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.
A new aid system has opened its first distribution centres in Gaza, according to a US-backed organisation dealing with supplies.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its operations in the territory on Monday, following the resignation of its director, Jake Wood, over its independence.
Gaza’s 2.3m population has been pushed towards famine by Israel’s almost three-month blockade.
Boxes of aid to be distributed across Rafah. Pic: Reuters.
The GHF said lorryloads of food – it did not say how many – had been delivered to its hubs, and distribution to Palestinians had begun.
“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the flow of aid increasing each day,” it said in a statement.
The controversial group, backed by Israel and the United States, has been rejected by the United Nations and other aid groups.
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People line up for food in Gaza
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF.
They claim Israel is weaponising food, and the new distribution system will be ineffective and lead to further displacement of Palestinians.
They also argue the GHF will fail to meet local needs, and violates humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance.
In the meantime, scores of Palestinians in Gaza, like Islam Abu Taima, have resorted to searching through rubbish to find food.
Palestinians are having to search through rubbish to find food
She found a small pile of cooked rice, scraps of bread, and a box with a few pieces of cheese inside it – which she said she will serve to her five children.
“We’re dying of hunger,” she told the Associated Press news agency.
“If we don’t eat, we’ll die.”
Islam Abu Taeima finds a piece of bread in a pile of rubbish in Gaza City. Pic: AP.
It is unclear how many of the GHF’s aid trucks will enter Gaza.
It claims it will reach one million Palestinians by the end of the week.
There are questions, however, over who is funding it and how it will work.
Trucks transporting aid for Palestinians in Rafah. Pic: Reuters.
It has been set up as part of an Israeli plan – rather than a UN distribution effort.
Israel, which suggested a similar plan earlier this year, has said it will not be involved in distributing the aid but supported the plan and would provide security.
It says aid deliveries into Gaza are taken by Hamas instead of going to civilians.
Aid groups, however, say there is no evidence of this happening on a systemic basis.
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Israel began to allow a limited amount of food into Gaza last week – after a blockade that prevented food, medicine, fuel and other goods from entering the Palestinian enclave.
A letter has been signed by hundreds of judges and lawyers calling on the UK government to impose trade sanctions on Israel.
It also calls for Israeli ministers to be sanctioned and the suspension of Israel from the UN over “serious breaches of international law”.
“Genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or that, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide,” the letter says.
The Israeli government has repeatedly dismissed allegations of genocide in Gaza.
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At least 31 dead after school attack
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, following the deadly attacks by the militant group on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
The health ministry’s figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters in Gaza.
King Charles and Queen Camilla are being urged to use their visit to Canada to seek an apology for the abuse of British children.
Campaigners have called on them to pursue an apology for the “dire circumstances” suffered by so-called “Home Children” over decades.
More than 100,000 were shipped from orphan homes in the UK to Canada between 1869 and 1948 with many used as cheap labour, typically as farm workers and domestic servants. Many were subject to mistreatment and abuse.
Canada has resisted calls to follow the UK and Australia in apologising for its involvement in child migrant schemes.
King Charles and Mark Carney on Monday. Pic: PA
Campaigners for the Home Children say the royal visit presents a “great opportunity” for a change of heart.
“I would ask that King Charles uses his trip to request an apology,” John Jefkins told Sky News.
John’s father Bert was one of 115,000 British Home Children transported to Canada, arriving in 1914 with his brother Reggie.
“It’s really important for the Home Children themselves and for their descendants,” John said.
“It’s something we deserve and it’s really important for the healing process, as well as building awareness of the experience of the Home Children.
“They were treated very, very badly by the Canadian government at the time. A lot of them were abused, they were treated horribly. They were second-class citizens, lepers in a way.”
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The forgotten legacy of British children sent to Canada
John Jefkins
John added: “I think the King’s visit provides a great opportunity to reinforce our campaign and to pursue an apology because we’re part of the Commonwealth and King Charles is a new Head of the Commonwealth meeting a new Canadian prime minister. It’s a chance, for both, to look at the situation with a fresh eye.
“There’s much about this visit that looks on our sovereignty and who we are as Canadians, rightly so.
“I think it’s also right that in contemplating the country we built, we focus on the people who built it, many in the most trying of circumstances.”
The issue was addressed by the then Prince of Wales during a tour of Canada in May 2022. He said at the time: “We must find new ways to come to terms with the darker and more difficult aspects of the past.”
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King Charles and Queen Camilla are on a two-day visit to Canada.
On Tuesday, the King will deliver the Speech from the Throne to open the 45th session of Canada’s parliament.
Camilla was made Patron of Barnardo’s in 2016. The organisation sent tens of thousands of Home Children to Canada. She took on the role, having served as president since 2007.
Buckingham Palace has been contacted for comment.
A spokesperson for the Canadian government said: “The government of Canada is committed to keeping the memory of the British Home Children alive.
“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada deeply regrets this unjust and discriminatory policy, which was in place from 1869 to 1948. Such an approach would have no place in modern Canada, and we must learn from past mistakes.”
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