According to a report published in the Irish Independent this morning it is understood that an organised crime gang in the Ballymun area are making a serious amount of money after they devised a scam which sees them selling high quality forged NCT certificates.
It is believed that Gardai are investigating the gang who are thought to be travellers, Gardai believe the scam which has been recently discovered has been ongoing for a number of years on the northside of Dublin. A garda source told the newspaper: “Essentially what is happening is that this gang are buying older cars at the lower end of the market, mostly for sums of less than €600,” a source explained. “A lot of these cars are barely roadworthy and what they are doing is placing fake NCT certs on the vehicles, and in some instances fake tax discs, to fool their customers. They have also been using fake logbooks.”
The garda source went onto say: “The scam means that the criminal gang are thought to have been making profits of up to 400% on each car that they sell on.” “It is not unusual for them to buy a banger of a car for €300 that has no NCT or tax and then sell it on to an unsuspecting customer for €1,200 once they have all the forged certificates in place.” The source added: “While this may not seem a huge amount of cash in its own right, the scale of their operations mean that they are doing this dozens of time every week.”
Gardai say they are closing in on the gang, but various sources say that the crime gang are still making massive profits. It is believed the gang is headed by a father and son team, and Gardai believe that some of their closest associates have been heavily involved in a bitter Traveller feud in the midlands. Gardai also say the criminal gang have close contacts to a millionaire Co Meath Traveller.