By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — Six men are being questioned by the Garda’s National Bureau of Criminal Investigation in connection with their probe into a plot to smuggle arms and ammunition from the U.S. The plot was uncovered earlier this year.
Gardai said the six are in their 20s and 30s and all are from the Republic. They were detained in early morning swoops on homes in the midlands.
The plot to send guns through the mail from South Florida was uncovered when eight packages were intercepted at Coventry Airport in Britain.
The parcels were falsely labeled as toys, electronic equipment, computer parts and clothes.
A package was also intercepted at a sorting office on the Naas Road in Dublin and weapons were seized at house in Inverin, Co. Galway.
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Three Irish people, two men and a woman, were charged in the U.S. with violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, mailing concealable firearms without a license and conspiracy. The weapons involved were handguns and shotguns.
They are Siobhan Browne and Anthony Smyth of Weston, Fla., and Conor Claxton of Deerfield Beach, Fla.
In July, Jacqueline McIntyre, 32, from Spiddal, a mother of a baby, was charged with possession of three Kruger .357 Magnum revolvers, three semi-automatic pistols and 120 rounds of ammunition after a raid on a holiday home in Connemara.
Initially it was suspected that dissident republicans opposed to the peace process were involved in the alleged gun plot in an effort to step up a campaign of violence, but later it was attributed to the Provisional IRA.
It formed a key aspect of the reassessment of the IRA cease-fire last summer by former Northern Ireland Secretary of State Mo Mowlam.
Gardai said three men were arrested in Trim, Co. Meath, and the others were held in Enfield and Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, and in Bailieboro, Co. Cavan.
They are being held in Trim, Navan and Kells Garda stations in County Meath.
They were arrested under Section 30 of the anti-terrorist Offenses Against the State Act, which allows police to detain them for up to 72 hours without charge.