Belfast, Northern Ireland – The Irish Republican Army may no longer want to fight the British, but detectives say it’s still in business – as owners of pubs and clubs, smugglers of fuel and cigarettes, bank robbers by night and property investors by day.
Throughout the past 35 years of conflict over this British territory, the IRA has built a sophisticated criminal empire throughout Ireland and beyond, laundering profits through legitimately owned businesses and properties worth more than $400 million, experts say.
Now that weapons inspectors have announced the IRA’s disarmament, the political focus has turned to whether the underground group will renounce crime, too.
The British and Irish governments say political progress depends on reports being published in October and January from the Independent Monitoring Commission.
The two governments formed the four-man panel – which includes a former top CIA official – chiefly to publicize IRA activities.
If these experts rule that the IRA is withdrawing from criminal activity, Britain and Ireland say negotiations should resume to revive the cornerstone of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord: power-sharing between the British Protestant majority and Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party.
Even the most ardent advocates of power-sharing say the IRA’s criminal power has become the new deal-breaker. But IRA experts warn that the group is not about to cede control to common criminals.
“The IRA’s criminal activity will be hard to hide but easy to deny,” said Ed Moloney, author of “A Secret History of the IRA,” who forecast that IRA racketeering “may even intensify.”
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a veteran IRA commander who denies ever being a member, has repeatedly said IRA activity cannot be described as crime. At his most recent party conference in March, Adams said Sinn Fein would “refuse to criminalize those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives.”
Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell, who is regularly briefed on IRA activity by Ireland’s national police force, called Sinn Fein’s line on IRA crime “a massive lie of Orwellian proportions.”
