Guerin killer stripped of assets
A drug dealer jailed for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin and a notorious heroin trafficker were finally stripped of €300,000 by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) last year.
Seven years after CAB first moved against the pair, Brian Meehan, jailed for life for his role in the Guerin murder, and drug baron Thomas ‘Boxer’ Mullen, were €275,000 worse off.
Meehan, the motorcyclist in the June 1996 drive-by shooting, also had two apartments sold off, one in Fairview, Dublin and the other by the city centre quays.
CAB detectives secured the seizures in 1997 under High Court orders after the assets were deemed to have been bought with the profits of crime.
The cash and property were frozen for seven years under the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996 until last year. The ninth annual report of the CAB revealed the assets had finally been disposed of.
Meehan was jailed in July 1999 for his part in the Guerin murder. He drove a motorbike along the Naas Road where his pillion passenger shot the journalist at point blank range. At his trial he was labelled a key player in the drugs business.
Gardaí had been investigating ‘Boxer’ Mullen for years in relation to the heroin trade in Dublin. The former amateur boxer turned drug smuggler was eventually tried and convicted in England.
Boxer Mullen had vigorously denied being involved in drug dealing. He was arrested in London in March 1997 with over £100,000 in a hold-all and a further £90,000 in a safety deposit box and a number of passports in his name.
He was sentenced to 18-years jail after a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to export £750,000 of heroin to Dublin from Britain.
