The jailing of Peter “Fatso” Mitchell is the final nail in the coffin of John Gilligan’s crime gang, a retired top Garda claimed last night.
Pat Leahy said the 10-year sentence he was given in Wales on Friday for drug trafficking is a “significant” moment for the criminal world.
The 51-year-old is the last member of the notorious Gilligan gang who flattened Dublin with drugs 30 years ago. “Fatso” was jailed for 10 years for drug dealing in Wales where cops had been keeping an eye on him for some time.
Police discovered 3kg of cocaine with a wholesale value of €145,000 hidden in a pack of nappies when they stopped his car near Bradford on July 7, 2020.
Speaking last night, retired former Asst Gda Comm Pat Leahy said he is “long gone from the memory of much of the public, but he’s not gone from the minds of those who deal in crime”. He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “This is the first time he has been handed a very heavy sentence – he has avoided
incarceration most of his life.
“He is long gone out of the country. The murder of Veronica Guerin prompted him to go, but what was there to connect him?
“All we knew were the big names in that gang and around Veronica’s death, we don’t know who the small players were and if they are still there.
“It is significant that he’s caught, and 10 years is a very long time.”
Several members of Gilligan’s gang are either dead or in jail, and ex-leader John Gilligan is awaiting trial in Spain.
“Fatso” Mitchell relocated to the Costa del Sol after the journalist’s murder in 1996.
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