Transcript

HUTCHEON: Officially at least the troubles are over, though out here in Northern Ireland’s stunning border country, it’s sometimes hard to imagine they’d ever begun. Since the IRA declared an end to using force to achieve Irish unity, on the border with the Irish Republic the British watchtowers are coming down. It’s a symbolic act of good faith that may be somewhat premature, for here under the very nose of the British Army, the IRA is still in business, the business of making money.

Republican gangs run multi million dollar smuggling operations where weapons and explosives are increasingly replaced by contraband, cigarettes and petrol. I want to see some of this illegal cross border trade for myself so with a hidden camera, I head for Jonesboro.

KEVIN FULTON: Jonesboro Market, the best way to describe it is an open-air duty free shop. That is the best way to describe it.

HUTCHEON: And the IRA runs that market?

KEVIN FULTON: Absolutely. People along the border of Jonesboro are bringing the cigarettes in. They are being shipped up to Derry stroke Londonderry to former prisoners or former republicans who then use it through their taxi depots.

HUTCHEON: It’s known as the Peshawar Valley and apart from cigarettes, I’m told you can buy anything short of an AK-47. This is just a tiny fragment of IRA Incorporated’s activities.

So what’s that?

MARKET STALL HOLDER: Eighteen.

HUTCHEON: Eighteen. So they’re all good and if not I’ll come back next week.

MARKET STALL HOLDER: That’s no problem at all.

HUTCHEON: OK Excellent.

MARKET STALL HOLDER: I’m not going anywhere.

HUTCHEON: Northern Ireland’s contraband industry now costs the British Government at least seven hundred million dollars a year in lost taxes. These are some of the illegal goods on offer at Jonesboro market. Pirated DVD’s, the latest films. This one will cost you about one third of the price of a real one and smuggled cigarettes from the Philippines. This box costs about half of what a legal box costs and it doesn’t just end up here on the streets of Northern Ireland, you can find them in the back streets of Britain and beyond.

Loose talk about IRA operations can still invite a bullet through a kneecap or worse. As a British agent in the IRA, Kevin Fulton saw firsthand how the paramilitary began mixing business with bomb making.

KEVIN FULTON: As long as it’s got the Queen’s head on it, everybody will deal for money. They’re getting money in, they’re buying their property and they go on holidays. Fifteen years ago most people could not even do that. Now they’ve got money they can do it and money is basically like a drug. When you start reeling it in and making it, you don’t want no-one to upset your apple cart.

HUTCHEON: The Provisional IRA, like Protestant paramilitaries, has always been involved in criminality as well as raising finance, but with its international reach, the IRA is the biggest and most powerful paramilitary of them all.

We visited Northern Ireland before and after the July peace initiative when the IRA announced an end to its armed campaign to expel the British but the declaration said nothing about ending criminal activity, an omission that’s attracted growing criticism in recent months.

Just a few weeks before the peace initiative was announced, this Protestant Orange Order march went ahead as usual, an annual ritual of confrontation in the streets of Belfast. Officially marking the defeat of the Catholic King James during the Battle of the Boyne three hundred years ago, in reality it’s a chance for marchers to drive home the message of Protestant domination and Catholic subordination.

Nothing brings out the tensions more in Northern Ireland than the annual marching season. These are loyalists parading down the streets of central Belfast and what this event shows, is that while the war might be over, this divided society is still not at peace with itself.

GROUP CHANTING: Peaceful Protest! Peaceful Protest!

HUTCHEON: Republican leader Gerry Adams, for decades the face of popular opposition to British rule, directs demonstrators blocking the path of the Protestant parade through a Catholic neighbourhood. It’s a fruitless battle, a handful of men against the might of the British establishment. For Gerry Adams this was a PR stunt to show his supporters he hadn’t abandoned the cause despite the IRA being just weeks away from announcing a new direction.

GERRY ADAMS: What Republicans have to be is very strategic in our attitude, think beyond the difficulties next year, think beyond the problems that have been inherited from the last number of years, think of where we want to be in ten years time and then fit ourselves into a process which helps to bring that about.

HUTCHEON: It took police and the military hours to quell the violence. The war with Britain may now be officially over but given this level of passion, peace on the ground looks far from assured.

Since the Good Friday peace accord was forged seven years ago, Belfast’s streets have become visibly wealthy. The Irish Government says paramilitaries have used a range of businesses to become extraordinarily rich, with a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Taking a cue from the mafia, IRA Incorporated has legitimised its operations, establishing companies, buying property and according to commentator and author Malachi O’Doherty, laundering money through high turnover business.

MALACHI O’DOHERTY: Word on the street is that the IRA have bought a lot of restaurants and a lot of bars and I spoke to an accountant privately about this and he said yeah and you can tell, you can tell the ones that they have by the accounts. The ones that are good, big cash investment and no debt.

KEVIN FULTON: You’ll buy a property, you’ll do it up and you put so much of your dirty money into it and clean it but then it props the value of the property up as well. You’ve got to clean your money.

HUTCHEON: So are these considered legitimate businesses?

MALACHI O’DOHERTY: Well yes they are legitimate businesses. They are pubs basically where the money, the IRA has put somebody in as the owner of the bar. He runs the bar, he’s ostensibly the owner. He’s been given the money to buy it and profits go to the Republican movement.

GERRY ADAMS: So does criminality have any place in the Republican struggle? No it doesn’t. Does violence have any place in the Republican struggle? No it doesn’t. I’m, I’m the person who made the appeal to the IRA.

HUTCHEON: So you’re saying categorically criminality does not have a part in this at all?

GERRY ADAMS: I’ve no doubt that there are former Republicans as there are former police officers, as there are former members of any organisation who are involved in criminality. I’m sure it’s the same in your country, but Republicanism, or the party which we’re building, the base which we are trying to win the support of, is not involved and never will be involved if I have anything to do with it.

HUTCHEON: Last December this non-descript bank built to withstand the bombings of the early 1970’s was penetrated by master criminals. At the time, it was the biggest cash robbery in the world. The equivalent of sixty four million dollars. The banks former owner, the National Australia Bank, picked up the tab. Within days the finger was pointed in one direction.

HUGH ORDE: In my opinion the Provisional IRA were responsible for this crime and all main lines of enquiry currently undertaken are in that direction.

HUTCHEON: Through a quirk of history, Irish and Scottish banks are permitted to issue their own money, which circulates alongside the British currency. The Northern Bank took the extraordinary step of changing the look of its money, within months much of the cash from the robbery was illegal tender. To many, the robbery confirmed the IRA’s transformation into a mafia like organisation.

MALACHI O’DOHERTY: These are really professional criminals, paramilitary terrorists, whatever, choose your word, but these are people who kill and do not get caught, who rob and do not get caught. They do not leave traces behind. They’re extremely sophisticated.

HUTCHEON: The Republicans denied involvement.

To your knowledge, was the IRA involved in the Northern Bank robbery?

GERRY ADAMS: To my knowledge no and secondly there has not been one slither of evidence produced to substantiate the claim that the IRA was involved.

HUTCHEON: Those familiar with the IRA’s internal workings believe otherwise.

KEVIN FULTON: Bullshit. I mean there’s plenty, there’s plenty of evidence that there was connections there but getting it through a court of law’s a different thing.

HUTCHEON: As a British soldier, Kevin Fulton was an agent in the IRA for two decades until he was exposed in 2000. He infiltrated a leading paramilitary unit in the south, which developed new explosives. His mission was also to spy on business activities.

KEVIN FULTON: Well the IRA, you call it a war chest it was financing. I mean an army needs money to run and the IRA are basically, they basically are an army. You know there were different pubs, clubs, gaming machines. They actually stole lorry loads of stuff. They’d sell it on through third parties. It gathered money.

HUTCHEON: Fulton worked on developing detonators to evade British detection. This one, triggered by a flash of light is now used by insurgents in Iraq.

KEVIN FULTON: In my capacity as an agent I became a terrorist. To get that information... you’ve got to crack eggs to make an omelette.

HUTCHEON: He was good at his job but in order to know killers, he had to mix with them. In 1992 a device he helped to develop killed a policewoman.

KEVIN FULTON: My job was to save lives but unfortunately certain people did lose their lives. There’s things, I have to live with my demons. I can justify what I’ve done. You know I’ve done my job.

HUTCHEON: From a very different vantage point, Willie Frazer also watched the IRA stockpile money.

WILLIE FRAZER: They’re now one of the richest terrorist organisations in Europe, if not the world.

HUTCHEON: A Protestant supporter of British rule, he’s no stranger to sectarian violence. His father, two uncles and two cousins were victims of Republican bullets. Now he seeks justice for victim’s families by exposing illicit IRA operations.

WILLIE FRAZER: See, people underestimate the capability of these people. They are tied up internationally with every terrorist organisation that is going. They’re tied up with Hamas, PLO, FARC, ETA – every terrorist organisation you can name and they’re using each other to move not only cigarettes and drink but also technology.

See there’s an army observation post there. Now if you can see the cameras have been removed off the top of that.

HUTCHEON: Willie Frazer takes me for a tour of the Republican dominated border region, south Armagh’s underworld.

WILLIE FRAZER: There’s a yard up there where they found a stolen tanker.

HUTCHEON: Within its scenic hills and narrow country lanes, the IRA hordes liquid gold – fuel smuggled from the Republic in the south or laundered diesel, sold at a profit of up to a dollar a litre.

And many of these operations are linked to a key man on the IRA’s ruling Army Council, the elusive Chief of Staff, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy whose farm sits astride the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic, marked by a red line.

WILLIE FRAZER: Slab is the Godfather in South Armagh. He is the Republican movement. Basically he is behind every scam that is going on in South Armagh. If you’re not part of the Republican movement and you’re working a scam, you have to pay to him which in turn goes to the Republican movement, namely the IRA.

HUTCHEON: Named as Britain’s leading cigarette and oil smuggler on an underworld rich list, his fortune is estimated at ninety million dollars. At Thomas Slab Murphy’s house, we saw several oil tankers but it’s not safe to linger. Mr Frazer spots a lurking security patrol and we’re off.

WILLIE FRAZER: [Driving off] We definitely aren’t going back now.

HUTCHEON: While signs of the illegal trade blotch the countryside, Mr Frazer says no significant Republican figure has been prosecuted.

WILLIE FRAZER: We actually broke into one of their warehouses where they were storing these goods and photographed the stuff in it. We then went to the appropriate authorities and asked them would they move on it. They never even rang us back. Now that answered our question that they’re more interested in keeping the terrorists happy then they are in actually catching them.

HUTCHEON: The Northern Ireland Police declined all our requests for interviews on the IRA’s criminal activities and many commentators expressed scepticism about the police’s role.

MALACHI O’DOHERTY: The police themselves were covering up for the fact that the IRA were killing people and they were doing that because they were aware that the political impact of saying the IRA has broken the ceasefire was too great and they wouldn’t take that risk.

HUTCHEON: In the Catholic enclave of Short Strand, a family grieves and despite the passage of many months, waits for answers. The sisters and partner of Robert McCartney continue a campaign against an organisation they once admired. Robert McCartney was killed after an argument in a Belfast pub earlier this year. His death and his family’s campaign for justice garnered support and sympathy from as far away as the White House.

CATHERINE MCCARTNEY: Robert hasn’t been the fist victim of this type of behaviour by IRA members. Just in the past they probably have been able to cover it up a bit better and have got away with it.

HUTCHEON: Two men await trial but the family says it knows of fifteen others linked to the IRA or its political wing Sinn Fein who were involved in the brawl.

Magennis’ bar had been forensically cleaned after the murder, a paramilitary tactic perfected by the IRA. Up to seventy witnesses were cowed into silence. Although Republican leader Gerry Adams tried to limit the public relations damage by inviting the McCartneys to Sinn Fein’s annual convention, they remain extremely critical of his role.

GERRY ADAMS: Well the family have defined justice as those who killed Robert McCartney being accountable in court.

HUTCHEON: Do you define it differently?

GERRY ADAMS: No I support the family.

CATHERINE MCCARTNEY: Gerry Adams and his party found it very difficult to articulate the argument for justice. He never suspended any members of his party I don’t think until April. One of the accused who is in gaol now was still a Treasurer of Sinn Fein right up until April. You know so I wouldn’t believe when Gerry Adams says I’ve done all I can. I would say well Gerry what have you done?

HUTCHEON: Just as Gerry Adams for years denied he’d played a leading role in the IRA, he continues to deny its criminal links.

Your critics would say that the IRA wont disband because it’s become a cash cow for the movement. What do you say to that?

GERRY ADAMS: Well that’s not true and I mean again I have to sort of advise you on all of this.

HUTCHEON: Can you just answer the question directly?

GERRY ADAMS: I am answering the question directly. I said that’s not true and then I want to advise you on this. Now how more direct can I be?

HUTCHEON: Meanwhile in the so-called Peshawar Valley, the Jonesboro Markets and oil yards continue to operate with apparent impunity. This despite the establishment two years ago of an organised crime taskforce. At about the same time, an agency with a mission to confiscate the assets of this illegal trade, also set up shop. Headed by former deputy police chief, Alan McQuillan, it froze fourteen million dollars worth of assets last year.

ALAN MCQUILLAN: I think we’ve made good progress. We’ve set up the office, we’ve recruited all our staff and within six months we got our first assets frozen. These operations are so lucrative because of the amount of money they can make tens of thousands of pounds a day in some of these operations. They’re so lucrative that you close one down and another one springs up so it is a continuous running battle to try and keep on top of this.

HUTCHEON: Critics like Willie Frazer say claiming progress when such small amounts are involved is a joke.

WILLIE FRAZER: This Asset Recovery Agency, how much is it costing to run them? Because to be honest with you, if that’s what they’re coming up with, they’d be safer giving the money to charity cause it’s not doing any good.

CATHERINE MCCARTNEY: I think basically things will only change if the people decide that they don’t want to be controlled by thugs and bullies in the IRA. I mean every community has criminals in it but when that, the crimes are backed up by powerful organisations like the IRA, I mean people are fighting a very formidable force but it’s not impossible.

HUTCHEON: As loyalists light another symbolic bonfire, they’re angry over what they believe is an unofficial deal where authority turns a blind eye to Republican criminality in return for the IRA’s presence at the negotiating table. Crime by loyalist paramilitaries on the other hand is frequently targeted by authorities and no one has explained how the IRA will steer its membership into new and peaceful purposes. The fear is that a new era of peace will be blighted by organised crime with those who once fought for a united Ireland, now firmly in business as IRA Incorporated.