Alex Trelinski
THE SON of Irish mobster John Gilligan has been jailed following his extradition from Ireland in July.
Darren Gilligan, 47, and his 71-year-old father were part of a nine-strong group arrested in October 2020, after the Policia Nacional raided homes in the Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa areas.
The gang have been charged with drug trafficking, the illegal possession of weapons, and belonging to a criminal organisation.
John Gilligan has been accused of running an operation to smuggle cannabis from Spain to Ireland hidden among flip-flops, illegally exporting powerful sleeping pills.
He also faces firearms charges following the discovery of a gun in his Torrevieja villa garden.
The trial in Torrevieja was meant to start last October but Darren Gilligan failed to appear, leading to the postponement of the hearing, and a new trial date for April came and went.
An international arrest warrant was put out for Gilligan junior by Spanish authorities and he was detained in Dublin in mid-April before being extradited in July.
It was revealed that he ended up doing shifts as an Amazon delivery driver in Ireland.
Prosecutors in Spain opposed a bail application by his lawyer on the grounds that he was a flight risk, especially after his no-show last year.
Darren Gilligan faces over six years in jail if convicted of drug offences and being a member of a criminal gang.
Ironically his father was released on bail in December 2020 after stumping up a €12,000 bond.
Other defendants include John Gilligan’s British girlfriend Sharon Oliver and a close friend of his, ‘Fat’ Tony Armstrong.
Gilligan senior spent 17 years in an Irish jail before being freed in 2013 after he was convicted of running a large-scale drug trafficking gang in the nineties that netted over €35 million.
He was acquitted in 1996 for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin with associate Brian Meehan receiving a life sentence for the killing.
No new trial date in Torrevieja has been set for the Gilligans and their co-defendants.
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