The Special Criminal Court has found that a GAA club All-Ireland winner was involved with a cross-border gang that stole hundreds of thousands of Euro by using stolen diggers to pull ATMs from walls.
Daniel O'Callaghan (31), who won three All-Ireland medals with Crossmaglen Rangers, was found guilty of all 16 counts against him relating to an ATM theft and an attempted ATM theft in Cavan and Monaghan in 2019.
Ms Justice Tara Burns at the three-judge, non-jury court found that Mr O'Callaghan was "intimately involved" in the planning of the thefts, which followed a "modus operandi" that was seen in several other thefts that the court said were carried out by the same gang earlier in 2019 and in late 2018.
The final attempt to steal an ATM was thwarted by gardai who were watching as the gang drove a digger up beside an ATM in Virginia Co Cavan in the early hours of August 14, 2019.
Gardai saw a stolen Toyota Landcruiser in convoy with the digger.
The Landcruiser was pulling a trailer into which the gang intended to place the ATM before taking it to a premises at Tullypole, Moynalty Co Meath where the money would be taken from it.
Ms Justice Burns said today, that the court was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that O'Callaghan was "at a very minimum" acting in association with a criminal organisation.
It was clear, she added, that he was involved in planning the thefts and that he was associated with the premises at Tullypole where large amounts of cash were seized by Gardai.
She said his involvement in the theft at Castleblayney in April 2019 was proven by the presence in the stolen trailer at Virginia of parts of the debris from the earlier theft.
The judge highlighted how the prosecution had also established that he was linked to the premises at Tullypole where the money from the ATM thefts was being stored.
She added that although his presence at Castleblayney could not be established, the various strands of circumstantial evidence gave rise to the "inevitable conclusion that the accused was intimately involved in the workings of the criminal organisation and was involved in a joint enterprise to effect the theft at Castleblayney".
Mr O'Callaghan was remanded in custody for a sentencing hearing on the 4th of March.
