Ex-undercover officer who hunted drug dealers reveals ‘terrifying’ violence he faced – and the secret he kept from family
Being bitten by drug dealers and stabbed with syringes “went with the territory” for undercover police officer Michael O’Sullivan.
Aged just 22, Michael became part of a secret unit in Ireland’s national police force when Dublin was in the grips of its first heroin epidemic in the early 1980s.
As the problem “mushroomed”, the city became a “dangerous, crime-ridden area” – and it was “disastrous for law enforcement”, Michael says.
“The situation in Ireland – it was like Mexico,” he tells Sky News.
“There were people being visibly kidnapped out of Dublin. There were two or three bank robberies in the country a day.
“You had armed men going into country towns and holding up three banks at the same time.
“It was chaotic.”
Pic: Sky UK
Frustrated at the Gardai’s failure to tackle Dublin’s heroin problem through conventional methods, Michael began working with an undercover team known as the Mockeys who posed as drug users to catch dealers in the act.
But faced with the prospect of lengthy jail sentences, dealers would turn to violent tactics in a bid to escape arrest.
“Lots of us got fingers bitten,” Michael says.
“You were getting bitten by guys who could be Aids carriers.
“There were a lot of injuries. A guy got hit with a hammer. One guy was bitten four times. (There were) black eyes, stitches.
“People lost teeth. One guy got a jaw fractured.
“The inner city was a tough place.
“A lot of these people were violent criminals anyway. You’re stood between them and five years (in prison) – and they didn’t care how they got away.
“They’d turn like animals. This was fight or flight.
“One guy on a top-storey balcony tried to push me over the balcony and I had to hang on for dear life… I was about five floors up.
“Looking back on it – it was hairy.”
Pic: Sky UK
‘Terrifying’ undercover work
Michael says he never used drugs but had grown up in a tough part of Dublin – where someone in his class was “done for murder” – so he could “talk the talk” during his undercover work.
He also was “very slight”, weighing 10-and-a-half stone, and at 5ft 9in tall, he only just met the minimum height requirement to serve in the Gardai at the time.
“You might sit on a wall or in a park with all these drug addicts for about an hour, an hour-and-a-half, swapping stories,” he says. “Then you went and you did the buy.
“Was I frightened? I was terrified.
“You were operating on adrenalin.
“You don’t have a radio. You leave your gun back at the office. You have your ID card in your sock.
“You go into these flat complexes and other drug addicts would mug you or rip you off.
“Some jobs didn’t work out.
“You went in and just hoped for the best.
“It was terrifying but you’re young, you feel invincible.”
Pic: Sky UK
Michael spent about six years working undercover before going on to achieve the rank of assistant commissioner in the Gardai and then leading the EU’s anti-drugs smuggling agency.
Now retired, he features in a new Sky documentary, Narcos Dublin, about the city’s illegal drug trade, from the introduction of heroin in the late 1970s through to the 1990s as cocaine and ecstasy flooded into the country.
The three-part series, from the team behind the BAFTA-winning documentary Liverpool Narcos, charts how the notorious Dunne family rose to become one of Ireland’s most terrifying gangs and looks at the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, who had worked to expose drug barons.
Anti-drugs campaigners on the streets of Dublin during the city’s heroin epidemic. Pic: Sky UK
Protecting family from ‘darker side of life’
Michael, who arrested Micky “Dazzler” Dunne on drug charges, says it was “strange” to watch another member of the family, Christy, being interviewed for the series.
“It was like looking at something in the past to see him,” he adds.
“It brought back memories – some of them not very good.”
Michael says his family were unaware his work involved meeting dealers and pretending he wanted to buy drugs until they watched the documentary.
“My kids weren’t around at the time – my wife knew I was off doing some sort of surveillance stuff and drugs stuff,” he says.
“You see the darker side of life. When you come home, you don’t talk about it.
“You close the door on it in your head. That’s the only way… you don’t worry the people at home.”
Former heroin addict Paul Tracy speaks in the documentary. Pic: Sky UK
Ex-addict who used heroin over 37 years
As well as featuring the efforts to tackle Ireland’s illegal drug trade, the series hears the stories of former substance users including ex-heroin addict Paul Tracy.
He first injected the drug in Dublin at the age of 18 and continued using it over 37 years before finally going clean at the age of 55.
Now aged 59, the hairdresser says he was told by doctors he had just five years to live when he was 22 after testing HIV positive, which was linked to his heroin use.
“I had a promise of five years if I stayed healthy. If I was to use (heroin), I wouldn’t last two years,” he tells Sky News.
“I thought I would rather have two years on my terms.
“It was a self-destructive time.”
He adds: “I was kind of excited. That was irrational.
“(I thought) ‘Oh my god, I’m going to die young’. I had visions of my heroic, young death. Mad s**t. I can’t even explain it to you.
“I couldn’t wait to tell some people.”
Paul Tracy tested HIV positive when he was 22. Pic: Sky UK
‘Heroin takes your soul’
Despite his diagnosis in 1985, Paul says “incredibly” the HIV virus has now been undetectable for more than 25 years.
Describing his early heroin use, he says: “This thing made me feel really cool and relaxed and I liked the kind of person I was.
“Once the narcotic effects had worn off after an hour or two, I’d have this nice feeling – a false sense, maybe – that I was in control, and I was calm, and I was together.
“I actually liked this new person that came up in the middle of the drug. That was a very dangerous thing, that attraction to me.”
But as his addiction developed – which at its height saw him taking two grams of heroin a day – he turned to committing fraud to fund his habit.
“There’s a poverty mentality around heroin because you never have enough,” he says.
“Every time you see 20 quid, it’s a get-well card.
“The obsession was so deep in me that I needed to break the obsession.
“I could go through the cold turkey all the time. I could never stay off it. The obsession was always with me. I needed something to break that.
“Everything else takes your money, your reputation. Heroin takes your soul.
“Nobody can take heroin and retain their soul.”
Dublin Narcos is available to watch on Sky Documentaries and Now TV from today.
It is an earthquake for the MAGA ecosystem.
Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene were a formidable alliance on the Republican Party’s hard-right flank.
For years, the congresswoman for Georgia embodied the combative, conspiracy-tinged politics that define Trump’s presidency.
She called him “the father of the America First movement,” campaigned to be his running mate, and was quick to defend him.
“David Cameron can kiss my ass,” she told Sky News when asked about the former UK Prime Minister’s concerns about US fading support for Ukraine.
Door-stepped by my colleague Martha Kelner, she said: “We don’t give a crap about your country or your reporting.
“The Trump administration is doing a great job and I stand by their statements,” she added.
“I’m thankful to President Trump that he is leading us out of wars.”
Watch Sky’s Martha Kelner’s encounter with Taylor Greene from earlier this year…
But in recent months, she had expressed concerns about Trump’s involvement in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere.
It escalated when she stood with victims of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to demand justice and joined Democrats in demanding a vote on the release of all files.
Just days ago, President Trump told reporters Taylor Greene had “lost her way”, but something triggered a war of words late on Friday.
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‘Shame on everyone that protected Epstein’
The president had taken questions on Air Force One, with two reporters citing Taylor Green’s demand that the files be released.
Moments later, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was withdrawing his endorsement of the congresswoman.
He branded her a “ranting lunatic”, “wacky Marjorie”, and said all she ever does is “COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN.”
Her reply came very quickly, in a post claiming she had sent the president text messages about Jeffrey Epstein.
“Apparently this is what sent him over the edge. The Epstein Files,” she posted.
Read more on Jeffrey Epstein:
Ghislaine Maxwell ‘wants Trump to commute sentence’
What Epstein’s right-hand woman said about Trump and Andrew
She accused him of “coming after” her to “scare all the other Republicans” before next week’s vote to release the Epstein files.
“It’s astonishing how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” she added.
For years, they were joined at the hip – Trump the movement’s figurehead, Taylor Greene its megaphone – but it has now descended into open hostility.
Epstein, the story that won’t go away, has just cost Trump one of his most loyal allies, and rocked the internal dynamics of his political movement.
At least nine people have been killed and 32 injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The accidental blast occurred late on Friday in the Nowgam area of Srinagar, as forensic and police personnel were evaluating the explosive material, according to police director-general Nalin Prabhat.
Most of the dead were officers and forensic staff, police said, adding that several of the injured remained in a critical condition.
The massive explosion tore through the police station, setting the building and several vehicles on fire.
“The intensity of the blast was such that some body parts were recovered from nearby houses, around 100-200m away from the police station,” a police source said.
A series of smaller successive blasts slowed rescue operations.
A police official lays flowers on a coffin at a ceremony for the victims. Pic: Reuters
The police station blast comes just days after a deadly car explosion in New Delhi on Monday, which killed at least eight people near the city’s historic Red Fort.
The car explosion occurred hours after police in Kashmir said they had dismantled a suspected militant cell operating from the region, arresting at least seven people, including two doctors from Indian cities.
Read more from Sky News:
Refugee status set to become temporary in radical asylum reforms
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Police also seized a large quantity of bomb-making material in Faridabad, near New Delhi.
Indian security forces have conducted multiple raids across Kashmir during their investigation, questioning hundreds and detaining dozens.
Relatives protest following the blast. Pic: Reuters
Authorities said DNA testing identified the car’s driver as a Kashmiri doctor, and government forces demolished his family home in Pulwama district on Thursday night.
In the past, security forces have demolished the homes of individuals they allege were linked to militants opposing Indian rule in Kashmir as a form of punishment.
India and Pakistan both claim all of Kashmir, though each controls only part of the territory.
Militants in the Indian-administered region have been fighting against New Delhi since 1989, with India labeling it Pakistan-backed terrorism.
Pakistan denies the claim, saying that many Kashmiris view it as a legitimate struggle for independence.
World
Donald Trump withdraws support for Marjorie Taylor Greene after she calls for Epstein files to be released
Donald Trump has withdrawn support for Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – which she claims is over her support for releasing files about Jeffrey Epstein.
In comments made on Truth Social, Mr Trump said he would support any challenger who wants to take Ms Greene’s seat in Georgia.
It comes after weeks of the MAGA ally breaking ranks from the president – and according to a post on X after his withdrawal, she believes it’s over a possible vote on releasing all of the Epstein files.
Read more: Marjorie Taylor Greene – the MAGA ally known for embracing conspiracies and insulting journalists
After the US government shutdown ended, a petition to vote on the full release of the files about disgraced pedophile financier Epstein received enough signatures – including Ms Greene’s – to bring it to a vote in the House of Representatives.
While such a vote does not yet have a date, Mr Trump has called the files a “hoax” and accused the Democrats of using them “to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN”.
Earlier this week, thousands of documents from Epstein were released, which reference Mr Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, among others.
Read more: What do Epstein documents say about Trump, Andrew and Mandelson?
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The new Epstein files: The key takeaways
Trump attacks ‘Wacky’ Majorie
In his post on Truth Social overnight, Mr Trump said: “all I see “Wacky” Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!
“It seemed to all begin when I sent her a Poll stating that she should not run for Senator, or Governor, she was at 12%, and didn’t have a chance (unless, of course, she had my Endorsement – which she wasn’t about to get!).”
The president went on to claim “she has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore”, before adding: “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.
“I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support.”
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Will new Epstein emails hurt Trump?
Greene: Trump’s fight to stop files ‘astonishing’
Around an hour later, Ms Greene responded on X to say “President Trump just attacked me and lied about me”, and shared text messages to him and a White House aide about releasing information on the deceased pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“Of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files,” she added on social media.
“It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level.”
Read more: Why this is dangerous terrain for Trump
Marjorie Taylor Greene was an ardent supporter of MAGA and became a Republican Congresswoman in 2021. File pic: AP
She then said “most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America… that’s what I voted for”.
“I have supported President Trump with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” she added.
“But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump… I remain the same today as I’ve always been and I will continue to pray this administration will be successful because the American people desperately deserve what they voted for.”
Watch Sky’s Martha Kelner’s encounter with Greene from earlier this year…
Earlier this week, Mr Trump accused the MAGA loyalist of “catering to the other side” after she criticised his focus on foreign policy, which she described as “America Last”.
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Trump rebukes MAGA ally over foreign policy
Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019 while awaiting a trial for sex trafficking charges and was accused of running a “vast network” of underage girls for sex. He pleaded not guilty.
Following a conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, he was registered as a sex offender.
It comes after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee published several emails, which they said “raises questions about Trump and Epstein’s relationship, Trump’s knowledge of Epstein’s crimes”, and the president’s relationship to Epstein’s victims.
Mr Trump has consistently denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and called claims linking him to the financier a “hoax”.
Read more on Jeffrey Epstein:
Ghislaine Maxwell ‘wants Trump to commute sentence’
What Epstein’s right-hand woman said about Trump and Andrew
The White House also said the “selectively leaked emails” were an attempt to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump”.
Republicans retaliated by releasing more than 20,000 pages from Epstein’s files and accusing Democrats of “cherry-picking” their documents.
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