replaced is that they don’t attract attention to themselves. They live relatively modestly in their west Dublin community, in contrast to the conspicuously consuming Kinahan mob.
Their “turnover”, by which the reporter meant drug sales, is €10 million a year and the business model is resilient enough to sustain multimillion-euro losses – which is one way of describing Garda drug busts.
By the end of the segment, it would not have come as a complete surprise to hear that the Family met its obligations under the transfer-of-undertakings legislation in respect of the terms and conditions of Kinahan underlings.
The co-opting of corporate jargon to describe drug gangs is an almost inevitable consequence of the long-established practice of the police and media putting some sort of public face on the chaotic and opportunistic groups that fight for control of the market for drugs.
Reynolds is by no means the only journalist reporting this way on crime gangs. Most outlets do it to a greater or lesser extent.
The Irish Times has also reported on the Family, and has explained the inner workings of other crime organisations.
The focus on a particular individual or group at any point in time is itself a reflection of the reality that there is no winning the whack-a-mole war on drugs. There will always be drug dealers and traffickers for as long as people have the motivation and the opportunity. Neither is in short supply in wealthy but unequal societies such as ours.
The Family is just the latest cipher. Before them were the Kinahans and the Hutches. Before that there were others such as John Gilligan and the Penguin.
This depressing truth, that victory in the war on drugs is impossible, presents a problem for the Garda and its political masters. It is not a good look to tell the public, we are doing a good job keeping a lid on the problem but most likely we will be at this until kingdom come because people are people.
The reality of this, however, is clear from the crime statistics. There were 14,905 recorded incidents of offences against Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime last year, according to the CSO. This is in line with the five-year average.
There was a decline in controlled drug offences, which can be seen as a proxy for the activities of the Family and their rival gangs. There were 16,450 offences last year, down on the five-year average of 19,240, although a lot of the decline is linked with the end of Covid.
It is quite rational in this context for the Garda to eschew trying to explain the Sisyphean nature of policing the drugs trade and instead present their actions as a series of battles won. And winning a battle requires defeating an identifiable enemy. There is no shortage of candidates, and the media is only too happy to help.
The approach is by its nature media-friendly, and the Garda appears to be pretty expert at managing it, often inviting journalists along to see drug lords’ expensive SUVs being taken away on lorries and the like.
Nothing about this effective Garda media strategy diminishes the important, hard and very often dangerous work that goes into suppressing the drug trade. The risks taken by gardaí in the course of their work are serious and real. So are the results. More than 80 individuals associated with the Kinahan operation are currently behind bars,
There is also an argument for their approach in so far as it underpins public confidence in both the Garda and the Government. There is a certain chicken-and-egg dimension to it, however. The drug kingpin du jour is frequently built up into a fearsome opponent before they can be taken down.
The counter argument is that this approach paints a misleading picture of what is going on and makes it harder to hold the Garda to account. For journalists it is worth remembering that while metaphor is an important part of storytelling, if it is stretched too far it descends into parody.
In any event the Family’s moment in the spotlight would appear to be coming to an end. Their secure communications system has been compromised, and they are the subject of pan-European policing efforts. Their leaders were questioned by the Garda last week and the Director of Public Prosecutions will decide how to proceed.
As Reynolds put it in an accompanying piece on the RTÉ website, hopefully with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, “It has not been a good week for the CEO, the senior leadership team, the executives, the facilitators and the transport managers of the country’s biggest drug trafficking gang.”
Other drug gangs are presumably looking on with interest and planning their own “hostile takeovers”.
