![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Lee-Cullen90245404.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDubliner Cullen, who was pals with the late model Katy French, is understood to have been released in recent weeks on compassionate grounds<\/p>\n
19:25, 06 Aug 2026Updated 19:27, 06 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
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Lee Cullen leaving Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2013(Image: Collins Courts)<\/p>\n
Former Dublin socialite and high-end car dealer Lee Cullen<\/a> has died after a lengthy illness, just weeks after reportedly being granted compassionate release from a UK prison<\/a>, where he had been serving a 21-year sentence for arms smuggling.<\/p>\n Dubliner Cullen, who was pals with the late model Katy French<\/a>, is understood to have been released in recent weeks on compassionate grounds.<\/p>\n He died peacefully at his home following a long illness last Saturday, August 1, a death notice on RIP.ie<\/a> states.<\/p>\n The late model died of a cocaine<\/a>-induced heart attack in 2007 and she was driving a Land Rover that had been loaned to her by Cullen at the time of her death as her car had broken down.<\/p>\n It was this vehicle she was taken to hospital<\/a> in when she overdosed.<\/p>\n Katy French at her 24th birthday party at Krystle nightclub in Dublin in 2007(Image: Arthur Carron\/Collins)<\/p>\n Cullen was jailed in 2018 for 21 years in the UK over an arms smuggling plot.<\/p>\n That crime came to light after police officers stopped a Vauxhall Insignia in June 2017 and discovered two converted firearms in the boot, along with 25 rounds of ammunition.<\/p>\n Cullen, who was then 46, and three other males were arrested.<\/p>\n He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply prohibited firearms and conspiracy to sell ammunition without being registered under the firearms act. He was jailed for 21 years and eight months.<\/p>\n At the time of Cullen and the three other males’ sentencing, Stephen Davis, District Crown Prosecutor with West Midlands Crown Prosecution Services said: “The guns were purchased in order to be re-activated and later sold to criminals.<\/p>\n “These four men all played a key part in the purchasing and conversion of the firearms and therefore, they all have to take responsibility for the illegal actions which could have put innocent lives at risk.”<\/p>\n The Irish Mirror’s Crime Writers Michael O’Toole and Paul Healy are writing a new weekly newsletter called Crime Ireland. Click here to sign up<\/a> and get it delivered to your inbox every week<\/p>\n At the time of his imprisonment in the UK, a source told the Irish Mirror<\/a>: “He had set himself up as a car dealer in the UK but never left his criminal pals.<\/p>\n “He is close pals of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group and he was spotted in the company of criminal Thomas Kavanagh who also goes by the name Bomber.<\/p>\n “His criminal connections were all associated with being a money man for the gang – particularly in handling dirty money.”<\/p>\n In the same year he sought an injunction to stop the media from publishing stories that claimed he introduced the tragic beauty to an Irish drug lord.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1_CC-Katy-French-Birthday-290067885.jpg\")
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