Boylan GSOC and Morris

The Boylan affair may have been the trigger for all of this.


The two GSOC officers in question were apparently working on the Boylan affair.
For background:
https://drugsinfonewslineireland.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/corruption-the-kieran-boylan-file/
and
http://www.broadsheet.ie/tag/kieran-boylan/


This was not a ‘harmless(?)’ bit of low-level corruption like wiping penalty points or partiality in investigations. That sort of thing only *eventually* triggers denials, incompetent/whitewash internal AGS investigations, ructions in the Dail, independent inquiries and various resignations at the top. Boylan is far more serious.

The Boylan affair was apparently certain Gardai running a significant and active cocaine/heroin importer as an asset “off the books”.
Ireland is kind to cocaine importers. Get caught with heroin and cocaine worth €750,000 but only get to serve 3 years in the slammer.
The really good bit is that while out on bail before you get the 3 years jail you can get caught with further heroin and cocaine worth €1.7m but you don’t go on trial for it. It’s brilliant!

Heroin and cocaine worth €1.7m  should have landed Boylan in jail for 10 years or so – particularly after being caught earlier with €0.75m  worth. He was allowed to walk. It seems that what he had to say about his activities in collusion with certain Gardai would have been unbearably embarrassing to AGS.

It seems that Boylan while still on bail was continuing to engage in importation and distribution of heroin with the knowledge/connivance of some elements of the Garda (AGS). This was not a formal arrangement apparently.
It seems Boylan had fed a few low-level heroin distributors to his Garda friends, who then made a few busts and enhanced their arrest scores and careers. There is a suggestion that he gave drugs to Gardai – ostensibly for use in entrapment stings. The amount of heroin that got to the streets under this arrangement is unknown.
If Boylan had apparently undertaken the €1.7m shipment at the (unofficial)  behest of Gardai, it does raise a question of cash flow considerations. If some higher-level criminal had lost the considerable funds involved then it is a bit surprising that Boylan is above ground after his connections to Gardai were no longer secret. If Boylan had funded it, he might have expected to turn a profit. What would have happened with those drugs had a separate unit of AGS not descended on him? There are many serious unanswered questions around Boylan.
That sort of thing would be expected to trigger seismic events at ground level and in the corridors of power if it were not contained. The stakes here are huge.


GSOC were looking into this strange affair.

Now who do you think might be so interested in getting an early inside view of how GSOC were progressing this investigation that they would go to the trouble of identifying the mobile phones of the particular GSOC officers and compromising those phones in order to turn them into ambient listening devices?
Boylan might be, although far more serious repercussions would hit AGS before they hit him.
Criminal elements – particularly if they had any stake in the shipment - might be interested in what Boylan had been up to – although his walking free would have been a clear indication to them that the man was a creature of AGS. They might find it easier to confirm details with Boylan directly over a nice cup of tea rather than engage in bugging GSOC.
Intelligence agencies of certain other states might be interested in gathering juicy information in order to be able to coerce people within AGS for whatever purpose.
The Garda elements directly involved with Boylan would certainly be interested in learning if they were endangered. Wider Garda elements might be worried about possible repercussions. For both of these elements, the earlier they learnt about how matters were progressing the better.
Boylan et al might or might not be able to get their hands on remote compromise technology. They might also have difficulty in determining which particular phone (numbers) were to be compromised. How do they know which two GSOC officers are working on the affair. How do they identify the mobiles being used by those officers?
Both of the above are readily available to elements within Irish security. They could pass that information to another or use it themselves.

Is it outrageous, etc., etc. to suggest that some of the boys in blue are not whiter than white?
Read the damming indictments that came out of the Morris Tribunal (Link below). Read up on the Du Plantier affair. Read the Guerin report. 

Bear in mind that the prime suspects would be a group of Gardai that clearly had no respect for law or procedure. Given that their activities were interrupted by a raid on Boylan by a separate Garda unit, that €1.7m shipment was intended for use and not for seizure. Given that they were involved in the area of significant drug importation they would be very familiar with surveillance techniques.

Bear in mind that the bugging indicated above is prior to the introduction of Verrimus and the “three anomalies”. It does not fall outside Cooke’s terms of reference – unless he chooses to take a very particular and twisted interpretation of them.



AGS appears to have been very reluctant and resistant to co-operate with GSOC investigations.
Cooke mentions this in 9.2/3/4/5, with 9.7 ending in a reported quote from a senior Garda to GSOC: “We’ll tell you what you can get and when you can get it.”
Perhaps the very serious implications of the Boylan affair drove some elements to go beyond mere resistance and to take active measures to be able to subvert the GSOC investigation as far as possible.
They would have the means to do so. That some elements of AGS are unconcerned with legality on their own part is clear from Morris and the other matters that have come to light since. It also seems clear that AGS management has been unwilling or unable to address the situation.



Context arising from the Morris Tribunal findings

Morris was damming. Donegal is unlikely to have been an exception.
http://www.morristribunal.ie/SITECONTENT_172.pdf
From that report:
6.05
…..Without a management structure being restored to the Gardaí that is based on strict compliance with orders, and immediate accountability, the danger is extreme that what the Tribunal has reported on in Donegal will be repeated; and that such conduct will multiply if allowed to go unchecked.

6.09
The Tribunal has been staggered by the amount of indiscipline and insubordination it has found in the Garda force. There is a small, but disproportionately influential, core of mischief-making members  who will not obey orders, who will not follow procedures, who will not tell the truth and who have no respect for their officers. An Garda Síochána is an organisation necessarily vested with wide-ranging powers that impose on the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ireland. It must have, as in a
military organisation, accountability and unwavering discipline…..
It should not need to be added that people “with wide-ranging powers that impose on the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ireland” should be held to a much higher standard of behaviour.


Next:
Security Branch - Cooke unwittingly brings another elephant into the room

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