DOPEY DRUG DEALERS

Cartel bosses used CCTV to stop cocaine workers from stealing, Gardai get 'days' of footage from inside hidden drugs factory

- MICHAEL O'TOOLE, JOHN HAND

THE KINAHAN cartel was using a CCTV system to monitor a massive drugs factory to make sure gang members weren't stealing cocaine as they mixed it for sale.

And The Mirror has established that detectives believe they have cracked the CCTV system and it shows the cartel’s 3million operation in a Dublin premises had been under way for at least a month.

Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau officers who led the raid on the property in the south of the city on Tuesday night were poring over the CCTV footage to gather evidence against eight suspects arrested in the operation. Sources say the footage shows several of them working on cocaine slabs in the factory, and they are now likely to be charged over the operation.

They also said they believed the cartel, led by on-the-run mob boss Daniel Kinahan, 43, had installed the special CCTV system to spy on the workers they had recruited for the scam.

“They probably wanted to make sure they were working when they should be, but they also would have used the CCTV to make sure none of them were stealing any gear,’ a source said.