Crime World

Dutch crime reporter Peter R. De Vries died in hospital yesterday, a week after he was shot on a busy Amsterdam street in an attack which has drawn outrage across Europe. As his family and friends mourn his loss, police are focusing on the advisory role he was playing to state witness Nabil B, the underworld crime figure set to give evidence against his one-time gang boss Ridouan Taghi. Taghi, an...

It’s just three years since a hitman attempted to murder gang boss Owen Maguire, leaving him paralysed and dividing a town’s underworld into two feuding sides intent on wiping each other out. Since then, six assassination attempts, four brutal murders - including the torture and dismemberment of teenager Keane Mulready-Woods - and a huge garda effort to protect the local community has turned Drogh...

It may seem like a simple solution to the war on drugs – legalise weed and cocaine, regulate the market and then tax the profits. This week, 100 youth workers in Ireland joined forces against prohibition and are calling for just that. But is such dramatic change practical and what are the pitfalls when it comes to legalising drugs? Do our youth workers really want Ireland to radicalise that much o...

Politicians, police and media colleagues in The Netherlands have been horrified by the shooting of famous crime journalist Peter R. De Vries, who was gunned down in Amsterdam on Tuesday night. The well-known journalist has been working as an advisor to Nabil B. the state witness in the infamous Marengo trial. The central character in this high-profile trial is Ridouan Taghi, the Dutch-Moroccan org...

Mob boss Daniel Kinahan has been keeping his head down in Dubai since a BBC Panorama documentary catapulted him and his links to boxing into the spotlight last February. But now, a determined American lawyer has put his name in the headlines again and this time in the Emirates where he is desperate to sever all links to crime and to sports-wash his reputation. So why has Kinahan and the MTK boxing...

She was the teenage drug mule who became a household name and when she was jailed in Peru for attempting to smuggle 11 kilos of cocaine to Ibiza her fame was cemented. But since then, the story of Michaela McCollum and her sidekick Melissa Reid has seen many ups and downs and while Reid has faded into oblivion, Instagram sensation McCollum continues to court celebrity. Cancelled by Piers Morgan, c...

It’s the case that has baffled Northern Ireland - and on the one-year anniversary of the discovery of the body of tragic schoolboy Noah Donohue in a drain, it is clear that there are still more questions than answers. This week, a preliminary inquest into the 14-year-old’s death has heard that a prisoner has now said his former cellmate confessed to the teenager's murder and that the PSNI are now...

His guilty plea has meant little evidence of Peadar Keating's role in a plot to kill will ever be heard. But behind the headlines lies one of the Kinahan mafia’s highest-ranking Irish executives and one of its most-sought-after targets. Nicola Tallant chats with Sunday World deputy Editor Niall Donald about the significance of Keating’s guilty plea, his role at the boardroom table of Ireland’s dea...

It’s the most popular genre for book lovers, podcasters and even documentary makers, with a growing audience who love all things true crime. But what is it that intrigues us about violence, fear and gruesome death and why are women the biggest consumers of all when it comes to murder and mayhem? This week, Nicola Tallant chats with writer Rachel Monroe, whose book 'Savage Appetites' explores our f...

Three residential properties, one city centre business premises and one million of stolen crypto currency isn’t bad for a day's work at the Criminal Assets Bureau. But that's just the start of the countless homes, monies, cars and designer goods that are stacking up to make this a bumper year for the Bureau. So what is the CAB at and how is it identifying the hundreds of targets across the country...

They were part of a plot to flood Ireland with heroin, but when the Turkish mafia formed an alliance with the gang known as 'The Family' things didn’t work out as planned. Last week, 57-year-old Kuldip Singh was jailed for his part in €1m heroin stash. His boss, Ali Adnan Duran, is already serving nine years here for his role in the business venture that went wrong. So what were members of the Tur...

He’s the oddball German drifter suspected of abducting and murdering Madeleine McCann in 2007 who has now been identified by Irish woman Hazel Behan as matching the attacker who raped her in a hotel room in Portugal three years previous. But as German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters continues his lengthy investigation into the life and crimes of Christian Brueckner, the suspect broke his silence...

The murder of newly-married Michaela McAreavey on the honeymoon island of Mauritius is one of the most high-profile, unsolved cases in the world. Yet still, 10 years on, Mauritian authorities have failed to bring her killer, or killers, to justice. Following the botched original investigation and the shambolic court case that saw the acquittal of two men, what can the government do now they have v...

He was the unknown face in the crowd spotted by Garda officers as they poured over footage and images of mourners at the funeral of Regency Hotel murder victim David Byrne. Up until that point Declan Brady had got away with being an ordinary guy, foraging a living by renting bouncy castles, inflatable sumo suits and later running a transport firm. But this week, Brady, his wife Deirdre and his mis...

Just 24 hours before news broke of the ANOM phone hack, the newsroom of the New Zealand Herald got a tip-off that there was a raid on the properties of known members of organised biker gang 'the Comancheros'. Senior crime reporter Jared Savage began to ring around his contacts. He knew that the gang were the top targets of Kiwi police, but he’d no idea what was about to unfold or that the powerful...

Hot on the heels of the Encrochat and Sky ECC takedowns, criminals are again counting the costs of their so called ‘bullet proof’ mobile phone systems. The busted Anom network, co-ordinated by the FBI and Australian law enforcement partners, has seen 800 arrests, the seizure of 32 tons of cocaine, cannabis and meth, 250 firearms and $48 million of dirty money. But just how did a small FBI field of...

It’s the Netherlands' trial of the century, with infamous underworld boss Ridouan Taghi in the dock along with 16 of his men who face accusations relating to six gangland murders. In a courtroom known as 'The Bunker', the most dangerous figures in Dutch organised crime are putting up a tough defence while Taghi’s former business partners in Irish, Italian and Bosnian mafias look on from a safe dis...

‘Fat’ Andy Connors was part of a notorious burglary gang that terrorised Ireland for years, robbing elderly people in their homes and often using horrendous violence against them. He was shot dead in 2014 by an unknown gunman and in the aftermath of his murder the Criminal Assets Bureau secured a €2.5m judgement against his widow, Ann Connors. The judgement included a massive property known as 'Th...

The home of senior Kinahan lieutenant Liam Byrne has just been put on the on the market for just €400,000 after it was seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) . The dream property where Byrne (40) lived was once valued at around €1m with extensive refurbishments carried out on the house. Now, No2 Raleigh Square in Crumlin, has been advertised for less than half of its previous estimated value....

CARTEL killer Freddie Thompson organised the murder of 'easy target' David ‘Daithi’ Douglas to bulk up the mob’s body count in Dublin and impress his bloodthirsty boss Daniel Kinahan. But it was 'Fat' Freddie's desperation to be accepted at the top table that finally cost him a life sentence behind bars and brought a dramatic end to his violent career. But how did a small-time criminal from Dublin...

The chaotic life of gangland thug Daniel Goulding came to an abrupt and dramatic finale when he walked quietly from his Blanchardstown home two hours after a crazy shootout with gardaí turned his neighbourhood into the wild west. Nicola Tallant chats with Irish Independent crime correspondent Ken Foy about the the terrifying shooting incident in west Dublin which saw two detectives injured with gu...

Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh is facing a tonne of misery in the UK after a recent court appearance heard that he is to be sentenced in relation to an incredible 292 kilos of cocaine and 600-800 kilos of cannabis. According to Crown prosecutors, the tonne of Class A and B drugs – with a combined street value of more than €45 million – was imported through a route into Dover which was busted in 2017 whe...

Forty years ago this month, 21-year-old Jake Mac Siacais cried in his H-Block cell as his friend Bobby Sands died on hunger strike. Jake had been in the next cell to the republican icon, and when Sands left the wing to go to the prison hospital, it was Jake who gave the final address on behalf of the IRA prisoners. Now 61, Nicola Tallant travels with him to Bobby Sands' grave at the republican plo...

The shadowy 'Wizard Spider' gang behind the HSE hack - who are they and what has motivated them to attack our health service? Senior cyber security expert Rob Feeney talks ‘black hat’ hackers, the dark web and the threat of a cyber crime war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He is one of Europe's most-notorious drug dealers who flooded the UK and Ireland with cocaine and heroin until he was nabbed in 1996. While behind bars, Liverpool mobster Curtis ‘Cocky’ Warren, killed a fellow inmate and had an illicit affair with a female prison guard. In this week’s Crime World podcast, journalist Peter Walsh details the rise and fall of the drugs lord who was once named as Inte...