IRA plots more bank heists in funding drive

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Sunday Times
Liam Clarke

THE IRA is continuing to train and recruit members as well as prepare for further robberies, say senior security sources.
Only days after being accused of masterminding the £26m pre-Christmas robbery from the Northern Bank in Belfast, the IRA is embarking on a big funding drive, the sources believe.

The robbery, which Hugh Orde, Northern Ireland’s chief constable, has blamed on the IRA, is thought by some analysts to have been designed to secure a “pension fund” for the IRA’s demobbed volunteers.

One British source said: “There is no intelligence to suggest that this was their last robbery. The intelligence available to the British and Irish governments suggests that they continue to train, plan and gather intelligence.”

He pointed to a series of robberies, each netting more than £1m in the past two years. The most recent, last May, was mounted on a cash-and-carry warehouse at Dunmurry outside Belfast.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1431517,00.html