Irish police raids net millions

More than £2m seized by Irish police has been taken for forensic examination to see if it is linked to the £26m Northern Bank raid in December.

Seven people were arrested in Cork and Dublin during a series of raids in which the money was seized, including £60,000 in Northern Bank notes.

Seventeen bags of sterling bank notes were removed from a house near Cork under a heavy police guard.

...

It has not been confirmed if the raids are connected to the robbery from the Northern Bank's headquarters in Belfast. It was one of the biggest cash raids in UK history.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4276435.stm

BBC


Irish police are to continue questioning seven people arrested in an operation against money laundering and illegal fund-raising by the IRA.

They were arrested in Cork and Dublin in a series of raids in which more than £2.3m was seized, including £60,000 in notes from the Northern Bank.

...

It is understood one of those being questioned is a former Sinn Fein elected representative.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4275859.stm

SMELLS like associates of Henry Gelli and convicted fraudster/bent lawyer Anne Gelli...

EDIT: The Times:
Two Sinn Fein officials arrested over bank cash
By Stewart Tendler and David Lister
Snip:
Tom Hanlon, who in the past stood for the Irish Parliament as a Sinn Fein candidate and is a former councillor, was arrested with two other men and a woman. Three more men were arrested in Dublin.
...

Enda Kenny, the Fine Gael leader, last night told the Irish Examiner that the arrests has raised grave questions for Sinn Fein. “In view of Sinn Fein’s repeated denials of Sinn Fein or IRA involvement in any criminal activity, the leadership must make an immediate statement on this development and on its relationship with those involved,” he said. Pat Rabbitte, the Labour Party leader, said that the seizure of large amounts of money was an “ astonishing development”.

He said: “It appears that today’s events are particularly significant in the context of the Northern Bank robbery and subsequent denials by IRA and Sinn Fein.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1489596,00.html









ALSO IN THIS SECTION

cops: BBC breaking....

Either Gerry Adams is lying when he said he didn't know anything about this, or he is being taken for a idiot by his own people.

London Evening Standard
18 February 2005

Seventeen bags of money were removed from the home of a leading Cork businessman today as police intensified their investigation into a major IRA money laundering operation.

As homes in Londonderry were raided as part of a widening of the inquiry, forensic officers also carried out a full examination of the home of Ted Cunningham, 57, who is among six men and a woman being questioned in Cork and Dublin.

The cash was taken from his house at Farran, a few miles outside Cork city, where most of the police inquiries are centred. The money was inside heavy, brown paper sacks and driven away in a garda vehicle accompanied by an armed escort of two detectives carrying sub-machine guns.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16703150?source=PA

DUBLIN (AFP) - An Irish court charged one man with being a member of the Real IRA dissident group amid a probe into money laundering that may establish a link with a major pre-Christmas bank heist in Northern Ireland.

http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=050218181517.rf5a54ta.xml

Anyone still brave enough to claim this was a British frame up ?