{"id":83784,"date":"2025-09-25T00:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/83784\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T00:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:35:14","slug":"two-men-jailed-for-200000-drugs-bust-police-have-links-to-the-new-ira-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/83784\/","title":{"rendered":"Two men jailed for \u00a3200,000 drugs bust police have links to the New IRA \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishnews.com\/tags\/belfast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishnews.com\/tags\/belfast\">Belfast<\/a> men have been jailed after police smashed a \u00a3200,000 drugs gang.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ciaran McAuley, (27) was sentenced to 37 months for a string of drugs offences including the sale and supply of Class B substances, concealing criminal property and possession of a Class B controlled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishnews.com\/tags\/drugs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishnews.com\/tags\/drugs\">drug<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">McAuley will spend half of his sentence behind bars with the other half set to be spent on licence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Police found &#xA3;200,000 in accounts linked to Ciaran McAuley\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/JFMM2EWXRJDYRL3SV5FVYTZHGA.png\"  width=\"800\" height=\"802\"\/>Police found \u00a3200,000 in accounts linked to Ciaran McAuley <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">His accomplice Brendan Glacken (27) was sentenced to two and a half years, half of which he will spend in prison for the possession of a Class B controlled drug with intent to supply, being concerned in the supply of a Class B controlled drug and possession of a Class A controlled drug.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishnews.com\/news\/northernirelandnews\/2023\/09\/05\/news\/psni_warn_of_worrying_demand_for_drugs_flooding_northern_ireland_after_nearly_9_000_seizures_in_past_year-3585672\/\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Drugs flooding Northern Ireland: Organised crime groups 'prey upon and exploit most vulnerable in society'\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/PMJWHXFLVJKDZD36QLPB4YRHWQ.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/><\/a><a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishnews.com\/news\/northern-ireland\/two-men-jailed-for-200000-drugs-bust-police-have-linked-to-the-new-ira-N4PUNZWH4VA73ESQNGGJ5JYSEA\/\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Two men jailed for &#xA3;200,000 drugs bust police have links to the New IRA\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/OJT5SP3J7RAD3CW6IFCS7U36WY.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/><\/a><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Brendan Glacken was jailed for his part in the operation\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GAGQKXMD6JEQHI2A6SPWUOMSME.png\"  width=\"800\" height=\"802\"\/>Brendan Glacken was jailed for his part in the operation. PICTURE PSNI <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It comes after police found \u00a38,000 worth of drugs paraphernalia and mobile phones during a series of raids across West Belfast in June 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Examination of phones seized found detailed chats relating to drugs, payments for drugs and the wholesale import of drugs into Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">They later unearthed approximately \u00a3200,000 in an account belonging to Ciaran McAuley, which they believe was related to the sale and supply of drugs over an 18 month period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Caoimhe McAuley (28) was also given a two year suspended sentence for possession of a Class B controlled drug, assisting an offence and possession of fireworks without a licence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In a statement on Wednesday, police the sentencing followed an investigation into \u201csuspected drug criminality linked to the New IRA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Detective Chief Inspector McCallum, said: \u201cIn June 2023, a number of searches were conducted at properties and vehicles linked to the defendants in West Belfast and Dunmurry as part of a proactive investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cA quantity of drugs with a street value of approximately \u00a38,000, drug paraphernalia and mobile phones were seized. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAn extensive examination of messages on devices attributed to the defendants revealed the involvement in a vast number of exchanges regarding drugs and methods to pay for drugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cInformation was also discovered relating to the transporting of drugs into Northern Ireland on a wholesale level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cFurther investigation into the financial accounts of Ciaran McAuley revealed criminal transactions related to the supply of drugs, of approximately \u00a3200,000 over an 18 month period.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Belfast men have been jailed after police smashed a \u00a3200,000 drugs gang. Ciaran McAuley, (27) was sentenced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[663,9,10,718,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,55639,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-83784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-drugs","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-new-ira","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}