SPECIALIST GARDAÍ ARE conducting door to door checks on members of the Hutch family as intelligence suggests another attack is imminent.
Armed officers were dispatched at the weekend and called to the doors of members of the Hutch family.
Others linked to the gang were asked for their travel plans over the coming days.
A significant number of the gang is in hiding. However, gardaí have stepped up their surveillance and have been in contact with extended members of the family who officers would consider to be innocent people caught in the middle of the Hutch-Kinahan feud.
The sense of paranoia amongst the Hutch family has seen some relatives change their surnames, such is their fear that they will be targeted.
Once again, security sources have said this is just more evidence of the lengths the Kinahan cartel will go to in a bid to get to Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch who is understood to be splitting his time between Turkey and Morocco.
Senior Kinahan lieutenants including Liam Byrne were back in Dublin over the St Patrick’s Day weekend sparking fears that they were to carry out orders received in Spain by their bosses.
Others who arrived back into the country were Sean McGovern who was injured in the Regency Hotel shooting which took the life of Liam’s brother David.
Fears
Senior members of the Kinahan cartel have stopped using their phones when discussing their business. This is due to a number of high profile drug seizures and a number of arrests in recent months.
Information they need to communicate is disclosed to a trusted confidante and is then passed to the recipient face-to-face, according to security sources.
A number of new Garda Information Messages (GIMs) have been delivered to extended members of the Hutch gang in recent weeks. A GIM is a message gardaí hand to someone whose life they fear is under threat.
The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) wants to sell assets, including several cars (worth €500,000 in total) belonging to individuals it says are linked to the Kinahan organised crime gang.
CAB had previously secured orders from the High Court freezing the assets which include jewellery, motorbikes and cars seized by the bureau following raids at various locations in March of last year.
The proceedings were taken against Liam Byrne, who CAB says is a member of the Kinahan gang, and several of his associates.
Byrne has also been busy renovating his Crumlin home, adding a number of layers of additional security.
Bulletproof glass is being fitted to every front-facing window. More security cameras are in place and there are rolling patrols by locals who are close to Byrne and his family, according to well-placed sources.
He is expected to leave Dublin soon.
With reporting by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin
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