I.R.A. racketeers tighten grip on Ulster

Press, 28 October 1981, Page 25

I.R.A. racketeers tighten grip on Ulster

® front organisations rake in $1.5 million a year © gambling and taxis are Provos’ money-spinners © boom in drinking clubs boost Republican funds

“Sunday Times,” London investigation

led by

CHRIS RYDER

The shadow of a new I.R.A. bombing campaign in mainland Britain has aroused renewed anger over Republican fundraising among sympathisers in America. But the I.R.A. Provisionals have another source of finance closer to home: racketeering in the gambling and drinking clubs of Northern Ireland itself. Belfast, says an independent councillor. Paddy Devlin, is becoming “the Chicago of the Eighties.” The extortion of protection money has become a way of life for many of Ulster's Catholic areas. And the tentacles of I.R.A. racketeering now spread into many aspects of every-day life. After a five-month investigation in Ireland the “Sunday Times” estimates the proceeds of the rackets to. be between $1 million and $1.5 million a year. The people who run them have become as vital to the Provisional I.R.A. as those who fire Armalite rifles or detonate bombs. Police officers and government security advisers are now studying tough countermeasures to halt the cash flow. Enquiries show that the provisional I.R.A. is so Wealthy that if its income

from bank raids in the Irish Republic and from IrishAmerican donations dried up overnight it would scarcely notice the difference. The Provisionals are able to run the rackets so successfully because they also control what amounts to an alternative system of local government and policing through puppet organisations, intimidation and “kangaroo court” justice. Gambling is the newest addition to the I.R.A.’s commercial armoury. “Spotters” are commissioned to find promising sites for a video game such as Space Invaders, a pool table, a jukebox, or a gambling machine in places such as pubs, clubs, taxi depots, cafes, bookmakers’ offices, and social centres. They “tell” • the site owner that a machine will be supplied free; all he has to do is make room for it. If he objects one of the “boys” calls to reinforce the suggestion. The machines are then obtained, installed, and serviced by firms either directly, under the Provos 1 control through front men, or intimidated into obeying their orders. The machine is emptied weekly by a collector from the supplying firm

who keeps one-fifth of the proceeds for the firm and gives the rest to the terrorists. The site provider gets nothing but “protection.” The money collected in this way is considerable. A video game can take $lOO to $2OO a week and a wellplaced gambling machine up to $lOOO.

Inquiries have revealed one occasion when the Provisional I.R.A. was refused the co-operation of a drinking club committee to install gambling machines. Masked men, brandishing Armalite rifles, occupied the club, in North Belfast, while the machines were forcibly installed.

A publican told us he was ordered to make room in his lounge bar for a coin-oper-ated pool table. After he had watched the proceeds being taken away for two successive weeks he asked the collector how much the table would cost to buy. “Oh, a tew hundred quid. I think,” came the reply.. ‘ The publican then took out his cheque book and offered to buy the table. "Oh, they’re not for sale," he was told firmly. Another important area of Provisional I.R.A. financial activity is drinking clubs.

Half Belfast’s 500 pubs were destroyed in the riots of the early 1970 s and were replaced by shebeens. These have now been legalised as clubs under the Northern Ireland licensing laws and have become big business. Many of the clubs are under the control of terrorists. Their value to the Provisionals is outlined in a captured document disclosed in a Dublin court in 1978. “They are bases of support, places of cultural activity and fund-raising venues,” it said. We have established that there is a syndicate of clubs closely identified with the provisional I.R.A. People involved in running it are regarded by the security forces as influential senior figures in the Provisional I.R.A. One man is thought to be the finance officer of the Provisional I.R.A. in Belfast. Some of the clubs placed several advertisments in Bel-

fast papers over recent months supporting the hunger strike. From official figures we have established that these clubs purchased $2 million worth of drinks last year. This means, according to sources in the licensed trade, their turnover would be about $4 million and the net profit about $500,000. Additionally, this purchasing power, which puts them among the brewers’ 20 largest customers in Ulster, enables them to press for bulk discounts which were estimated by informed sources to be at least another $lOO,OOO annually. Some of this money is paid' in a lump sum in advance.

The longest-running money-spinner for the provisionals is the West Belfast taxi "shuttle” wnich runs between the city centre and the sprawling suburbs of West Belfast. In 1977 the Northern Ireland Transport

Holding Company, which runs the province’s public transport, estimated its Cilybus subsidiary was losing $4 million a year revenue to the taxis. This is still true, according to official sources.

We have now obtained internal Provisional I.R.A. documents which show that the Falls Taxi Association is, in fact, a puppet organisation. The taxi service is run from two petrol stations and offices on the Andersonstown Road and there is also a private hire arm, Downtown Taxis, which runs a fleet of radio taxis and hires limousines for weddings and funerals.

At one time four years ago the association made an unsuccessful takeover bid for the Antrim Crystal Glass company, offering $lOO,OOO cash in the morning and $150,000 in the afternoon — a revealing illustration of the sort of money in the hands of

Provisional I.R.A. leaders in Belfast. The tentacles of the Provisional I.R.A. also extend into the construction industry. A rebuilding scheme at the Belfast City Hospital cost $2.6 million in an “anti-terrorist bonus” to persuade men to come to work. But we were told of schemes where the provos imposed a 20 per cent payroll tax on housing construction sites, compensating the workers with phoney taxexemption certificates showing false credits for income tax due to the Inland Revenue. In other cases, men are employed under false names so they can continue to draw the dole and some provo sympathisers are employed on building sites. The only task expected of them is to draw their wage packet each payday. The Provisional I.R.A. can run rackets like these successfully for two main reasons: they exercise an increasing measure of control over the Catholic community; and official agencies are largely impotent in the face of intimidation. The contact point between the community and the Provos is the Republican Service Centre which collects complaints on everything, from broken gutter pipes to the activities of young “vandals,” the Provos’ word for a criminal. These have been set up in all Catholic areas. Through their “Civil Administration” arm they run an alternative policing system, with people being condemned to punishment at kangaroo courts often held in their absence. Public agencies supplying housing, gas, electricity, and water are unable to operate freely. Debt to them is running at a staggering $6O million annually and even the Enforcement of Judgements Office, the debt-collec-tion arm of the courts, has run up an operational deficit

of $1.5 million in recent years. The authorities have consistently underestimated the Provisionals’ financial capability. Repeated official and intelligence assessments said that Provo racketeering was hallmarked by incompetence and dishonesty, but in the past six months, as the extent of the racketeering has become more visible, a marked official rethink has begun. Some advisers want to use what they call the “Al Capone” way — subjecting the suspected racketeers to intensive investigations by police, and by income-tax and Customs officers (Al Capone was eventually convicted on tax charges). The abuses of the amusement machines had led the trade association, the Amusement Catering Association of Northern Ireland, to renew its 20-year-long campaign to have the law brought. into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. It wants the Gaming Board to have its responsibility extended to cover Northern Ireland, to vet and issue operators’ certificates to all suppliers of machines and to clarify the law over the operation of slot machines in Northern Ireland. But the Provos’ hold on the rackets and the Catholic community will be hard to shake. Boosted by the election to Parliament of both the late Bobby Sands and Owen Carron, the Provos are now planning to build a higher political profile on their power base. The higher profile is already showing in other ways. Street signs in the Twinbrook Estate outside Belfast have been unofficially replaced by Irish versions and a street in Lurgan has been renamed McCreesh Gardens after one of the dead hunger-strikers. The Post Office delivered a sample mailing to all 73 residents without difficulty or protest.