Galway Garda breakthrough on rural crime

GARDAI in Galway believe that this week they have ‘cracked’ a rural crime gang that has been specialising in raids on houses and commercial premises over recent months.

Since last autumn, Galway Gardai have had Operation Cornea in place where they tracked the movement of suspects thought to be behind robberies involving the theft of property, worth tens of thousands of euro.

The gang – centred in the North Galway area – were also ‘spreading their wings’ by staging late-night, early-morning break-ins into occupied houses.

The Garda operation came to a head in the early hours of Monday morning last in the Menlough area at around 5am when at attempted house break-in was disturbed by Gardai.

One man was arrested at the scene and detained for questioning under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act and in follow-up searches through Tuesday last, a significant quantity of stolen property was recovered.

Detectives and Gardai investigating the gang involved in the robberies are now confident that more arrests will follow over the coming days.

Over the past year or so, the gang had targeted houses under construction and pounced shortly after deliveries of stoves or electrical goods such as fridge-freezers, washing machines/dryers and cookers.

However over recent months, the gang were becoming more brazen and were targeting occupied private houses by forcing doors open in the dead of night and robbing anything they could get their hands on but especially cash, jewellery, laptops, phones and cameras.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.