Air War Northern Ireland by Steven Taylor

Author:Steven Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Aviation
ISBN: 9781526721556
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2018-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

Sale of the century

An opportunity to obtain a Stinger appeared to present itself in 1989 when Kevin McKinley, a PIRA suspect from Belfast who was based in Florida, was introduced through a local firearms enthusiast to two arms dealers, L.J. Connelly, who claimed to be an Irish-American with IRA sympathies, and his friend Greg. At a meeting at a Florida bar on 20 November 1989 McKinley negotiated a deal to buy detonators, .50 calibre sniper rifles and ammunition. But what he really wanted was a Stinger, as he made clear to the two men during their conversation. ‘Can you get a Stinger?’ he enquired. ‘That’s number one on our list.’ The arms dealers assured him they could, and that the price would be $50,000. As the going rate for a black market Stinger was around three times that figure, McKinley later said he thought this was ‘the sale of the century’.20

But once again PIRA was being drawn into another ‘sting’. ‘LJ’ and ‘Greg’ were in fact undercover Federal agents Lawrence O’Donnell and John Fields, who were part of a joint operation between the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and every word of their conversation with McKinley was being secretly recorded.

At another meeting a few weeks later McKinley emphasized the importance of the Stinger to PIRA in South Armagh. ‘This is for a chopper … the Brits, they can’t come in, they can’t drive because of landmines … the only way they can come in is by air. We beat them in the air so they can’t come back,’ he told the undercover agents.21 McKinley also assured the two men the weapon would only be used against the British in Northern Ireland, to assuage their fears that US citizens might be killed by the missile.

Meanwhile, another Provisional IRA suspect, Seamus Moley, spent the next few weeks trying to raise the cash for the deal, which wiretaps of McKinley’s phone conversations revealed was proving difficult, forcing the two men to keep stalling on the deal. Finally, in early January the money was in place and McKinley handed over a down payment of $2,500 to ‘LJ’ and ‘Greg’, with the balance of $47,500 to be paid on delivery of the missile.

As the deal edged towards its conclusion, an alleged PIRA weapons expert, Joseph McColgan, arrived in Florida from Belfast to authenticate the Stinger. On 12 January 1990 he met ‘LJ’ and ‘Greg’ in a warehouse in West Palm Beach County, Florida, where they handed him a (de-activated) Stinger the US Marine Corps had lent to the FBI. ‘LJ’ showed the Irishman how to operate the missile and, satisfied that all was well and that PIRA had now finally acquired a war-winning weapon, he placed it on the back seat of his hire car, hidden beneath a blanket.

As he was about to drive off with the missile, more agents hiding nearby made their move, arresting McColgan, followed by McKinley and Moley shortly afterwards. Charged with conspiring to unlawfully export a

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