I wouldn’t like to get @Rocko into trouble boss.
Could we have a carefully disguised clue?
Ebleached perhaps.
Link?
Look for “the stand“ podcast.
Nice quip about how Jimmy could pack quick to get away, not even needing a toothbrush.
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‘Protect me from this priest’ - Sean Quinn’s plea to Vatican after Kevin Lunney homily
The Sunday Times have probably the most plausible summary of events so far, gleaned from an interview with someone who claims to have taken part in most of the attacks between 2011 - 14.
He states no knowledge of a paymaster for those attacks and it was mainly a group of staff members who thought their actions would result in the Quinns regaining control.
Quinn Jr definitely involved I’d say.
NEWS REVIEW
Why I attacked Seán Quinn’s former companies
A saboteur involved in the campaign of violent intimidation against QIH gives John Mooney an insight into his motives
John Mooney
November 17 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
‘Diesel’ knows nothing of a shadowy paymaster but claims the attacks were directed by a small circle of people
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It is the dead of night in the wilds of Co Fermanagh, and a man who admits to being part of the long-running campaign of sabotage against companies once owned by the former billionaire Seán Quinn is reflecting on the predicament he now faces.
“We were used to do their dirty work. Do I regret getting involved? Yes, I do. It was never about money. No one was paid,” he says. “We were told it was all to get the companies back for Seán Quinn and his family. Around these parts, you stand by your neighbours and you don’t steal their property. We stood by Quinn.”
He is middle-aged, of medium height, and his only distinguishing feature is a strong border accent. Thoroughly immersed in the culture of insubordination that exists in border communities, we will give him the pseudonym Diesel.
Over the course of two interviews with The Sunday Times last week, the man explains why people along the Cavan-Fermanagh border involved themselves in a violent campaign that began after the banks seized control of Quinn’s business empire in 2011. He says he knows nothing of a shadowy paymaster, but claims the attacks were directed by a small circle of people, some of whom are part of the staff at Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH).
Why is he talking now? He suggests it is because the Dublin-based media do not understand what is going on, but have become fixated on a narrative about one paymaster. “There’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye, and the dogs in the street all know what’s going on and who was behind it,” he says.
When Quinn lost control of his business empire, Anglo Irish Bank appointed Kieran Wallace of KPMG as a receiver to oversee the sale of company assets. Wallace in turn appointed Paul O’Brien to manage the businesses until they could be sold.
Attacks started almost immediately and were attributed to locals supposedly spontaneously “outraged” at the treatment of Quinn and his family by Anglo. The first act of violence involved crashing a dumper truck into the head offices of the Quinn Group, and it soon escalated. Electricity poles that supplied energy to Quinn’s glass bottle factory were damaged or cut down at night, while isolated power sub-stations were set ablaze.
By his own admission, Diesel took part in various attacks that cost the company hundreds of thousands of euros, and he acknowledges he could face a significant prison sentence if arrested, charged and convicted.
“I don’t really know Seán Quinn — I met him twice — but around these parts people don’t take what doesn’t belong to them,” he says. “I was asked, would I help? And I did. So did everyone else involved. It was all to get the companies back for Seán Quinn and his children.”
During his interviews, Diesel gives vivid accounts of how he would meet accomplices at remote cattle sheds and farms before setting off across fields to vandalise or cut down electricity poles. This was strategic, as they carried power to Quinn’s factories and would make potential buyers wary.
The saboteurs would throw metal chains from the ground at overhead wires to cause them to short-circuit. This only temporarily stopped production at the factories, however, so they were asked to begin cutting down electricity poles using chainsaws.
“We were told which poles to cut down. He [a named person] told us to cut right through the stay of the pole, or cut them down the middle, halfway through. There were no phones used to organise this. He would call to the house to arrange things,” says Diesel.
The organisers seemed to have access to information on what electricity cables to target.
For every attack which took place, five more were aborted. On one night, his group ventured out in the darkness to attack electricity poles on farmland near Kinawley. “We went out to cut poles and one of the men directing it shouted ‘stop’, because they supplied electricity to local dairy farms. The local farmers wouldn’t have been able to milk the cows. It was called off,” he says.
Diesel and the other men involved were careful not to get caught. They used a range of different chainsaws after they were told the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) had begun spraying an invisible chemical marker on poles, which tagged any blade that came into contact with them.
Some acts of intimidation involved physical attacks on the factories themselves, using heavy goods vehicles to crash into buildings. As before, those involved were instructed by the same people who had information on how to avoid detection. The attackers were supplied with the keys of company vehicles and told they were unlikely to be caught on CCTV.
Three days before Christmas 2011, Diesel and his accomplices were told to use a rigid lorry to smash into the headquarters of the Quinn Group. The staff canteen had to be demolished afterwards, such was the damage they caused.
“The keys to the lorry used in the attack were left in the dash. There were people on watchout. We rammed the lorry into the canteen and crashed it. Our instructions were to drive Paul O’Brien out of the company and get it back for Seán Quinn,” says Diesel, who suggested that the keys to the vehicle may have been removed from a company safe box earlier.
Running parallel to this were campaigns on Facebook by Concerned Irish Citizens (CIC), which condemned the actions of the banks. Public meetings and protests were also organised to criticise the banks, sometimes attended by those involved in the sabotage.
Diesel is careful not to identify others who helped carry out attacks but insists none of his group was involved in torching O’Brien’s car outside his home in Co Meath, or responsible for sending bullets and funeral wreaths to business people interested in buying the company.
The attacks were usually organised by word of mouth. Planning meetings were held in a farmhouse owned by one of the people directing the sabotage, who occasionally participated in the raids themselves. These included the arson attack that caused extensive damage to an isolated electricity sub-station near a wind farm on Slieve Rushen near Derrylin, which Diesel helped set alight in November 2012.
“We met behind the sheds at his farmhouse that night and set off across the fields. There was a lot of talk beforehand. One of their wives was there. The keys were supplied to us so we could get past the rail [outside fence] around the station and then get inside,” he says.
“We used a quad to transport the petrol across the fields. When we got inside the station, he [a named person] used these big spanners to take the bolts off the electrical equipment. The petrol was poured into it and then set on fire. When she went up, we all went back to his house. It caused huge damage.”
The purpose of the first series of attacks, between 2011 and late 2014, was to prevent Wallace from selling off Quinn’s assets to third parties. There was a temporary lull in 2015 when QIH bought some of Quinn’s cement and building materials factories for €90m with the backing of the American investors Brigade Capital, Contrarian Capital and Silver Point Capital, but the attacks soon started again.
Although QIH hired Quinn as a consultant to help run the business, the business was targeted four days after its founder’s return in January 2015. On that occasion, a lorry parked outside its head office was set ablaze.
This attack was carried out in an attempt to confuse the gardai and PSNI about the group’s motives for the earlier incidents.
The attacks against Quinn’s other companies near Derrylin continued, though not at the same intensity. Security staff at the wind farm on Slieve Rushen were threatened by masked men, while boulders were used to block the mountainous road leading to it. The road was used by engineers who serviced the turbines. Many of these incidents were allegedly carried out by people who were QIH staff.
By late 2015, the relationship between the local people who carried out the attacks and those who secretly directed them soured when it became known that Quinn would not be taking back control of QIH. The businessman had become embroiled in a bitter row with QIH and subsequently left in May 2016, saying he had been given assurances he would be allowed to run the business but promises had been broken.
“The people who got us involved at the start continued working in QIH after Quinn left. They think no one knows about their involvement in the attacks. They think no one will say anything in case they incriminate themselves,” says Diesel, who suggests this is among the reasons why the attacks on QIH have recommenced.
The second tranche of attacks, focusing not just on QIH but its board of directors, commenced before Quinn’s departure and have continued since. He has repeatedly condemned all attacks on the business and its staff. Some of these attacks were carried out by Diesel and his accomplices, who sabotaged machinery and put signs up warning local people about QIH and its directors. The signs describe the board members as “money-grabbing traitors”.
Diesel says he had no involvement in the more serious attacks on the company’s executives, or the kidnapping of Kevin Lunney, the QIH chief executive, from outside his home in Fermanagh. If he does know who organised the abduction, he is not saying. He claims most local people knew Cyril McGuinness, one of the criminals suspected of involvement in the abduction, to see around the area, but would have been wary of him. McGuinness, 54, died of a suspected heart attack during a police raid 10 days ago at a house in Buxton, Derbyshire.
“Most of the attacks were organised by certain people who used us to do their dirty work,” Diesel concludes.
“They stayed in QIH after Quinn left. They are rotten to the core. We were used by these selfish people who now think they can walk away — but they are mistaken. This has a way to go yet.”
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Did we ever find out how your man in the UK died after the police raided the house?
Heart attack surely?
You’d assume so, I was just wondering did he off himself or something
There was something in the reports about CPR being attempted in the house
Love the codename “Diesel”.
So he’s basically alluding to two separate campaigns being in existence.
One from 2011-14 of industrial sabotage being carried out by a bunch of “vigilantes” trying to get control of the business back for SQ.
And another of violence and intimidation being carried out by criminals for hire in the subsequent years when the current QIH directors gained control of the business.
Convenient enough that interview for the quinns. I wonder is @balbec on retainer.
To be honest, how utterly fucked up is it that the gardai ignored a prolonged and vicious campaign of threats, terror and violence against legitimate businessmen, but sent a team around to demand a copy of a sermon from a priest? . You wouldn’t fucking see it this side of the Handmaid’s Tale, or isis, yet it is barely remarked on.
The quinns should be pariahs.
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There’s a long-standing neglect of the border area.
Unless there’s a faintly critical homily, then it’s send them in in twos.
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