Gardai Raids in Cork

[mrsbrown]

anyone shine any light as to who was involved..pimps.names etc

[annasavicha]

21 November 2006

City wide garda raids target Cork’s sex industry

By Eoin English and Sean O’Riordan
THE Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) homed in on a kingpin in Cork’s sex industry yesterday as 100 gardaí swooped on massage parlours, lap-dancing clubs and sex shops across the city as part of a major investigation into money laundering.


The series of coordinated raids began shortly after 8am and continued throughout the day.

A total of 17 private and commercial premises across the city were targeted.

At least three of the premises are owned by the same individual.

Teams of detectives from CAB and backed up by Cork officers raided at least two sex shops which they discovered were fronts for upstairs massage parlours.





It is understood the investigation is focusing on human trafficking and prostitution. They also swooped on one of the city’s busiest lap-dancing clubs.

They seized substantial amounts of cash, bundles of documents, video-tapes and DVDs from a number of the premises. Some of the premises were closed for several hours yesterday after the raids but many of the sex shops reopened last evening.

There were no arrests but a number of follow-up searches were continuing last night. The presence of large numbers of gardaí and ongoing surveillance is likely to seriously damage the businesses in the run-up to the busy Christmas period.

A CAB source said gardaí would be trawling through caseloads of seized documents in the coming days as part of a proceeds of crime investigation.

Forensic accountants are also expected to trawl the documents to examine tax compliance issues.

The raids were part of an ongoing investigation into serious crime in the city, he said.

A source close to the investigation denied speculation that the raids were linked to the suspected blackmailing of massage parlour clients in the city.

The man at the centre of the probe is believed to be in his early 50s and lives in a quiet village in the north Cork region.

He is understood to have been heavily involved in the sex industry for about 20 years. In that time, he is believed to have amassed a substantial fortune from the sex trade.

A number of his female workers are part-time and from Cork. However, in recent years the employees have come mostly from Eastern Europe.