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From a warning painted on to the side of an isolated rural home, to houses burnt out and threats to rape mothers and daughters, staff in addiction services warn violence from criminal gangs over drug debts is escalating.<\/p>\n
Drug-related intimidation, where families are threatened to pay often inflated drug debts of a loved one, has left communities across the country living in fear, says Jackie McKenna, who runs a support network for affected families.<\/p>\n
McKenna, co-ordinator of Dundalk-based Family Addiction Support Network, said families had remortgaged homes, sold farms, took out large credit union loans or second jobs to pay off debts.<\/p>\n
In previous decades a gang would threaten to maim the individual who ran up a debt, to pressure them to pay. Now, more commonly where a son or daughter owes money, the family is targeted, allowing the gang to extort at times tens of thousands of euro.<\/p>\n
Intimidation can include bricks through the windows of the home, properties being fire bombed, cars destroyed, as well as threats of rape and murder.<\/p>\n
[\u00a0<\/span>Families pressured to remortgage homes over drug debts, says senior garda<\/a>\u00a0]<\/span><\/p>\n [\u00a0<\/span>Children being corrupted by \u2018buck mad\u2019 situation in Dublin\u2019s Oliver Bond flats, D\u00e1il told<\/a>\u00a0]<\/span><\/p>\n The amount sought is often significantly inflated to the debt owed, or even fabricated, and can range from \u20ac100 up to more than \u20ac50,000.<\/p>\n It could be the mother, or grandmother, who was threatened into setting up a \u201cpayment plan\u201d to a dealer for a loved one\u2019s alleged debt, that then became a regular source of income for the criminal gang.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will try to deal with it themselves, rather than reaching out because of the shame. Or they won\u2019t report it to the garda\u00ed because of the fear of reprisals,\u201d McKenna said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing they won\u2019t do, pipe bombs, fire bombs, homes are vandalised … A lot of people are in fear of their lives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The support worker said some families had become homeless, deciding to leave their homes as a result of the intimidation.<\/p>\n \u201cHow the hell would anyone cope, the anxiety, the stress, the shame, the panic … The break-up of family relationships as a result is unbelievable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n McKenna said she was aware of women being coerced into providing \u201csexual favours\u201d to settle debts.<\/p>\n One source working in addiction services said they had heard of cases where mothers were threatened with rape if the family failed to pay.<\/p>\n Social media and messaging apps have also been used to convey threats.<\/p>\n In one video sent as a warning, seen by The Irish Times, a man is shown with his hands bound by cable ties and tape covering his mouth. An individual leans forward and cuts the top of the man\u2019s ear off with a knife, before moving to cut part of his other ear, as the victim screams.<\/p>\n The video is captioned with the name of a man, purportedly based in Co Wicklow, stating: \u201cYou\u2019re next\u201d.<\/p>\n A Garda source said they believed the footage was likely linked to drug-related intimidation, however it was unclear where or when the recording was made.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na said they were aware of the video, however they were unable to comment or verify its authenticity.<\/p>\n Many people were \u201cpetrified\u201d of seeking help, says Louise Mahony, manager of the Red Door project in Co Louth.<\/p>\n The addiction support service in Drogheda had heard of numerous instances of people seeking up to \u20ac10,000 in loans from the credit union to pay off family member\u2019s debts. Staff working in the service had heard of demands for payments as high as \u20ac50,000, she said.<\/p>\n Mike Walsh, team leader of Community Substance Misuse Team, a service in the midwest that works with young people and their families, said intimidation over drug debts was a \u201cmassive problem\u201d.<\/p>\n Intimidation is very pervasive, it\u2019s one of the ways the drugs trade sustains itself<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0Dr Johnny Connolly<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The threats could be subtle, such as a car parked outside a home, or overt. In one instance Walsh said a home in rural Co Limerick had a warning to \u201cpay up or else\u201d painted on the side of the house during the night.<\/p>\n Sometimes the perpetrators carrying out the intimidation were themselves young men trying to service a debt. In this way debts were used to coerce people into becoming involved in criminal networks, Walsh said.<\/p>\n If an individual cannot pay, they could be forced to store drugs in their home, or transport drugs or firearms, leaving them suddenly \u201cstuck\u201d working for the gang, he said.<\/p>\n The practice of storing drugs in someone else\u2019s home, known as cuckooing, limits the risk to a gang in the event the property is raided by garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n Where teenage boys ran up debts of several hundred euro, gangs could use this leverage to groom them into becoming the \u201cnext group of runners, holders, dealers\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n As such the gang can keep replacing cogs of its operation when those on lower rungs were prosecuted and imprisoned. \u201cYou can always get someone who owes you something … The gaps get filled,\u201d Walsh said.<\/p>\n One community worker, who did not wish to be named, said criminals also used debts to coerce people into supplying information from their workplace, if the gang deemed it potentially useful to their operations.<\/p>\n Garda Inspector John Moroney is tasked with tackling drug-related intimidation in the Dublin Metropolitan Region north division.<\/p>\n The senior Garda warned that if a decision was made to pay a debt, the criminal group would allow the family member suffering from an addiction to run up another one, or simply use threats to extort more money from the family.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we want victims to do is before they pay anyone, look at their options. The consequences of paying may be further demands. A lot of these people can\u2019t pay their way out of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Inspectors have been appointed to each Garda division to focus on drug-related intimidation as part of renewed efforts to address the problem.<\/p>\n People are being challenged over debts that are not even owed. Your mother, your granny, everybody is being threatened\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0Paddy Murdiff<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the north Dublin division there have been more than 200 reports of drug-related intimidation since late 2020, with a number of convictions secured and garda\u00ed pursuing about 20 investigations.<\/p>\n However, Dr Johnny Connolly, criminologist in the University of Limerick school of law, said there were \u201cno easy answers\u201d for how to tackle the problem.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the ways law enforcement success is measured is through seizures and prosecutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The academic, who specialises in drug and gang-related crime, questioned what that meant for someone who had been intimidated into storing drugs in their home.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they are holding drugs and the drugs are found and they are prosecuted, that might be seen as a success from a law enforcement perspective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are higher up aren\u2019t touching anything, they\u2019re not touching the drugs, they\u2019re not involved in the dirty work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n [\u00a0<\/span>Nearly 200 reports of drug-related intimidation in north Dublin<\/a>\u00a0]<\/span><\/p>\n\u2018Massive problem\u2019<\/h3>\n
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\u2018No easy answers\u2019<\/h3>\n
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