Police raid ‘secret lab’ allegedly run by John Gilligan and seize drugs worth millions

GERARD COUZENS

Spanish police went public on Thursday with the first images of the ‘Breaking Bad’-style drug lab veteran Irish criminal John Gilligan has been accused of running as they said it could have produced up to €8 million worth of narcotics.

They released footage showing the moment heavily-armed officers used battering rams to smash into the Costa Blanca property where they discovered the laboratory and arrested Gilligan in a dawn raid.

They also revealed they had found a revolver wrapped in plastic inside a hideaway on an outside wall.

In their first official comment on Gilligan’s detention last month detectives accused him of flooding the region’s streets with illegal narcotics including pink cocaine with the help of a North Macedonia clan he allegedly led.

The dramatic firearms discovery at the property close to the holiday resort of Torrevieja had echoes of his October 2020 drugs arrest at a nearby villa where a gun initially linked to the murder of crime reporter Veronica Guerin was found buried in his back garden.

It emerged earlier this month Gilligan, 72, had been remanded in a Costa prison following the new drugs bust 15 months after he admitted running a Spain-to-Ireland cannabis and sleeping pill smuggling ring and illegally possessing a firearm.

He agreed a plea bargain deal in September 2023 with prosecutors as his trial got underway at a court in Torrevieja south of Alicante and was handed a suspended 22-month jail sentence.

On Thursday, detectives specialising in fighting organised crime revealed they had detected an “increase” in Gilligan’s criminal activity just nine months after he avoided prison as they detailed for the first time the huge scale of his alleged drugs trafficking operation.

Well-placed sources have revealed most of the narcotics seized, including more than 16 kilos of dangerous pink cocaine, had been discovered at the clandestine drugs lab he was “running”.

One said: “We believe the criminal organisation if it hadn’t been smashed could have produced between 300 and 600 kilos of illegal drugs based on the substances seized at the lab.

“It’s difficult to say exactly what the drugs’ street value could have been but we’ve calculated it would have been between EUROS four and eight million.”

The police operation leading to Gilligan’s December 18th arrest was named Operation Overlord and involved officers from elite Spanish police anti-drug units including one based in the province of Murcia south of Alicante as well as the UK’s National Crime Agency.

A spokesman for the National Police in Murcia said in the force’s first statement on Gilligan’s arrest on Thursday, where he wasn’t named but was described as a member of the Irish mafia: “The National Police has dismantled a synthetic drugs lab.

“Nine people have been arrested including the leader of the criminal organisation, a man belonging to the Irish mafia who had expanded his criminal activities to several parts of the eastern Spanish coast and continually changed home between the provinces of Murcia and Alicante to hinder his localisation.

“More than 16 kilos of Tusi or pink cocaine have been seized along with two and a half kilos of cocaine, 540 litres of precursors for synthetic drugs, and a 75 litre drum of Methylamine, which is a key precursor in the manufacture of methamphetamines.

“Officers have also confiscated different instruments and machinery needed to produce drugs, as well as a revolver hidden among bricks.”

As well as elite anti-drugs Spanish police UDYCO units including one in Murcia, the UK’s National Crime Agency was also involved in taking down the Irishman.

The Spanish National Police in Murcia added: “Thanks to the joint operation with the NCA, a family crime clan of Macedonian origin based in the Murcian village of La Alberca, was identified.

“They allegedly operated under the orders of the Irish criminal with the aim of making and distributing different types of drugs in the region on a regular basis.

“The police investigation led to the arrest of the alleged leader at a villa in Orihuela Costa on December 18 last year.

“A clandestine lab had been set up inside to make and adulterate different types of drugs, mainly the narcotic known as Tusi or pink cocaine.

“An important increase in the consumption of this drug had been detected at nightspots and other ‘black spots’ in the city of Murcia.

“Two more raids were subsequently carried out in La Alberca at residential properties belonging to the organisation’s Macedonian clan where a significant amount of drugs of the same type as those found at the dismantled clandestine lab were also seized.

“With the substances seized in the lab it’s estimated the criminal gang could have produced between 300 and 600 kilograms of drugs.”

The two-bed property near Torrevieja where police are said to have discovered the laboratory belonged to his ex-partner Sharon Oliver according to reports published in Ireland earlier this month before Spanish police went public today with the arrests.

British national Oliver, who is not among the nine people arrested in the latest operation and is said to have been unaware of Gilligan’s alleged drug activities, was cleared in September 2023 of the drug charges she was facing along with her ex-boyfriend over th