17 December 2003

16 December 2003

A police informer from South Armagh has got away with a multi million pound scam on the M.O.D. with the help of his police handler, John McKee, P.S.N.I. The police informer, who works with and employed top provos from XMG, has not been charged, to protect the peace process.

20 December 2003

F. writes:

An explanation of some of the terms used in your posting about the Ministry of Defence (MoD) ignoring a scam in XMG : 

XMG is the British (Northern Ireland) Security acronym for Crossmaglen, a radically anti-British small town in the southern part of the county of Armagh, Northern Ireland.  DDK, not in your posting,  is the identifier for Dundalk, the nearest city, located in the Republic of Ireland.  Both XMG and DDK are regarded as strongholds for the Provos.  

Provos is one of the nicknames for the Provisional IRA.  They are the terrorist gang closely associated with Sinn Fein, the political party which obtained 23.5 percent of the votes cast in the most recent elections in Northern Ireland, in November 2003.  Sinn Fein are regarded as the political party which represents the Republican elements in Northern Ireland, sometimes erroneously referred to as "the Catholics" or "Nationalists".

The southern part of Armagh county, although politically within Northern Ireland,  forms a triangle, two sides of which are bordered by the Irish Republic.  This triangle is frequently referred to as "Bandit Country". Since the 1920s various campaigns of murder and intimidation there have resulted in the removal of most elements of the population which does not overtly support hardline Republicans.  Currently south Armagh is dominated by Sinn Fein politically and the Provisional IRA physically.  Two of the Provos current seven primary leaders live there. Tom (Slab) Murphy, whose farm straddles the Border east of XMG on Larkins Road near Ballybinaby, and "the Engineer", Sean Hughes, is also a local.  The region was prominent in research, development and engineering of several of the IRA's most effective weapons, from various types of clandestine mortars to the large car bombs which devastated British city centres.   

The various terror campaigns against non-Republicans in the area have also resulted in the elimination of much of the traditional law enforcement and legitimate justice systems. This has facilitated the area's use by sundry criminal elements approved by Provos, who have benefitted from the using the area for smuggling and other illegal activities.  In addition it had been a major battleground between the IRA and the various Security Forces in Northern Ireland, with some of the most prolific IRA's sniper gangs operating there. There has long been suspicion that some of the Irish police (formally the Garda Siochana but more commonly Garda or Guards) in bordering areas of the Irish Republic either were complicit in or, at the very least turned a blind eye to the IRA's activities.

The geography, infrastructure and ethnically-cleansed/intimidated population have made south Armagh a thriving center not only for terrorism and cross-border smuggling but other illegal activities such as the laundering for resale of untaxed diesel fuel, manufacture of counterfeit branded products such as CDs and DVDs, distillation of illegal alcohol, and warehousing of significant quantities of stolen products, such as electrical goods and cigarettes. Other criminal activities involving drugs and large scale fraud through embezzlement of agricultural subsidies have also centred in the area.  One local vet was imprisoned for certifying compensation claims for the death of animals which had been actually been sold at auction in the Republic and suspected diseased livestock smuggled from the United Kingdom through this area caused fears not just in the Republic of Ireland but also in France to which some of the suspect livestock were subsequently shipped. 

Major criminal activities still occur in the area.  As recently as last Monday (15 Dec 03) the Provos are strongly suspected of being the gang which hijacked a consignment of cigarettes, valued at 2 million US dolllars.  This crime was committed by a well organised gang of over a dozen who set up a roadblock on the main Belfast to Dublin road, east of XMG and north of DDK .  The hijacked tractor-trailer containing the cigarettes was last reported seen in Jonesborough on the eastern side of south Armagh. For the last 30 years vehicles used in major thefts of cigarettes, alcohol and electrical goods have regularly been discovered abandoned in this region as was last Monday's tractor and trailer.

Many of the major bombs used in the IRA campaigns, especially vehicles used in bombings in London and Manchester are suspected of having been prepared in south Armagh, as was the bomb used by the offshoot "Real" IRA (RIRA)  to destroy the centre of Omagh and murder 29 people.  At that time, August 1998, there was a fear that the Sinn Fein leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness would be unable to prevent their erswhile comrades in south Armagh from continuing the terrorist campaigns, especially since another prominent local, former IRA supplies capo (Quartermaster General) Michael McKevitt,  brother in law of the IRA's Bobby Sands, l took over leadership of the RIRA.  However it appears that the Provos have succeeded in retaining control, aided by FBI informant, David Rupert's infiltration of the RIRA and subsequent imprisonment of many of the RIRA's leadership, including McKevitt.

Sinn Fein's legitimate political activities require a vast amount of money.  During the November elections their posters and literature were everywhere and very few areas of Northern Ireland were without hundreds of expensive full colour posters, the assemblies of which, including clamps, cost about 25 US dollars each, attached to lamp posts and traffic signs. The Provisional IRA's domination of south Armagh provides a secure base from which various illegal activities may be used to generate large sums.  There is credible suspicion, voiced recently by no less than the Irish Republic's Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, that the Provisional IRA continues to use its criminal gains to fund Sinn Fein's activities.  There is equally credible suspicion that as long Sinn Fein needs these funds, they will need to retain the IRA's dominance of areas like south Armagh in which unchecked criminal activities may be conducted and that therefore the need for the IRA's retention of its weaponry, command and control will remain.  Some even suspect that the British government wishes to see Sinn Fein continue its involvement in the political process and therefore will tolerate a certain degree of misbehavior in geographic areas it dominates.  The alternative would appear to be the IRA's resumption of bombing British cities like London, Manchester and Birmingham.  The irony is that it is only because the IRA dominates areas like south Armagh that it has the logistic capacity to prepare the bombs for London, Manchester and Birmingham, as well as to continue the activities which enable it to fund Sinn Fein's political activities.