Crime World

They are the wives and girlfriends of the first family of crime who have lived a lavish lifestyle built on the Kinahan's billion-dollar drug business. So, what next for the WAGS of gangland, as the carefully-constructed money machine behind the Kinahan Organised Crime Group crumbles under the weight of U.S. sanctions. Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the women behind the men of the underworld, and what the future may hold for them now the tables have turned.

He is the Scottish politician who says football is contaminated with drug money and that the tentacles of the Kinahan organisation run deep into the heart of the Glasgow underworld. And Russell Findlay knows more than the regular politician about such issues, because for years he worked as an investigative crime reporter who himself became headline news when he was targeted in an acid attack at his home. Nicola Tallant chats with Russell about the deep connections and blood bonds between the Irish and Scottish crime networks. He reveals the killers and criminals who hid out for years in Kinahan safe houses on the Costa del Sol, about the fake-bake tan tycoon who became part of their inner circle and his fears that mobsters and gang bosses have their sights firmly set on football.

He was Crime World's first guest, when the former Scotland Yard detective told us about two gangland murders, a missing fugitive and his quest to find the elusive Kevin Parle. Now, Peter Bleksley reveals the details of his ongoing hunt for Parle and how he now believes he may have been in Ireland and could have an Irish girlfriend. The celebrated podcaster, whose 'Manhunt' series is one of the BBC's top shows, hasn't let Covid or the passage of time get between him and his folly, and today he tells Nicola Tallant how he is as determined as ever to find Britain's most-wanted man.

The 'Dead Zoo' is the name the famous Dublin ‘wits' came up with for the Natural History Museum in the capital. The quirky Victorian-era institution is packed with stuffed exotic animals from around the world – a moose, a hippo, a giraffe, a rhinoceros and a lot more. The 'Dead Zoo Gang' is the name the Sunday World gave the Irish criminals who started buying or stealing rhino horns all over the world. From the Rockies in Denver, Colorado, to auction rooms in Sydney, Australia, the gang spent more than a decade supplying the illegal trade in rhino horns. With buyers in China and Vietnam willing to spend €20,000 and more per kilo, the Irish mob found a way to go big-game hunting without using guns. This is the story, written by Eamon Dillon, of the 'Dead Zoo Gang' and one of the world's most bizarre crime sprees.

THE American government has KO'd the Kinahan Cartel with a raft of sanctions that have caused chaos for the mob. But when did the name Kinahan start coming on the radar in the United States and was it the mob's brazen move into top-end boxing that sealed their fate? As Tyson Fury prepares to step into the ring at Wembley Stadium to defend his WBC heavyweight title amid a storm of controversy, Nicola Tallant chats with Jake Donovan, senior writer of BoxingScene.com. He describes how Daniel Kinahan managed to gain a foothold at the very top of U.S. boxing while American law enforcement sought to bring down his family mafia. We discuss the delay the sport and its watchdogs to protect itself from organised crime and we consider the millions of dollars that washes around promoters, managers and even crime bosses each time a punch is thrown.

A week after U.S. sanctions were levelled at the Kinahan mafia an incredible fallout continues, as many run for cover and deny relationships with the top tier. But at the heart of the countless stories and headlines about the Kinahan Organised Crime Group has been an insight into the man at the very top of the tree. While the concentration has been on his son Daniel and his links to boxing, the 'Dapper Don', Christy Kinahan Snr, has been moonlighting as an aviation broker and running a string of social media accounts featuring his musings about the world. Nicola Tallant chats with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the ultimate 'Godfather of Crime' and the two faces he shows to the world.

He is an evil and sadistic killer who lured his vulnerable victim into a dark world of BDSM and then murdered her as part of his ultimate sexual fantasy. Killer Graham Dwyer is just about the last convict anyone would like to see freed on a legal technicality after he was found guilty of the almost-perfect murder of Elaine O'Hara in 2015. But it seemed he got one step closer to that freedom when a European Court of Justice ruled that some evidence used in his trial was attained in breach of EU laws. Nicola Tallant talks with Barrister Ronan Lupton about the meaning of the legal battle that has seen Europe's top court rule that Ireland was wrong in the way it accessed some of Dwyer's phone records. He discusses Dwyer's attempts to have his conviction for murder overturned, the meaning of the European judgement and why ordinary civilians should be concerned about the issues at the heart of his case.

AS a child Jason Wilson thought he had a regular dad, but by the time he was a teenager his 'Old Man' was well on the way to becoming one of the UK's most wanted criminals. From his beginnings as a successful businessman, Tony Shipley, who later changed his name to Tony Spencer, had a driving ambition to become rich and to beat the system to get there. But during his career robbing banks, counterfeiting cash and eventually becoming a prolific drug smuggler, the big one always evaded him. In his new book, ‘The Old Man and Me', Jason details an incredible journey into the underworld of the Netherlands and Spain, where his father sourced drugs, mixed with some of the biggest names in organised crime and finally came a cropper of his own success. Jason tells Nicola Tallant the incredible story of his father and their relationship, which endured long stints in prison, selfish ambition and a miraculous assassination attempt.

The antics of Daniel Kinahan and his insistence that he is an innocent boxing promoter wrongly accused of involvement in organised crime spectacularly backfired this week. In an extraordinary conference in Dublin, the Kinahan mob were sanctioned just like Russian Oligarchs as the forces of law from the US, Europe and the UK stood together to declare Christy Kinahan Snr and his two sons as enemies of the State. In a series of speeches, border officers, police chiefs and our own Commissioners laid bare the Kinahans' journey from the streets of Dublin to the very top of a trans-global network dealing in drugs, guns and murder while laundering €1 billion profits in business interests across the world. Nicola Tallant chats with Sunday World Deputy Editor, Niall Donald, about the most incredible day in Irish criminal history – one which will cement the role the Kinahans have played in changing the face of crime fighting for good.

The murder of drug dealer James Whelan in Dublin marks the start of what gardai fear will be a long-running and murderous feud between two factions of what was once one gang. The intricacies of the fallout between the mob boss known as 'Mr Flashy' and his former lieutenant are all too familiar to many who have watched other gangland wars play out in the past. Irish Independent crime correspondent Ken Foy joins Nicola Tallant to talk about the criminal mentor who groomed the young guns who now in turn run their own violent gangs, the significance of the murder of such a key player like Whelan and the fears of the reprisals to come.

I'm in Knightsbridge outside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the epitome of London style and wealth, but I'm not here for oysters and champagne. Instead, I'm on a mission to walk the streets and the neighbourhoods of Belgravia and Chelsea, where the Russian Oligarchs with links to the Kremlin have snapped up a staggering £1.5 billion in property. Steven Millar is our guide - a lawyer by day, he has written a series of books about London's Hidden Walks - and today he is taking Crime World listeners on the ultimate property porn tour. In a special episode, we take a deep dive into the world of the Oligarchs and we look at their dirty money and what they are doing with it.

He is the former businessman whose reputation lies in tatters after the High Court heard he was given €4.5 million by crime bosses Daniel Kinahan and Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh to wash through his property empire. The court heard this week that Jim Mansfield Jnr and members of his family, including his elderly mother Anne, will not contest the Proceeds of Crime case taken by the Criminal Assets Bureau, which involves an extraordinary tale of suitcases of cash being delivered to the family mansion, Tasaggart House. Yet, for years Mansfield Jnr vigorously defended his reputation and, just like Kinahan, attempted to both silence and use the media to do so. Nicola Tallant talks to Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the fall of the House of Mansfield, about the lies and threats along the way and about the importance of robust journalism and a free media to our society.

It was an horrific crime that many vowed would never happen again. When Baby 'P' or 17-month-old Peter Connelly died having sustained 50 horrifying injuries at the hands of his mother, Tracey Connelly, her lover Stephen Barker and his brother Jason Owen all three went to prison. Now, as Connelly's parole sparks a further outcry, two other cases have come before the Old Bailey in London with striking similarities and equally devastating outcomes. Nicola Tallant talks with Chris Summers, editor of Total Crime, who recalls the tragedies of 16-month-old Nusayba Umar and two-year-old Kyrell Matthews, murdered at the hands of adults who he says should be placed on a special register. What sort of human can kill a child and how should we as a society protect others going forward?

His end was swift, delivered in the cold confines of a courtroom where Thomas ‘Bomber' Kavanagh was committed to 21 years in prison for his crimes. The mob boss who sat at the very top of the Kinahan organisation and who pumped guns and weapons into the UK and Ireland for decades is now counting the costs of his chosen career. But how did Gardai and their UK colleagues in the National Crime Agency (NCA) eventually catch the violent and untouchable crime boss and how many others have gone down with him. Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the fall of the bomb squad and the ramifications of his demise further up the Kinahan food chain.

His name still strikes fear across Ireland - a hunter who stalked his prey in the heart of the area known as the vanishing triangle. But where is Larry Murphy now and why is he a suspect in the murder of teenager Deirdre Jacob and the mystery disappearance of Jo Jo Dullard and Annie McCarrick? Now, in a Crime World mini-series, we present 'Predator: Larrry Murphy and Ireland's missing women', a chilling true crime special.

His name still strikes fear across Ireland - a hunter who stalked his prey in the heart of the area known as the vanishing triangle. But where is Larry Murphy now and why is he a suspect in the murder of teenager Deirdre Jacob and the mystery disappearance of Jo Jo Dullard and Annie McCarrick? Now, in a Crime World mini-series, we present 'Predator: Larrry Murphy and Ireland's missing women', a chilling true crime special.

His name still strikes fear across Ireland - a hunter who stalked his prey in the heart of the area known as the vanishing triangle. But where is Larry Murphy now and why is he a suspect in the murder of teenager Deirdre Jacob and the mystery disappearance of Jo Jo Dullard and Annie McCarrick? Now, in a Crime World mini-series, we present 'Predator: Larrry Murphy and Ireland's missing women', a chilling true crime special.

Anne Marie Pezzillo was a regular visitor to the Sunday World offices during her days living homeless on the streets of Dublin and suffering from addiction issues. Each time she spoke with journalist Niall Donald she promised him ‘the big one' - but he never held her to that, recognising instead the difficulties she faced in life. In and out of prison and living a chaotic existence, Anne Marie would come and go. Then, one day she told him she needed to sit down and tell him something she had done. It was then that she confessed that she had killed a man by suffocating him with a plastic bag.

It's one of the great success stories in Ireland's fight against crime -and now a new documentary will bring viewers behind the scenes at the Criminal Assets Bureau. From the birth of the Bureau in 1996 and its first cases to its modern-day targets. including Insta-gangsters who show off their bling, the Virgin Media series follows the growth of the CAB over 26 years and highlights some of its more colourful cases. Nicola Tallant chats to the CAB Bureau Chief Michael Gubbins about what it is like to be at the helm of such a celebrated agency. He reveals how, despite the passage of time, the Bureau hasn't changed much in its work – still pursuing drug dealers and their ill-gotten gains. We hear from some contributors to the new documentary and discuss the future of the Bureau's work chasing the dirty money.

It was an extraordinary series of events. A high-ranking Sinn Fein official is outed as an informer in the employ of M15 and the Special Branch of the PSNI. On the steps of Stormont, Denis Donaldson admits his role as a spy within the Republican ranks – then disappears. Six months later an intrepid journalist Hugh Jordan tracks him down to an isolated farmhouse in Glenties in Donegal confirming that his whereabouts aren't such a well-kept secret. Weeks later Donaldson is shot dead in the same cottage but mystery still surrounds what happened and why he remained there after he was discovered. Today I'm talking with Hugh Jordan about the case of Donaldson and a recent Police Ombudsman report which points the finger of blame at police and their failures to properly evaluate the threat to his life.

A haunting border crossing from Ukraine. People just like us leaving behind everything they know and everyone they love. And an unpredictable dictator with his finger on the nuclear button. So what is it like to stand and witness this brutal history in the making and to see the faces of women and children set in fear in the freezing temperatures of a land not too unlike our own. Today I'm talking to Irish Independent Ireland Editor Fionnan Sheahan who is just back from the Ukraine/Polish border where he saw first hand the never ending lines of human misery caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He tells me of a refugee crises like no other and of a population of middle class, educated families displaced forever by a neighbour with a dark soul.

Mob boss Daniel Kinahan's much anticipated interview due out this week has been shelved due to legal issues at the Anything Goes Podcast with James English. While the nature of the legal problems are unknown, Kinahan has already been hit with new court proceedings after he was named in a Proceeds of Crime Case against shamed businessman Jim Mansfield Jnr. For years Mansfield and his late father, Jim Mansfield Snr, denied rumours that they were linked to criminality but Junior is now locked up in Portlaoise prison, guilty of perverting the course of justice, and now he has been named along the biggest figure in organised crime. Today I'm talking with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the court proceedings linking Ireland's one time richest son and heir to the head of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group.

He is the first person to be jailed in relation to the brutal murder of teenager Keane Mulready Woods. Yet, despite pleading guilty to cleaning up and removing evidence from the scene of the killing at his home in Drogheda, father-of-eight Gerard ‘Ged' McKenna will be a free man in just over a year. So, who is McKenna and what was his role in the shocking murder of the 17-year-old, whose dismembered remains were discovered in a sports bag, the boot of a car and on wasteland in the days and months after he disappeared? Nicola Tallant talks with Irish Independent journalist Robin Schiller who covered the sentencing of McKenna. He tells me about a chaotic crime scene, a disorganised clean-up and a phonecall from a gangland madman.

It's a stark message to young people who believe that they are just having fun. But community worker Philip Jennings says that every recreational user of cannabis or cocaine has blood on their hands and his 'Think Before You Buy' initiative has been rolled out in schools across his native Blanchardstown in Dublin. Now, he is hoping for Government backing to bring his message further and to turn a tide of casual drug use, which he says is feeding into a cycle of gangland violence, intimidation and murders.

Cartel chief Daniel Kinahan is posturing again, with press statements, pictures and propaganda from an army of boxers under his control. And now he is teeing up a ‘world exclusive' interview with podcaster James English, whose popular YouTube show has featured chats with a host of MTK boxers, many of whom have taken the opportunity to praise the drug boss. So what is going on with Ireland's most wanted man and how has he managed to mingle between the world of organised crime and that of the sport of boxing? Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about Kinahan's rise as a boxing powerbroker and his attempts to sports-wash his criminal reputation.

They are the black-suited operatives whose role is to protect the President of the United States - and if Joe Biden's plans to visit Ireland this summer come to pass they will be crawling around the highways and byways of the country to make safe his passage. But the Secret Service are no strangers to Ireland, and they have had a few bemusing encounters here in the past in scenes which would often be at home in an episode of Father Ted. Now, in her new book The Green and White House, journalist Lynne Kelleher brings together the incredible stories around the seemingly seamless visits of US leaders to their ancestral birthplaces in often rural outposts across Ireland. From the visits of Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, she tells about the hilarious run-ins of the secret service agents with bemused locals from Ballyporeen to Timahoe, the Aran cardigan which was almost central to a controlled explosion and a chatty hotel manager whose wry joke nearly sparked a major security scare.

A high-flying young record producer is gunned down outside his pricey London home after returning from a Christmas Eve celebration with his glamorous wife and two-year-old son. The victim, Flamur Beqiri, a brother of one of the stars of Real Housewives of Cheshire, is quickly identified as a kingpin in an international drugs gang. A police investigation leads straight back to Sweden where an underworld has gone to war and a Dubai-based criminal is hungry for revenge. Nicola Tallant is joined by journalist Chris Summers, editor of total crime UK, who covered the trial at Southwark Crown Court, where a hitman was handed a minimum sentence of 25 years and where the fallout of a gangland crime was laid bare.

A rugby legend capped for Ireland. A politician steeped in the beliefs of loyalism. A giant who claimed family values as his flag. But behind the mask Davy Tweed was a monster and sex offender who terrorised his family and left a legacy of pain for his daughters. This week, in a long-read special, Hugh Jordan is taking the microphone to tell you the story of Tweed – the monster behind the legend.

It was still bright on the evening of September 2, 2016 when a man walking his dogs made a gruesome discovery in Rahin Woods, close to Carbury in County Kildare. Using a stick, he had poked at the ground and the brambles where his dog 'Bobby' had circled, only to see a foot protruding from the undergrowth. Later, forensic experts would surmise that 24-year-old Philip Finnegan had died where he lay in the foetal position, his remains decapitated and charred from an attempt to burn his body. He'd been stabbed to death in a frenzied attack. His murder and torture, gardai would later tell a court, happened the previous August 10 and his remains had gone undiscovered in the shallow grave until that September night. So, who was Philip Finnegan and how did he come to such a brutal end at the hands of his one time friend Stephen Penrose. What happened in Rahin Woods and how did a gangland feud end in such a remote place? Nicola Tallant chatds with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about one of gangland's most brutal kills. What effects has such violence on society, on families and on strangers who walk their dogs in lonely woods?

He was a loner and a misfit who lived with his parents until his early 30s but went on to become a serial killer who stalked his victims on dating apps and gay hook-up sites. But, Stephen Port was no cunning killer, and when he was tried for four murders in the Old Bailey the failings of police in their investigations into mysterious deaths in the Barking area of London was as stark as his horrific legacy of crimes. Nicola Tallant chats with author Sebastian Murphy Bates, whose book 'Easy Kills' traces the story of Port and how police missed the blatant murders of gay men.

It's known as the city of dreams - where models, actors and artists seek fame and fortune in the shadow of the Hollywood Hills. But alongside the glitter and glamour of the California Dream is a very different Los Angeles, one with a sprawling homeless population which has fast become the biggest social issue in America's richest State. Nicola Tallant talks with with LA local Glenna Gordon, a photographer whose work has appeared in the New York Times and more recently an emergency medicine technician with the city ambulance service. She tells of the vast homeless encampments at well-known areas like Venice Beach, Skid Row and Eagle Rock, about her work on the front line of emergency healthcare, which is often a sticking plaster for chronic addicts and the mentally ill, and about the failings of housing supply and planning in a city fast serving as a warning to the rest of the world.

An 'ISIS bride' lured to the Caliphate in fear of the fires of hell, a glamorous former radical who escaped Syria and unshackled herself from her extremist past and counter terrorism FBI agents called in after the fall of Raqqa. It sounds like the plot from a series of 'Homeland' - but it is playing out in Ireland's Special Criminal Court where Dundalk woman Lisa Smith has pleaded not guilty to funding and membership of a terrorist organisation. Nicola Tallant talks with courts reporter Eoin Reynolds, who has been covering this fascinating trial for the last three weeks as the story of Lisa Smith's journey from Irish army cadet to the beating heart of ISIS has unfolded.

Innocent women flee their homes in fear of grenade attacks, a business shuts its doors terrorised by teenage thugs, while a community lives in fear of warring drug gangs brazenly attacking each other in broad daylight with hammers and wheel braces and displaying their gunfire on social media. The scenes playing out in a Dublin suburb seem more at home in Mexico, yet for the hard-working people of Finglas this is the reality - as a gang headed up by a young dealer known as 'Mr Flashy' goes to war with three rival outfits in a terrifying feud. Nicola Tallant chats with Crime Correspondent Ken Foy who tells of the rising tensions in an underworld populated by gun-toting teenage boys directed by mega-rich cocaine dealers.

A shocking mass murder at a bookies office in Belfast, 30 years of unanswered questions for those left behind and now an Ombudsman's report that cites collusive behaviour and failings by police. At the heart of the Sean Graham bookmakers atrocity and seven other loyalist attacks carried out by the UDA which claimed the lives of 11 people, lie the use of RUC informants who were also killers. In the murky world of cops and gangsters, where information is whispered in the shadows, did a corrupted system protect the bad and are institutions now more concerned about their reputations or the quest for justice? Nicola Tallant chats with Hugh Jordan about murder on the Ormeau Road and the legacy of decisions made in a time of extremes. He reveals the injustices caused by secrecy and silence, with the consideration of letting sleeping dogs lie.

The brutal attack on bachelor farmer Thomas ‘Tom' Niland in rural Sligo has struck fear into the elderly community across Ireland. In a worrying spate of attacks on our most vulnerable citizens, many pensioners living in rural areas no longer feel safe in their own homes. So, who are the criminals who are targeting older members of the community and are they organised mobs or more chaotic and opportunistic criminals living day to day in a tangle of addiction, drug debt and desperation for cash? Nicola Tallant chats with journalist Eamon Dillon, who has spent years reporting on some of the most high-profile crimes against the elderly. He recalls the criminals behind some of the most shocking attacks on our pensioners, about the brutal rapist about to taste freedom again and of the random nature of the robberies that terrorise communities.

Jim Mansfield Jnr was dealt his fate this week when Judges at the Special Criminal Court handed him down a two-year sentence, suspending the final six months, in a crushing blow for the former millionaire heir of Ireland's once-wealthiest family. Despite submissions for leniency from his legal team who insisted he was in the lower range of intellectual ability, is a carer to his elderly mother and was someone who would find it difficult to be incarcerated, he will now have to serve his time just like any other common criminal. So what was it like for playboy Mansfield to find himself in the dock and how did his tight-knit, socialite family deal with one of their own on trial? Nicola Tallant chats with courts reporter Alison O'Riordan who covered the lengthy trial and who details how Mansfield remained confident to the end that he would walk free.

He was the New IRA 'fixer' with an unclear past, but despite some red flags, Dennis McFadden managed to infiltrate the terror group and win their trust, all the while reporting back to MI5. For two decades the Scottish spy worked and lived in Belfast and moonlighted as an ordinary married man who moved in dissident republican circles. But when he disappeared last August panic ensued - and now 10 suspected dissidents are in the dock charged after an intricate bugging operation into their group, Nicola Tallant chats with Allison Morris, crime correspondent and columnist with the Belfast Telegraph, about the two faces of MI5's Chameleon man

Garfield Beattie is a triple murderer who was part of the infamous Glennane Gang, a brutal mob made up of Ulster Loyalists, RUC police officers and British Soldiers who went on a killing spree of Catholics in Co. Armagh and Co. Tyrone at the beginning of the Troubles. According to reports and investigations, the group killed between 75 and 120 people, most of whom were ordinary civilians with no links to Irish Republican paramilitaries. One of those murdered was Denis Mullen, an ambulance controller and father of two who was struck by 17 bullets after he stepped outside his home at Collegelands near the Moy in September 1975. Beattie served 17 years for the murder of Mullen, but five decades on he is back behind bars for intimidating the victim's daughter Denise, who was just three-years-old when she witnessed an unimaginable horror. This is her story.

He was the Irish king of the Costa until the Kinahan mob turned on him and forced the one-time drug lord into hiding for more than 10 years. But Peter ‘Fatso' Mitchell is back behind bars after he showed up in the UK, working as a driver for a cocaine gang. A murky gangland story involving double crosses, greed and paranoia lie at the heart of Mitchell's journey to a prison cell in Wales, where he was locked up for 10 years for his role in the ‘Avengers' coke gang. Nicola Tallant chats with Sunday World journalist Eamon Dillon about the last member of the notorious John Gilligan gang - the criminal dubbed ‘the one that got away.'

He was the first godfather of Irish crime, the man who unleashed heroin on Dublin's impoverished housing estates and flat complexes. Larry Dunne found fame as the drug lord responsible for the destruction of entire communities, whose greed took parents from their children and turned countless young people into thieves and prostitutes. But when he lay down to die between two wheelie bins in the front garden of a relative's home, gone were all the trappings of wealth that had once afforded him a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, a mansion on a hill and everything that money could buy. Now, following a coroner's ruling that he died from self-inflicted stab wounds, Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the rise and fall of 'Flash' Larry Dunne.

Across the world, cannabis is being de-criminalised and in some countries legalised but with a higher potency and soaring prices, consumption of weed has become the main drug of concern amongst teenagers. Here, Nicola Tallant talks with consultant psychiatrist Dr Bobby Smyth, who works with young addicts and who fears a tsunami of problems as attitudes to the drug become increasingly lenient. He reveals the changing trends of problem drug use in teenagers, about the public health drive which has stamped out heroin addiction in young people and how cannabis has taken over as the main reason that kids need addiction services.

The murder of another witness in the Marengo Trial, the shocking revelations that suspect Ridouan Taghi was plotting a navy-seal-type jailbreak and a dramatic security breach around an under-threat journalist - what will happen next in The Netherlands? In a country under siege from organised crime, the very foundations of law and order are being challenged as a street dealer turned cocaine billionaire takes on the pillars of a state. Nicola Tallant talks to Dutch colleague Saskia Belleman of De Telegraaf, who is a courts correspondent working on the most extraordinary gangland story in living memory – one which echoes the brutal battle to take down Pablo Escobar.

Nicola Tallant tells the story of 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, one of Ireland's most-feared mobsters. From his rise as a street fighter in Dublin to becoming the head of a gangland murder machine, we retrace the violent steps he took on his rise to power and how gardai finally ended his bloody reign of terror.

Nicola Tallant tells the story of 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, one of Ireland's most-feared mobsters. From his rise as a street fighter in Dublin to becoming the head of a gangland murder machine, we retrace the violent steps he took on his rise to power and how gardai finally ended his bloody reign of terror.

Former businessman Jimmy Mansfield Jnr went to jail this week, convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice by directing that CCTV footage be destroyed. The conviction centres around the kidnap of one of his late father's employees, Martin Byrne. And while Mansfield Jnr was acquitted of involvement in the abduction, six men, led by terrorists Dessie O'Hare and Declan ‘Whacker' Duffy, have been convicted - and a judge has said Mansfield knowingly engaged them to help recover his assets lost in the 2008 economic crash. At the heart of the Mansfield trial was the story that Byrne told in the witness box of the day he came face to face with O'Hare – and how it changed his life for good. But who is Dessie O'Hare and what other lives has he crossed in a five decade criminal career? Nicola Tallant talks to Fr. Brian D'Arcy about his dealings with O'Hare during the kidnap of his friend the dentist John O'Grady. He recalls an incredible story that has stayed with him all his life and relives the day he too believed he was set to become a victim of the 'Border Fox'.

He was the playboy prince of the Celtic Tiger era and lived it up in a luxury mansion frequented by top models and socialites. But businessman Jim Mansfield Jnr is now doing porridge with common criminals after he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice. Over the course of a year, a sensational trial heard evidence about a who's who of paramilitaries and organised crime groups brought in by Mansfield to help claw back the family wealth after the economic crash, and of the terrifying kidnap of a former employee now turned state witness. While Mansfield has been found not guilty of false imprisonment, his reputation lies in ruins and from his prison cell, his once gilded life must seem a million miles away. Nicola Tallant chats with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the incredible fall of Jim Mansfield Jnr.

He's the hitman for hire who claims to have turned his life around - and nowadays Alan Wilson says he is writing poetry and staying away from his former gang, the Kinahans, while behind bars. Just weeks ago, the sinister criminal begged a judge to be lenient and claimed he would live an honest life when allowed to go free. But at the Special Criminal Court, Justice Tara Burns said Wilson, who has twice pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder, was involved in a ‘highly sophisticated, meticulously planned attack in front of a large group of civilians which left two victims with lifelong injuries. She gave him 10 years and refused to backdate the sentence. So who is Alan Wilson and has he really gone straight? Nicola Tallant talks to journalist and author Stephen Breen about the two faces of Wilson and how the callous mobster can switch from loving family man to black-hearted killer in the blink of an eye.

It was a brutal gangland murder that made headlines across the world. Now, two years on from the murder of 17-year-old Keane Mulready Woods, it seems an uneasy peace has descended on Drogheda. With two men facing trial this year for the teenager's murder, a third man due to be sentenced in relation to the disposal of his body and a number of key players in the feuding gangs behind bars or on the run, a lot has changed for the rival mobs. Nicola Tallant talks with Irish Independent Crime Correspondent Ken Foy, who says that despite the crackdown on organised crime and the success in breaking up two powerful gangs in the commuter town, gardai remain on high alert for a return to violence.

He is a well known Criminal Assets Bureau target who was once put on trial for a tiger kidnapping, but Dubliner Jonathan Gill has now launched a new venture as a conflict negotiator and says he can solve disputes in broken marriages, business upheavals and even in neighbourhood rows. With no major convictions, Gill says he is innocent of any involvement in crime but the courts have heard differently - and on one occasion he was described as one of Ireland's top criminals. Here, Nicola Tallant chats with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about Gill and his new business venture.

In Northern Ireland's troubled past there have been hundreds of atrocities and thousands of lives lost - but one 24-hour period stands out as the most brutal of all. Forty five years ago this week, unprecedented slaughter visited a small corner of south Armagh and left its mark forever on both the landscape and the lives of those left behind. First, was the brutal murder of the Catholic Reavey brothers, John Martin and Brian, just 24 and 22-years-old when they were gunned down in their family home. Their 17-year-old brother, Anthony, catastrophically injured in the ambush, would die weeks later. The attack was carried out by the notorious 'Glennanne Gang', made up of rogue police and army officers working in collusion with loyalist terrorists in a sick bid to ethnically cleanse the catholic population. Twenty minutes after the ambush, in a co-ordinated attack, three members of the O'Dowd family were slaughtered in their home in nearby County Down by a UVF hit team. But that wasn't the end of the killings. Within 24 hours of the murders, a suspected IRA terror mob carried out the shocking Kingsmill massacre of 10 innocent protestant textile workers and one more who miraculously survived. So what is the legacy of such appalling events and after four-and-a-half decades is the British government's plans for a Troubles amnesty a line in the sand or an outrage to those still seeking justice? Nicola Tallant and Sunday World colleague Hugh Jordan visit peace campaigner Eugene Reavey, as he recalls the dreadful events that visited his life and they consider the stark reality that some scars will never heal.

Mary Turner Thomson's world shattered when she discovered her husband Will was a bigamist, con man and convicted sex offender. Unbeknownst to her, this would be the start of a bold new chapter in her life, fighting to protect other women from his heartless gaslighting campaigns — and putting a stop to his endless deception.