Innocent women flee their homes in fear of grenade attacks, a business shuts its doors terrorised by teenage thugs, while a community lives in fear of warring drug gangs brazenly attacking each other in broad daylight with hammers and wheel braces and displaying their gunfire on social media.

The scenes playing out in a Dublin suburb seem more at home in Mexico, yet for the hard-working people of Finglas this is the reality -  as a gang headed up by a young dealer known as 'Mr Flashy' goes to war with three rival outfits in a terrifying feud.

Nicola Tallant chats with Crime Correspondent Ken Foy who tells of the rising tensions in an underworld populated by gun-toting teenage boys directed by mega-rich cocaine dealers.

Episode 74: 'Mr Flashy' and the gun-toting teens terrorising the streets of Dublin

Keeping the peace inside Ireland's prison system has never been easy - but the fall of the Kinahan cartel has made life behind bars more dangerous than ever.

According to prison officials, there are currently a total of 166 inmates from 14 separate criminal mobs jailed in prisons across the country. 

However, prison insiders claim that the lines between the different gangs have become so blurred, with the influence of the Kinahan cartel so all pervasive, that the traditional divides can no longer be said to apply.

Five prisons, in particular, house the majority of the country’s most notorious gangland criminals.

These are: Mountjoy, Portlaoise, Wheatfield, Castlerea and Limerick.

Today, I’m joined by Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald to look at how the Prison Service are keeping Ireland's most notorious gangsters under control while behind bars.

Episode 108: How The Prison Services Are Controlling Ireland's Most Notorious Criminals

Emer O'Loughlin (23) had her whole life ahead of her when she was brutally murdered in a mobile home in Galway in 2005. 

She had just finished a year-long trip across the world with her boyfriend Shane and they were living in caravan site while they saved money. 

But on April 8 2005, Shane received a call to say that the mobile home next to theirs, owned by a man named John Griffin, was on fire. 

Human remains were subsequently found in the burnt wreckage of the caravan and DNA tests confirmed Emer's family's worst fears, that she had died in the blaze. 

A post-mortem was unable to determine her cause of death and it was not until 2010, after her body was exhumed, that it was discovered that Emer had suffered a violent death before the fire. 

Today, I’m joined by April Keogh, whose new documentary on TG4 about Emer, explains how her family's lives changed forever the night she was murdered.

Episode 109: The Brutal Murder Of Emer O'Loughlin In A Mobile Home In Galway

When the Criminal Assets Bureau was set up in 1996 after the brutal murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh was its first target. 

A known drug dealer and with a string of convictions, Bomber was then running a lucrative business along with his cousin Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh. They were dealing whatever they could get their hands on and making a pretty penny as a result. 

Hatchet would be shot dead in Marbella in 2014, a hit understood to have been sanctioned by Kavanagh and organised by his then business partner, Daniel Kinahan.

But when David Byrne took a bullet meant for Daniel at the Regency Hotel in February 2016 — it changed everything and cemented a blood bond between Kinahan and Kavanagh that would set them in the sights of international law enforcement. 

Now, in a Crime World special, we reveal the rise and spectacular fall of Bomber's empire and why he became one of Ireland's most-feared mob bosses.

Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Pt 1)

Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Pt 2)

Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Pt 3)

She is the former Irish soldier who, a court heard, enveloped herself in the black flag of IS.

Now, Lisa Smith awaits her fate in the Special Criminal Court, which heard the details of her journey into the dark heart of Islamic terrorism.

During her trial, she was portrayed as a vulnerable, love-lorn woman who believed she was following her religion and beliefs when she travelled to Syria - but instead found herself in a harsh regime and surrounded with violence which she never expected nor condoned.
But the State said different, and FBI officers said it was beyond suspicion that she had joined the group.

Today Nicola Tallant talks with courts correspondent Eoin Reynolds about the sensational trial which ended with a guilty verdict and a sobbing mother now counting the cost of the choices she made.

Episode 111: Lisa Smith's journey into the dark heart of Islamic terrorism

It is a story that reads like the plot from a Hollywood movie and punches right into the heart of one of the most secretive regimes in the world.

Hackers from the so-called ‘Lazarus Group’ first shut down Sony Studios when it attempted to screen a movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and then went on to attempt a daring theft of $1billion dollars from a Bangladesh Bank.

But who are the Lazarus Group and how did they emerge from a secretive nation where only the chosen few are allowed online?

Nicola Tallant talks to author and journalist Geoff White about the incredible tale played out in his top podcast 'The Lazarus Heist' and in his new book of the same name.

Episode 112: The truth behind North Korea's cyber-crime gang 'The Lazarus Group'

They are the killers and rapists deemed so dangerous that they are serving life sentences behind bars.

But what does life mean in Ireland, and while the sentence is mandatory in murder cases, how does a sex offender reach the maximum term lock-up?

Nicola Tallant talks to journalist Eamon Dillon about the 350 prisoners doing life behind bars - about the gangland triggermen on the promise of blood money who found themselves counting the cost of their chosen career, about the evil rapists whose crimes abhorred society and about the parole board and what it will mean for those looking for early release.

Episode 113: The 'Lifers' behind bars in Irish prisons

Retired detective Paul Holes knows just what it is like to immerse himself in a murder mystery. It was his work on the infamous 'Golden State Killer' case which led to the 2018 arrest and conviction of Joseph James DeAngelo Jnr, the man responsible for at least 10 murders and 50 sexual assaults.

The case first came to Holes' attention in 1994 when he dusted down the files of the so-called 'East Area Rapist', which he later linked to Southern California’s unidentified 'Original Night Stalker'. 

But it wasn’t until his retirement - through dogged DNA and genetics work - that the wily old cop solved the mystery and became a household name in the process.

Today, we talk to Holes about his career and the extraordinary case of America's most-infamous serial killer.

Episode 114: How I helped crack the case of the infamous 'Golden State Killer'

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Crime World, with Nicola Tallant, is a weekly Irish podcast about criminals, drugs and the sins of the underworld. Discussing the real stories, and the real people, behind the grisly headlines.

Episode 109: The Brutal Murder Of Emer O'Loughlin In A Mobile Home In Galway

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