The leader of one of Ireland's most violent, dangerous and reckless criminal gangs was jailed this week.
Paul Reynolds examines who the gang members are, how they got so big and how they were brought down.
The Gucci brothers
The Criminal Assets Bureau luxury goods auction has now become an annual Christmas event.
It's where Rolex and Breitling watches, Hermes and Gucci belts and shoes, diamond rings, gold necklaces and bracelets, Chanel and Louis Vuitton handbags and Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Chou shoes - to mention a few - are all sold off.
They are all seized from criminals and their partners.
Gucci features regularly in the garda raids and auctions.
However unbeknownst to the luxury brand’s founders, employees or current owners, the name was "hijacked" by a gang of young, brash, violent, reckless, unstable and dangerous north Dublin criminals, who wore designer clothes and jewellery, took luxury holidays, drank premium alcohol and drove high-powered motorbikes and the most expensive cars.
Gardaí say they were involved in street-level organised crime and drug dealing and had links to transnational organised crime groups at the highest levels.
The Gucci Gang "got this name due to their penchant for designer clothes and jewellery", the High Court was told.
The Chief CAB Officer said the gang has been involved in murderous feuds with rival street gangs over control of the drugs trade and named its leader.
"Gardaí believe this Organised Crime Group is led by Glen Ward, also known as 'Mr Flashy'," Detective Chief Superintendent Michael Gubbins swore in an affidavit last November.
"The Gucci Gang organised crime group is heavily involved in the supply of controlled drugs," he also said.
As key figures in the gang, Glen Ward and his brother Eric O’Driscoll are deemed to be such serious gangland criminals that the Director of Public Prosecutions decided the ordinary courts were insufficient to ensure justice was served in their cases.
The 'Gucci brothers' have the same parents, but different surnames. Glen took his father's surname while Eric, who is nine years younger, used his mother's.
Eric O'Driscoll was jailed earlier this month, while last Monday Glen Ward was finally sent to prison after causing fear and criminal mayhem in at least four north Dublin city communities for the past decade.
Coolock feud murders
The members of the Gucci Gang lived fast and beyond their legitimate means.
Too many of them also died young, in gangland murders. Glen Ward and Eric O'Driscoll could consider themselves lucky to be still alive, albeit behind bars. Both have survived attempts on their lives.
23-year-old Zach Parker, a friend of Ward and fellow gang member, was the first to be killed. He was shot dead outside a gym in Swords, Co Dublin, on 17 January 2019.
Gardaí described it as "a carefully organised and pre-planned attack which occurred in the context of a feud between rival OCGs (organised crime groups)."
The next three victims of the feud were shot dead in one week the following May.
While Parker claimed to work as a barber, he was a convicted drug dealer with an income stream which allowed him to drive a top of the range car, a BMW X5.
He was one of the biggest drug dealers in Swords, but was targeted for assassination and shot in the head.
Ward attended his funeral where the symbols of his friend's life, which were brought to the altar, included a Nando's bag, a motorbike helmet and his teeth whitener.
The wreaths included one designed like a Rolex watch with a working clock as its centrepiece; others had the names of fashion designers Louis Vuitton and Alexander McQueen on them.
The investigation into the murder of Parker led gardaí, the day after he was shot dead, to raid a storage unit he had rented in Balbriggan.
While they were searching the lock up, Ward turned up with two other 'Gucci Gang' members, one of whom was the flamboyant drug dealer, Sean Little.
Jet skis and a speedboat
Gardaí seized two jet skis and a speedboat during that search on 18 January 2019. The gang had paid €32,000 for the jet skis and €8,000 for the speed boat, all of which had been handed over in cash. They bought the most up-to-date brands in a most unusual way.
Sean Little paid a legitimate businessman for one of the jet skis at a caravan park after a late-night meeting with four men who told him they wanted to buy two of the most expensive models.
The cash was handed over in a plastic bag in €5, €10, and €20 notes. The man told gardaí he counted it twice and found he had been slightly overpaid.
"I'll kill the lad who counted that," Little said to the businessman.
Little registered the jet ski in the name of a tradesman he knew who had a regular legitimate income. However, he used his own address, email and mobile phone number.
Gardaí believe Ward bought the second jet ski from another legitimate businessman and paid a final instalment of €1,000 in €20 notes at a supermarket car park in Finglas.
"A lad jumped over the wall, hood up, came over to the window of the jeep. He handed me a coin bag with a wad of cash in it," he said. "He turned around and jumped back over the wall he came over. It was the strangest thing. He never said anything."
The man who sold them the speedboat described the buyer as "dodgy".
The gang tried to get the boat and the jet skis back after gardaí had seized them.
Two of their drug dealers made separate police property applications using the same solicitor. One of the criminals was close to Parker and Little, the other to Ward.
However, the Criminal Assets Bureau seized and sold the jet skis and the speedboat, and the money was remitted to the State.
There was no evidence that the gang members could "afford expensive recreational items from their legitimate income" or that they had "paid for those assets from legitimate funds".
Mr Justice Alex Owens found they were the proceeds of crime and noted in the High Court that by their early 20s, Parker and Little were "up to their necks in organised crime".
Double crosses and drug debts
Five months after Parker’s murder, Little was shot dead. The body of the drug dealer was found beside his burning car on a country road just off the M1 motorway at 11.20pm on 21 May 2019.
The victim of a double-cross, the 22-year-old had been lured to his death. He wanted someone else murdered, but they paid more.
Little had previously threatened to kill Darndale drug dealer Jordan Davis. He called to his mother's house in December 2018 claiming he was owed €70,000.
The Davis family, by their own admission, hadn't much, but Sandra Davis noticed a change in her son when he started to get money, and gardaí started to raid the house.
He wasn't working but began wearing expensive designer clothes and wouldn't answer her when she asked where the money came from.
When Jordan started hanging around with the drug dealer and convicted gangland killer, Robert 'Roo' Redmond, his mother knew he was selling drugs.
Redmond is currently serving life in prison for murder.
Little arrived at Jordan Davis's home with another gangster in "a big white flash fancy car" and created a racket outside.
"Where's Jordan? Where's the f*****g p***k," his mother recalls them shouting.
Sandra Davis invited them in, and Little told her that Jordan had been "flashing the cash" and "spending their money".
"You know your son is going to be getting buried with your daughter," he said, which upset her greatly.
After they left, Jordan came home.
He told her he had to give them €5,000 a week to sort his drug debt but could only pay €3,000. A few days later he sent someone over to a nearby supermarket car park with the money. It wasn't enough to satisfy the drug dealers and murderers.
Jordan Davis was shot dead in a laneway near his home in Darndale, the day after the man who threatened to kill him, Little, was murdered.
The 22-year-old was pushing his four-month-old baby in a buggy at the time when Wayne 'Spuddy' Cooney fired eight shots at him, hitting him three times, once in the head.
For three days Cooney had been searching for Davis, cycling around Darndale on a distinctive orange bike like "a shark moving towards its prey", Cooney's trial heard.
A child who happened to be cycling through the lane at the time, was just a few feet away when Cooney opened fire and was lucky not to have been shot.
Cooney, 31, was jailed for life earlier this year for the murder.
His former girlfriend, Rachel Redmond - Robert Redmond’s sister - was last month convicted of impeding the garda investigation into Davis's murder by collecting Cooney from a bus stop minutes after the gangland killing and checking him in to a hotel.
"I didn’t do it though, I didn’t do anything," the 34-year-old shouted from the dock before she was led away from the dock.
Her brother admitted in April 2024 to conspiring with Cooney to murder Davis and was sentenced to seven years in prison, in addition to the life sentence he's also serving.
In the meantime, the Coolock feud killings continued.
More murders and foiled vengeance
Six days after the murder of Davis, Hamid Sanambar was shot dead. Originally from Iran, the 41-year-old was shot dead in the driveway of Little's home at 3.30pm on 28 May 2019.
He had been granted political asylum in Ireland but was known for his involvement in organised crime. A hitman, he also appears to have been the victim of a double cross.
Earlier in the week, he had visited the scene where his friend Little had been shot dead.
Little's father Stephen was consumed with grief following his son’s murder. He wasn't, in his own words, "thinking straight" and set out to avenge it.
In September 2019 he was caught in a car with the gunman, Edward McDonnell, on a residential street in Harmonstown in north Dublin, with all they needed to carry out a gangland shooting and dispose of the evidence.
Along with a loaded semi-automatic pistol, gardaí found two balaclavas, two baseball hats, mobile phones, gloves, a can of petrol and a long handled lighter.
"Why didn't you let it go another hour? " Stephen Little asked gardaí after they had taken him to Clontarf Garda Station.
"I lost my marriage and my son," the 47-year-old also said. "Had you given me another hour, I would have killed the b*****d that killed him."
Both men pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a Grand Power G9 semi-automatic pistol on 14 September 2019.
Stephen Little was sentenced at the Special Criminal Court to six years in prison, McDonnell was jailed for nine years.
Two months after the two men had been caught, 22-year-old Eoin Boylan became the fifth victim of the drugs feud when he was shot dead outside his home on 24 November 2019.
Last month, 41-year-old Paul Clarke from Coolock Drive in Coolock appeared in court charged with his murder and was remanded in custody.
Kinahan connection
The 'Gucci Gang' sided with the Kinahan Organised Crime Group in its murderous feud with the Hutch Organised Crime Group, which has so far cost 18 lives.
The transnational organised crime group contracted the younger Finglas-based criminals to shoot senior figures in the rival gang.
In some cases, those who were hired proved incompetent and inexperienced, in others they were proficient gunmen who might consider themselves unlucky. However, in all the murders they attempted, they failed.
Caolan Smyth was a friend and gangland associate of Glen Ward. A violent and dangerous criminal from Finglas with 37 convictions, he was a suspect in at least ten other shootings.
Gardaí warned him in 2019 that his life was in danger.
Smyth is one of many hitmen hired by the Kinahan Organised Crime Group in the several attempts it made to kill the rival Hutch gang member James 'Mago' Gately. On 10 May 2017, he nearly succeeded.
Smyth had Gately under surveillance and followed him that afternoon as he drove to a petrol station near Dublin Airport. He shot him five times as he sat in his Ford Mondeo and although one of the bullets hit him in the jaw, the other four hit his bulletproof vest and Gately survived.
Smyth was caught and sentenced in February 2021 to 20 years in prison.
The Criminal Assets Bureau has since confiscated Gately's home.
Smew and Capper
The Kinahan gang also hired two other unsuccessful 'Gucci Gang' hitmen - Mohammed Smew and Mark Capper - this time to kill Patsy Hutch, the brother of gang leader Gerard Hutch.
Capper came from a family of five and was typical of the type of person from a disadvantaged background used by the Kinahan gang. He has ADHD and his standard of education was low.
At 13 years of age, he had an IQ of 63 and was sent to a special school. By the time he was 16 he was on disability benefit.
With limited prospects of legitimate employment, he got involved in criminality, amassed 65 convictions and graduated on to serious and organised crime.
Mohammed Smew was different. His family are originally from Libya, but he was born in Ireland and his childhood was stable and relatively prosperous.
He has six brothers and sisters. His parents are doctors. He was involved in sport, including kickboxing, and he began a law degree at Griffith College Dublin.
However, a serious motorbike crash changed all that.
Mohammed Smew's mental health was badly affected and he moved into a hostel. He developed a drug addiction, amassed a drugs debt and became involved in organised crime.
Smew was aged 27, Capper was 25. They were among a group of six gang members pictured together along with Smyth and Ward, drinking at a house party in Finglas.
Both had heard about the huge sums of money the Kinahans were offering around Dublin to kill members, friends or relatives of the Hutch gang.
Both were broke and needed cash. Both joined a hit team to kill Patsy Hutch which was under garda surveillance and whose conversations were being recorded.
On one of the trips to confirm the locations for the attempted murder, Capper even asked Smew for a loan of €50.
"Haven’t got it mate," Smew replied, "literally skint, I’m on me b******s."
"I wouldn't be sitting in the back of this car if I wasn't on me b******s," Capper replied.
Smew and Capper never actually got to make an attempt on Patsy Hutch's life.
First, Storm Emma put paid to their efforts, then Smew got himself arrested for looting a convenience store in Tallaght during the snowstorm.
After Smew was remanded in custody, Capper pulled out on 7 March 2018, three days before the rescheduled gun attack was due to take place.
Mark Capper and Mohammed Smew were both caught and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.
Trevor Byrne
Glen Ward was a friend and associate of the Kinahan gang member and gunman Trevor Byrne. They shared a love of speedboats and jet skis, along with their interest in organised crime. A picture of Byrne on a boat was also posted online.
Gardaí often stopped the two of them in cars together and gardaí believe Ward took over the Finglas gang from Byrne when the 44-year-old was caught and jailed.
Byrne is currently serving 17-and-a-half years in prison for a variety of offences including armed robbery, false imprisonment, threatening to kill, pointing a gun at gardaí, possession of a firearm and hijacking a woman's car at gunpoint.
The father-of-three was jailed in 2020 and the Court of Appeal upheld the sentence last year.
He was also arrested and questioned about the Kinahan feud murder in 2016 of Eddie Hutch, the brother of rival Hutch gang leader Gerard Hutch.
Ross Browning and his cousin
Ward also had links to the Kinahan Organised Crime Group through another friend and criminal associate, the convicted drug dealer, Ian O'Heaire.
The 38-year-old was arrested at Perth International Airport trying to bring drugs into Australia in September 2014 and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. He also has 27 previous convictions here.
O’Heaire is a second cousin of Ross Browning, one of the most senior Kinahan gang members who attended Daniel Kinahan's wedding in Dubai in 2017 and Christopher Junior's wedding ten years previously.
The Criminal Assets Bureau seized €1.5 million worth of Browning's assets, including a cottage in Garristown in north Co Dublin, sheds at the back of the property, lands in Rush and a house in Finglas.
CAB also seized several luxury cars, watches, a motorbike, cash and jewellery during searches in February 2018.
O'Heaire was named in the High Court judgment declaring that the assets were the proceeds of crime and was close to Ward.
On 7 February 2018, both men had a row with Aer Lingus staff after they boarded a flight to Amsterdam. They were due to return three days later but the tickets were booked by another gang member who didn't turn up.
Ward and O'Heaire decided not to fly and had "a verbal altercation" with staff before they got off the plane.
Cuckooing
Ward and the 'Gucci Gang' took over a house in Finglas in 2016 in a practice known as "cuckooing".
This is where a home - usually the home of a vulnerable person - is taken over by criminals who use it as a base for illegal activities.
Ward organised and operated from the house. It enabled the gang to embed themselves in a community of law-abiding and hardworking people and terrorise them and others.
"Mr Ward based his criminal activities from a privately rented house," Detective Sergeant Shane McCartan told the High Court. "He directs a gang known as the 'Gucci Gang' from this address."
Gardaí searched the house on average once every three months over four years. Between 29 March 2016 and 17 July 2020, it was searched 16 times.
The Kinahan-connected convicted drug dealer, O'Heaire, was a frequent visitor.
In 2017, Ward was officially warned by gardaí that his life was in danger, but the violence continued.
The following year, in May, Shane Fowler, who had previously survived an attempt on his life in 2006, died after he crashed his motorbike near his home. The 31-year-old had a gun on him which was spirited away as the paramedics were trying to save his life.
His 63-year-old father Anthony Fowler, who was known as Josh, was stabbed to death at his home last year. Gardaí do not believe he was the intended target.
There were legal complications associated with the Gucci Gang’s 'cuckooed' house, which they were able to exploit to move in and use it as their base. They put in bulletproof windows, reinforced the doors and installed a CCTV system with cameras and dogs outside.
"The house has been modified and has bulletproof glass to the front and rear, fortified doors and vicious pit bull dogs in the garden," Det Sgt Shane McCartan also told the High Court.
"This is to protect the occupants from attack and to deter easy entry and apprehension by An Garda Síochána."
Gang members accessed the house through the back door and trespassed through nearby homes, gardens and neighbouring properties. They stored drugs, cash and firearms there and on nearby lands.
Gardaí kept going back to the courts, securing search warrants and raiding the house and even though it was damaged several times, the gang quickly carried out repairs and replaced the CCTV and other security devices.
Gardaí also raided several other homes in Finglas. In one operation by the Finglas and Blanchardstown units in May 2019, they seized two machine guns, a magnum handgun, a silencer, 500 rounds of ammunition including over 200 shotgun cartridges, €100,000 worth of cocaine and cannabis, a cocaine pressing machine and a small monkey which had been kept in a cage.
The wild animal was removed by the DSPCA and subsequently cared for at Dublin Zoo.
Fear of the feuding gangs
As well as the legal issues associated with the house, the 'Gucci Gang' was also able to exploit the fears of the majority, law-abiding people in Finglas, Blanchardstown, Coolock and Swords, who fear violent and dangerous criminals and want nothing to do with them.
They were right to be fearful, not just because of the immediate dangers from the resident gang members, but also because the house was a target and a magnet for criminal activity.
It was the setting for extreme violence including arson and gun attacks, as rival criminal gangs took aim and the gangsters inside fired back.
At 3am, on 8 November 2017, shots from a shotgun were fired through the front window, petrol was then poured in and set alight. Gardaí later recovered spent cartridges and a live 9mm round, but nobody would cooperate with their investigation.
The house was shot at again at 6.25am on 12 April 2018 by two men on a motorbike and gardaí recovered ten 9mm bullet casings on the footpath outside. Again, they received no complaints from the occupants.
At 1.15am on 3 July 2019, the house was firebombed. A window and door were set alight but those inside the property managed to put out the fire. They wouldn't talk to gardaí about that attack either.
The feud between the criminal gangs escalated as tensions and violence increased and expanded to Blanchardstown, Coolock and Swords. Over 80 attacks, including a grenade attack, an abduction, arson, beatings, shootings and murders, have been recorded.
Ward has survived at least two attempts on his life.
In June 2022 he ran from a taxi as shots were fired on him.
Six months later in December 2022, he and his brother Eric were shot at as they went to sign on at Finglas Garda Station. Glen escaped uninjured but Eric was shot in the backside.
The Blanchardstown drug dealer, Cormac Berkeley, was also shot dead that night in Harelawn Park in west Dublin.
The murder of James Whelan
In April 2022, James Whelan was shot dead as part of the feud. 29-year-old 'Wheelo' was well known for his involvement in serious and organised crime.
He had 57 convictions, including two for drugs offences, and had been an associate of the 'Gucci Gang' before he fell out with them. The father-of-one was murdered on Deanstown Avenue.
Ten days later, his funeral cortege arrived at the local church to the noise of motorbike engines being revved to their limits, a noise that continued outside throughout the mass.
"He was meticulous about his food, about his clothes, about his shampoo, about his aftershave. He loved his bikes, his cars, his dog, and of course his clothes. Money. Designer was made for him," Fr Seamus Aherne told the congregation.
"But he did mix with strange people and got caught up in bad things."
The parish priest at Rivermount in Finglas has been speaking out against organised crime and its effects on people and communities for over 25 years.
"Young James is in his coffin. He looks like a teenager. A child really. I know he is nearly 30. But this is how he looks. Nothing can add glamour to this occasion," he said.
At the end of the mass, James's father James urged that his son’s death be the end of it, and that there be no more, for the sake of all the young people and for his grandson.
But it wasn't "the end of it".
The feuding and violent attacks continued as the 'Gucci Gang' continued to fall out with each other. Feuds also developed with and among gang members in Finglas and Blanchardstown.
A 22-year-old man in Finglas was attacked, bundled into a car by men armed with a hammer and severely beaten before being dumped out seriously injured further down the road.
There was an attack on the home of an innocent family in the area. In a case of mistaken identity, an explosive device was thrown into the back garden of their home and the back door and window were damaged.
Shots were also fired into the house of another innocent family after members of the two gangs confronted each other. A gunman fired shots at rival gang members which hit their home while family members were inside. Gardaí said it was fortunate that no one was hurt.
Gardaí stepped up uniformed and armed patrols in the area and armed checkpoints were set up to intercept gunmen and drug dealers.
In October 2022, the gang's base was one of nine houses searched by heavily armed gardaí as part of a major operation which included the Emergency Response Unit, the Crime Task Force, the Divisional Scenes of Crime and the Dog Unit.
On that occasion, gardaí recovered two firearms, including a submachine gun, 300 rounds of ammunition and €47,000 in cash.
The feuds and murders continued into the following year.
Gunman Tristan Sherry, who had split from the 'Gucci Gang' to join a rival criminal gang that was also feuding with drug dealers in Blanchardstown, shot dead Jason Hennessy Snr in Browne's Steakhouse on Christmas Eve 2023 before he was disarmed, beaten and kicked to death on the ground.
Michael Andrecut, 23, is serving life for his murder while 19-year-old Juares Kumbu was jailed for two years for removing the gun from the scene. It has never been found.
Five other men convicted in connection with the attack will be sentenced this month.
Gardaí and Dublin City Council took possession of the Gucci Gang's 'cuckooed' house and boarded it up, along with two other houses in the area.
Once the gang had been kicked out and its main members imprisoned or dead, the houses were refurbished to a very high standard.
They are now being used to accommodate families and young children.
Social media
The 'Gucci Gang' members were prolific on social media. They used it as a tool to taunt, threaten and terrorise.
They filmed and posted pictures and videos of themselves and their associates, their clothes, their designer goods, their cars, their dangerous driving and their guns and drugs.
They acted like influencers and promoted organised crime as a profitable and glamorous lifestyle that a young person could aspire to.
Little posted a picture of himself, topless, sitting in a jacuzzi with a bottle of champagne.
Ward posted images of himself on a jet ski, Smyth in a stretch limousine, while Parker is shown on holidays drinking a cocktail from a coconut.
The gang also used the internet to target rival criminals and their families. They attacked their homes, filmed, posted and subsequently boasted on social media. They also threatened further violence.
In one video, a group of men can be seen throwing paint over a television and destroying a house.
In another, a man is dragged into a car by a gang armed with a hammer.
Images were also posted of him beaten and bloody, lying on the street, where he was later discovered and taken to hospital.
The online videos are designed to intimidate and terrorise rival gang members and the community, but ironically it was also one of these videos that led to the conviction and jailing of the gang leader and his brother.
In "a display of strength" Ward and O’Driscoll allowed themselves to be filmed firing a gun from the back of a house in Finglas on New Years Day 2022.
They also filmed the weapons, a .223 calibre Remington AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, an Ingram machine pistol and hundreds of rounds ammunition on a table. The video also shows the magazines being inserted into the guns.
It proved to be a major mistake.
Gardaí subsequently found the guns and ammunition wrapped in black plastic in a shed when they raided a house in Finglas on 10 February 2022.
The weapons were in good condition and therefore lethal. They were successfully fired by a garda ballistics examiner.
Four months later, rival gangsters fired shots at Ward when he was in a taxi on the Tolka Valley Road in Finglas. He escaped by running across a green area.
Gardaí arrived, sealed off the crime scene and when they searched the taxi, they found a bank card in O'Driscoll's name and a phone that they were later able to connect to him and his brother.
The incriminating video clips on it showed Ward firing the first shot before handing the rifle to O'Driscoll who fired three more shots before it was put on the table along with the submachine gun and ammunition.
The brothers were subsequently arrested, charged, brought before the Special Criminal Court, remanded in custody and refused bail.
They both subsequently pleaded guilty to possession of the gun for an unlawful purpose, an offence which carries up to 14 years in prison.
Prison
As is the case for feuding gang members, prison has not been easy for the 'Gucci brothers' or the authorities as they try to keep them safe in severely overcrowded prison full of rival gangs.
Both men have been in protective custody and there is a court order preventing the identification of the prisons in which they are being held.
O’Driscoll has been on 23-hour lockup for more than nine months. He overheard a killing in the cell next door and saw the dead body the next morning.
Ward has spent over seven months on 23-hour lockdown, which he claims has affected his mental health.
O'Driscoll has three previous convictions for public order which the court found were not relevant to this case.
The three judges considered the 23-year old’s youth and immaturity at the time of the offence, the fact there was no evidence as to how long he had the gun and found it "unlikely" that he had a "proprietary interest" in it.
The court also placed importance on his probation report.
Ms Justice Melanie Greally said O'Driscoll was "extremely forthcoming and candid" and was willing to engage with the probation service.
He was sentenced to six years in prison with the final year suspended. He was also ordered not to associate with six named individuals for a year or he could face another year in prison.
His brother Glen, aka 'Mr Flashy', has 20 previous convictions.
Most are for road traffic offences, but he also has a conviction for assault and another for criminal damage. His senior counsel told the court that he trained as a mechanic, has a nine-year-old child and has no history of drug addiction or abuse.
But this is not how gardaí who specialise in investigating organised crime see it.
They say Ward is a drug dealer, heavily involved in organised crime in spite of the fact that he has no drugs convictions.
Det Sgt McCartan has a broad knowledge of the active criminals and gang members in the area. He was the officer in charge of managing the garda units dealing with them and reviewing all the information and intelligence on drugs and drug dealers.
He has since been promoted to detective inspector in the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Unit.
"As a result of my experience and knowledge, I do not believe these (20 convictions) reflect the level of his involvement in organised crime in Dublin and the wider regions," he told the High Court.
"It is my belief he engaged in the distribution of controlled drugs."
Ward never contested these assertions in the High Court, which found the assets seized in the case related to two other 'Gucci Gang' members were the proceeds of crime.
After pleading guilty to the firearms offence, Ward knew he was going to jail. It carries a mandatory minimum five-year sentence.
However, he also agreed not to associate with the same six men as his brother if, like O'Driscoll, the court was to suspend any part of his sentence.
"His action can best be described as a grotesque act of bravado," his defence counsel Michael Bowman submitted.
But Ms Justice Greally said the gun was powerful and capable of causing serious injury or death.
She also said a "sizeable cache" of ammunition had also been found and that Ward had encouraged his younger brother in the "socially harmful act" of firing the weapon for an audience of "impressionable young people".
She did, however, suspend nine months of the six-year-and-three-month sentence, imposing a jail term of five-and-a-half years.
Drugs, intimidation and death
Afterwards, Detective Superintendent Paul Murphy did not mince his words.
"Criminals, like Eric O’Driscoll and Glen Ward, act and believe that they are above the law, inflicting significant harm and tragedy on families in the community in which they live but also operate their criminality from," he said.
"My message to young people in our communities is that there is nothing positive that these criminals can offer you and their actions are motivated by greed and are only self-serving.
"You are disposable to them."
Gardaí also moved to reassure the communities worst affected by organised crime, particularly those in Finglas and Blanchardstown, that they would continue to work "every day to keep people safe".
And they had a particular message for those who might consider themselves "removed from organised crime and live in comfortable communities".
"Every time you buy or consume illegal drugs, you are directly supporting criminals such as Glen Ward and Eric O'Driscoll and the misery that they have inflicted on their communities," Det Supt Murphy said.
"Every line of cocaine is directly connected with organised crime gangs, drugs intimidation and death."
