The Insider

Senior gardai recruited an RUC officer to go undercover and infiltrate some of the biggest drug gangs in the country, an explosive new book will reveal.

Paddy Craig – a pseudonym of a former member of the Criminal Investigation Division of the RUC – apparently breached the upper echelons of some of Ireland’s most notorious gangs, including John Gilligan’s, when he posed as a haulier looking to make some extra cash by transporting drugs across the continent. So successful was Craig that he managed to lead the Gardai to some of their biggest ever hauls, including a €5 million shipment of cannabis back in 1998. He cites the interception of a €20 million heroin consignment, organised by Kurdish rebels and destined for Europe, as his biggest triumph.
But how was an RUC man recruited by the Irish government?
“I spent 10 years doing covert operations,” he explains. “I was the first undercover guy in the specialist field of criminal intelligence. I got involved through Special Operations in Scotland Yard. You were a sort of gun for hire. Basically, the Chief Constable of Manchester or Scotland Yard, would ring my Chief Constable and say, ‘Can I have a couple of your undercover people?’ The Chief Constable here – it was Ronnie Flanagan at the time – was such a giving guy (laughs) that he never said no!
“A lot of people thought that the Gardai and the RUC wouldn’t talk to one another but the Garda Commissioner used to ring Ronnie Flanagan regularly. And we were just dispatched to Dublin Castle, and we were under the orders of the Gardai. We stood up when the Garda officers came in and said, ‘What do you want, Sir?’ And we did what they told us what to do.
He elaborates: “It was a fantastic relationship. When I was first introduced around Dublin Castle, you could see looks of animosity. But there was also friendliness. The animosity was quickly overcome. Of course we didn’t trust anyone! The special teams in the Gardai didn’t trust the rank and file Gardai. We didn’t trust rank and file RUC! So, we’d be in a situation where most of the time – on both sides of the border – only the Chief Constables and the senior officers would know that we were operating. I remember some TDs asking, ‘Is it true that British agents are operating in Ireland?’ As if we were operating for MI5. But, of course, we were working for the Irish government (laughs).”
Craig was sent to Spain and The Netherlands, where he claims to have infiltrated John Gilligan’s gang. He even came across the elusive John Traynor. “We came across individuals connected to all those gangs. Boys who were very close to the Guerin murder. Most of the time we targeted them abroad in Spain and Holland. That was the beauty of it. We worked for them.”
What did you make of Traynor?
“I have a complete and utter hatred for people involved in drugs. Their drugs kill children, in Dublin particularly. But we virtually destroyed their operations. At one stage, we had disrupted the drugs getting into Ireland. One Christmas, they were really begging for drugs on the streets of Dublin. We were taking them out. And we have dented Traynor. We have taken out multi-million pounds’ worth of drugs before they hit Ireland. But at the end of the day, he’s not behind bars – yet!”
Craig also claims it wouldn’t be uncommon for the Gardai to exaggerate the size of drugs seizures. “Everybody has got to produce results. So of course, the monetary value would be exaggerated. Take a tab of ecstasy, for example. We would have been watching them buying the tablets in Amsterdam for roughly €1.50 a tab, right? When they’re seized in Dublin – or for that matter in the UK – it had suddenly got to €15,” he explains.
Craig stepped back after he came dangerously close to being murdered by one of the big Dublin-based drug dealers. He is adamant his undercover identity was exposed by a corrupt member of the Gardai, who was on the dealer’s payroll.
“A bent Garda nearly got me killed,” Craig maintains. “I was seconds away from death. We were involved in a massive drugs deal, involving a Free State gang (sic). We met them. We’d arranged everything. We were hours away from the handover. Then a friend in the Gardai – who I’d trust with my life – contacted me and said, ‘Do not go to that meeting’.
“There were conversations intercepted. They’d been tipped off that we were British agents. The fact that people were using the term ‘British agents’ made me very suspicious. I’m not a British agent. I was a member of the RUC. Never mind the politics, I wasn’t working for the Brits. These people decided to pull the job, then they decided they were going to beat us up, and then they decided to go and kill us with a machine gun. So, I pulled the job – as you would. When we did an autopsy on the whole thing, we discovered that it was an officer in the Gardai. But you get bent coppers everywhere.”
When he retired, Craig went back home to an empty house. His marriage had collapsed as a result of his double life.
“I ended up getting divorced. Work was like a drug. My family would never see me. I was away for my children’s birthdays, for Christmas. I remember flying back in and on Christmas Day I had three mobile phones going, sitting at the dinner table. I was talking to people in different parts of the world under different aliases. You don’t even apologise. You end up in a world of your own.”