Badfellas by Paul Williams

Author:Paul Williams [Williams, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141970295
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

The 1990s

14. End of an Era

‘I’m packin’ in this fuckin’ game. If I get away I’ll never rob a fuckin’ bank again.’

Martin Cahill made this solemn promise to himself as he desperately tried to outrun the Garda who was closing in fast behind him. At the age of 40, Gangland’s notorious General had just realized that he was too old for pulling heists. The years spent gorging himself on cakes and fizzy drinks had taken their toll on his ability to literally stay out of the hands of the law. Cahill was unfit, overweight and suffering from diabetes. As he gasped for breath, the most wanted criminal in history, who had escaped so many times in the past, was only a few steps away from capture. If the Garda caught him, Public Enemy Number One could be sure that the State would help him keep his promise – for a possible 15 years. The General called to his pals running ahead: ‘Lads, come back, come back.’ Then he turned around and shot the unarmed officer twice, at point-blank range.

It was Monday, 8 January 1990, and Cahill had fired the first angry shots in what would go down in gangland history as the ‘Year of the Gun’. The first year of the 1990s was one of violence and bloodshed, marked by a number of dramatic shoot-outs between the police and the armed robbers. This time, however, the Gardaí were the victors, as they took on the gun gangs with a determination not seen before. They measured their victories by the bodies of dead and wounded blaggers who had decided to shoot it out, rather than put their hands up. In 1980, three Gardaí were gunned down when they faced the gangs. But the tables were turned in the first six months of 1990. Three armed robbers were shot dead, several more were injured and a number of major gangs ended up behind bars. The turnaround forced the Godfathers to consider less hazardous and more profitable means of turning a dishonest buck. Over the following years, as the drug trade expanded, most robbers changed job descriptions.

As a detective inspector in charge of the Serious Crime Squad (SCS) in 1990, Tony Hickey was in the thick of the action. He witnessed how the year of the gun brought significant change to Gangland. ‘We had plenty of evidence at the time that criminals exclusively involved in armed robberies looked around and said this is a dangerous business,’ he recalls. ‘The Gardaí had shown the criminal fraternity that they had the ability to take them on and quite a lot of them decided that there was an easier way to make money with less risk, and that was drug-trafficking.’

The armed Gardaí would also have a major effect on Tango One. At 7.35 a.m. on the morning of Cahill’s life-changing decision, porter Willie Blake arrived to open the Allied Irish Bank in Ranelagh, Dublin. He turned off the alarm system, opened the shutters and went out to open the gates to the staff car park at the back of the building.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.