Cocaine Wars (2 page)

D
ECLAN
‘D
ECO
' G
AVIN
was tired after spending more than a day bagging and tagging the 2 kg of cocaine and 49,000 ecstasy tablets. He had booked into the Holiday Inn hotel on Dublin's Pearse Street the day before, Thursday 9 March 2000, and along with Graham Whelan and Philip Griffiths had worked through the night breaking up the drugs haul into individual deals. The drugs would be worth around €1.7 million on the street, and nineteen-year-old Gavin and his gang expected to make a profit of nearly €1 million on their investment. Things were going well for ‘Deco' Gavin of late. He was quickly becoming a very wealthy young man because of his burgeoning drug-dealing business, which was supplying large amounts of cocaine in his native Drimnagh and Crumlin.

The three men had come to the Holiday Inn well equipped for their work. The 2 kg of coke came in a solid block and they used hammers to break up the drugs into smaller blocks. They then put these into coffee grinders and blenders to crush them into a fine powder, which was mixed with glucose to make the finished product. The drugs were then packed into 1 gram deals – about three lines of cocaine – which would sell for up to €80 a bag. Once the individual bags were all sold on the streets, the gang would net around €750,000.

The ecstasy tablets would fetch at least €10 and possibly up to €15 each, depending on how pure they were. So although the trio were putting in the work, they would be rewarded handsomely.

Generally, drugs gangs can make a minimum of five times their investment on a shipment, and possibly up to eight or nine times what they paid if they break the drugs up in the most efficient way, so the job was a very important one.

Declan Gavin should really not have been in the Holiday Inn in the first place. Around Dublin there are three or four expert ‘cutters' of cocaine who specialise in breaking the drugs up into individual deals. Gavin did this by mixing glucose, a white powder, with the pure cocaine, although the mixing agent of choice today is Lidocaine, which is a local anaesthetic often used by dentists. Lidocaine numbs the sensors in the membrane of a drug user's nose and gives them a good buzz, leading them to believe that the cocaine is stronger than it actually is. Cocaine in Ireland is very weak, and masking agents like Lidocaine, Procaine and Xylocaine are vital in fooling users into thinking that their drugs are purer than they actually are.

A good cutter can make four diluted kilos out of one relatively pure kilo, which means that the profit margin is increased dramatically. However, Declan Gavin did not trust cutters because he believed that if they spent a day or two mixing cocaine, it was inevitable that they would steal some. This was a short-sighted attitude on his part, because neither he nor his two accomplices were skilled in mixing cocaine. It would prove to be a fatal error.

In order to get repeat custom, you need to ensure that the cocaine you sell is always of good quality; otherwise the user will go elsewhere. It was all about the profit for Gavin though, and he wasn't prepared to pay an expert cutter the €35,000 fee that is standard for cutting down 2 kg of cocaine. So he really shouldn't have been in the Holiday Inn with the drugs at all, because the first rule of being a successful drug dealer is never to touch the product. This is a principle that was adopted by Ireland's first major drug importers, the Dunne family, in the early 1980s. Larry Dunne was the leader of the family and the mastermind behind the smuggling racket. Foot soldiers who used to handle heroin on his behalf often joked, ‘Larry doesn't carry', because Dunne knew that the Gardaí would have great difficulty linking him to any seizures if he wasn't in possession of the drugs.

Declan Gavin was one of the leaders of the drugs gang that controlled distribution in Dublin 12. There were about ten senior members of the gang. Whelan and Griffiths were only foot soldiers brought in to break up the coke under Gavin's watchful eye. The gang members had clubbed together to buy the batch of cocaine and ecstasy and would probably have paid about €170,000 up front to buy the 2 kg of cocaine. However, it is also possible that they were given a kilo on credit because they were such good customers of their Dutch supplier. Just a euro or two would have been paid up front for each ecstasy tablet. Gavin had probably personally invested €35,000 in the shipment, so it was in his interests to make sure that things went smoothly.

Organising drugs shipments is a logistical nightmare and is very costly, hence the temptation to dilute the finished product and make as much money as is possible. When a drug dealer organises a shipment with his Dutch or Spanish supplier, it is not just a case of popping over on a flight, packing the drugs into a suitcase and returning home the next day. Professional drug importers send at least two ‘mules' to the Netherlands to pick up the drugs. They are supervised by a senior and trusted member of the drugs gang, who accompanies them and always watches from a distance to make sure that nothing goes wrong and that the mules do not cream drugs off the main stash. This necessitates booking hotel rooms and organising flights, often with false passports, so that the authorities don't find out the real identities of those travelling. So it is a very expensive business. Then there is the matter of organising the drugs to be driven back to Ireland. A long-distance lorry driver is usually paid around €30,000 a trip to bring the drugs in through Dublin or Rosslare Ports. So before any drugs arrive in the country, up to €100,000 can be spent on the logistics. This is before unforeseen problems, such as a mule carrying cash through Dublin Airport on the outward journey being caught by Customs and having the money seized, or the Gardaí getting a tip-off and confiscating the cocaine as it comes into the country.

Even arriving at the hotel without getting caught had been something of a victory, then, but there was still serious work to do before the gang could cash in. Gavin, Whelan and Griffiths had rented two adjoining rooms in the hotel. They worked shifts, with two of the men breaking up the coke, while the third caught up on some sleep. The Holiday Inn traditionally attracts tourists eager to see the sights of the capital, and, usually, the vast majority of guests are out during the day and return to their rooms in the afternoon, leaving them vacant for most of the day. The three men told hotel staff that they did not want to be disturbed and turned away the cleaners when they came to change the bed linen. When this happened two days in a row, a vigilant member of staff became suspicious and wondered what three Dublin men in their late teens were doing in two hotel rooms for well over a day without coming out once. He reported his suspicions to hotel management, and Gardaí at nearby Pearse Street station were informed. Five uniformed officers came to the hotel to see what was going on. They knocked on the door, identified themselves as Gardaí and ordered the men to open it. There was no response, so the door had to be forcibly opened. Graham Whelan and Philip Griffiths were caught red-handed. Griffiths was observed running over to a window and throwing a blue holdall out onto the car park below. It was subsequently found to contain cocaine. The two men offered no resistance and were quickly cuffed while reinforcements were called. The Gardaí knew that they were dealing with a major drugs haul. In 2000, a €1.7-million haul would have been the equivalent of finding €10 million worth of drugs today because drugs were far more difficult to source at that time. The Gardaí burst into the adjoining room hopeful of finding more drugs. They found Declan Gavin lying dozing on a bed, but he was not physically holding any drugs, although there was cocaine in the room. Gavin was also arrested and taken to Pearse Street. Coffee grinders, weighing equipment and packages for bagging the drugs were also recovered, as well as other drug-mixing paraphernalia. A major Garda investigation was launched under the command of Detective Inspector John Fitzpatrick. At the station none of the three men co-operated with the investigating detectives. They were all used to being quizzed by Gardaí and knew that the drill was to keep quiet and say absolutely nothing.

Declan Gavin was questioned for all of Friday evening and Saturday. However, because he was not actually in the process of handling the drugs, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided that he should not be immediately charged, but that investigations should continue and a full file be forwarded for consideration in due course. On the Saturday evening, a disbelieving Declan Gavin was released from custody without charge. His two pals were not as lucky. On the Monday morning, seventeen-year-old Graham Whelan and nineteen-year-old Philip Griffiths appeared before Dublin District Court, where they were both charged with possession of drugs with intent to supply. The pair were given bail. Back in Crumlin the post-mortem immediately began over how the cops had found out that the drugs were being cut in the hotel room. Suspicion soon fell on Declan Gavin.

The main person pointing the finger was Gavin's friend and one of his main partners in crime, Brian Rattigan. Rattigan, a twenty-year-old from Cooley Road in Drimnagh, and other members of the gang could not believe that he had been freed without being charged, and the word soon spread that he was a Garda informant. There was no evidence to prove this and it wasn't actually the case, but Gavin was labelled a tout [‘rat' or ‘grass'] and he and Brian Rattigan fell out spectacularly, with the gang splitting in two amid serious recriminations.

Rattigan wanted to be paid for the drugs that were seized, but Gavin put it down to an occupational hazard and laughed, declaring that he wouldn't pay Rattigan a penny of his €35,000 investment. Gavin also accused Rattigan of having ‘touted' to the police, and it was obvious that the two sides would not be able to reach any common ground. Both men were hotheaded and more than prepared to use violence and intimidation against any enemy, real or perceived. A dispute that had been building had now escalated, and it was obvious that there would inevitably be bloodshed before a truce was declared.

The suspicions that Gavin was a ‘rat' did not come out of thin air, and the fact was that he had a history of avoiding charges for the possession of large quantities of illegal drugs. On 14 August 1999, Gavin had fallen into a trap set up by the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) at Ballymount Cross in Dublin 12. The GNDU operation, which was led by Detective Inspector Brian Sutton, Detective Sergeant Pat Walsh and Detective Sergeant Christy Mangan, was set up after intelligence was received that a large number of ecstasy tablets were being moved by criminals from Crumlin. Gardaí had been watching a white van from 6.00 a.m. that morning, when it picked up a number of cardboard boxes in Balbriggan from another car. In the early afternoon Gardaí stopped the van, which was being driven by twenty-six-year-old Donal Keenan, who was from Galtymore Close in Drimnagh. The thirty-year-old passenger, Thomas Delaney, was also from Galtymore Close. There were 100,000 ecstasy tablets, worth up to €1.5 million, wrapped in plastic bags and packed in cardboard boxes in the back of the van. The M50 motorway in Dublin was under construction at the time, and there was a large amount of traffic in the area after a major traffic jam had developed. Delaney and Keenan were cuffed and taken away by DS Pat Walsh, but DI Brian Sutton noticed that Delaney's mobile phone had been ringing incessantly while the arrests had been taking place. Sutton answered the phone, and there was a man with a thick Dublin accent at the other end who asked, ‘Is everything OK?' DI Sutton said that he was a member of Dublin Fire Brigade and there had been an accident involving a white van, and that the two occupants had been injured and were being rushed to Tallaght Hospital by ambulance. At that moment, an ambulance happened to go by the arrest scene with its sirens on. The man at the other end of the phone seemed very panicked and quickly hung up. Gardaí were sitting in an unmarked car waiting for the van to be towed away, when a man approached it, slid open the door and attempted to take the drugs. He was quickly arrested, and identification found in his wallet revealed him to be Declan Gavin. The GNDU officers didn't know who he was and were not expecting him to be there. He had been shadowing the drugs van in a car to make sure that the delivery went smoothly, but had become separated in the heavy traffic. The car was being driven by a notorious drug dealer from the north inner city, Christopher ‘Bouncer' Hutch, who had invested in the shipment. Hutch was not arrested. When Gavin lost sight of his friends, he rang the phone and thought that Brian Sutton was really from the Fire Brigade because he had heard the ambulance siren with his own ears. Thinking that his two friends were injured, he rushed up to the van to get the drugs before Gardaí came to investigate the supposed traffic accident. Again, he was caught red-handed, but the DPP decided that he should not be charged. Because he was not driving the van, was not a passenger in it and had not touched the drugs, there was not sufficient proof that they belonged to him. While Gavin appeared to have the number of lives normally associated with cats, his friends were, once again, not so fortunate.

In January 2001, Thomas Delaney was jailed for seven years after being found guilty of having the ecstasy with intent for sale and supply. In court Delaney said he was paid just £300 for ferrying the drugs and that he ‘wasn't the main man' in the operation, but he refused to reveal Gavin's name. Two days before he was due in court, Delaney answered a call to his door at 3.30 a.m. and was shot at point blank range. He was lucky to survive. Gardaí believe that people who had been involved in importing the seized ecstasy wanted him dead so he wouldn't inform on them from the dock. The threat obviously worked, because Delaney wisely didn't say a word against them. Donal Keenan pleaded guilty to the offence and he was jailed for five years.

Declan Gavin was given the benefit of the doubt after the Ballymount arrest, but lightning doesn't strike twice, and when he was released after the Holiday Inn, the consensus was that he was a Garda agent, which can be a fatal thing to be accused of. Just a few months after he was freed, the Gardaí did send a completed file to the DPP, and orders came back to charge him. He was subsequently brought before the courts, and a trial date was scheduled for October 2001. But the ‘tout' label had stuck and there was no way that he and Rattigan could mend fences now.