Ireland

Organized and Corporate Crime

After centuries of poverty, underdevelopment, and emigration, Ireland experienced tremendous economic growth in the 1990s, reaping the benefits of European Union (EU) membership and large foreign investments. By the 1990s, however, Ireland's underworld had blossomed into a lucrative, internationalized and very violent marketplace. As with many other countries, the links between white-collar, corporate, and organized crime became inexorably entwined.

More opportunities emerged with the end of the Troubles (conflict seeking the fate of Northern Ireland as a British territory). Until then, Ireland's small underworld had been dominated by a select number of crime bosses and their gangs (usually their immediate and extended families), that primarily dealt in small-scale fraud, gambling, prostitution, drug-smuggling, bootlegging, armed robberies; and relatively petty bribery paid to government officials.

After a serious rise in gang and drug activity, unexpected public and official outcries led the gang leadership to flee abroad, while its drug empire was taken apart by rivals, upstart gangs, and corrupt law enforcement. Ireland endowed itself with one of the most effective anti-organized crime set of agencies in Western Europe such as the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB). In conjunction with international law enforcement agencies, Ireland began to restore its image, which had been tarnished by its reputation as an important cog in international money-laundering.

So effective was law enforcement that a vacuum was left to be filled by a number of international crime syndicates. Many took advantage of this window of opportunity. For example, Nigerian groups in the early 2000s were active in Dublin, the capital, where they introduced crack cocaine. Along with Romanian groups, Nigerians have become important players in a number of fraud (credit card and welfare) and counterfeit schemes (official documents). Irish passports are popular with underworld figures, and readily available as they are often bartered for drugs.

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