A number of searches have been carried out in Ireland and Spain as part of an investigation into the activities of the Hutch organised crime group.
The Guardia Civil are conducting an investigation into money laundering and have carried out ten searches including searches in Lanzarotte.
Gardaí are also searching a house in Dublin. Officers from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigations, the Emergency Response Unit and the Criminal Assets Bureau are involved.
The search follows an international letter of request and mutual assistance from the Spanish authorities.
Officers from GNBCI are also in Spain assisting the Spanish authorities.
The investigation into money laundering by the transnational organised crime group has been ongoing for at least two years.
Garda headquarters said this morning’s operation is part of ongoing liaison between GNBCI and Guardia Civil in Spain, targeting a transnational organised crime group who are located both in Ireland and Spain.
A previous search targeting the group was conducted in Lanzarote in June 2022 by Guardia Civil on behalf of GNBCI.
The Guardia Civil said in a statement that the investigation is ongoing and they are unable to give further information at this time because of a “secrecy order” in Spain.
The Hutch organised crime group is one of the two violent transnational drug dealing gangs based in Dublin that has been involved in the ongoing feud with the Kinahan organised crime group for the past nine years.
Garda evidence on the structure and operations of the Hutch organised crime group has been accepted by the Special Criminal Court.
A senior drugs and organised crime investigator said the gang is predominantly from Dublin city centre and built on intergenerational family bonds.
Detective Superintendent David Gallagher said the organised crime group is less hierarchical than some criminal organisations and operates a patriarchal system based on loyalty and monetary gain.
Historically, he said it is quite a fluid organisation whose associates and affiliates work together, independently and with other criminal organisations to commit crime.
Its rules and procedures like those of other organised crime groups are “not set in stone”.
However, he said that since 2015 and the emergence of the feud, there has been a “galvanisation” of positions within the Hutch organised crime group.
Gary Hutch was shot dead in Spain in 2015, which led to the retaliatory murder of Kinahan gang member David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in February 2016.
Gerard Hutch was also named as the head of the Hutch family in the Special Criminal Court which found him not guilty of the murder of David Byrne.
However, that murder led to a dramatic escalation in the Hutch-Kinahan feud and as a result, so far 18 people have been shot dead in Ireland and Spain.
