Liam Byrne (Irish criminal)

The houses at Grangeview Road, Clondalkin and at Kildare Road, Crumlin were broken into and vandalised shortly before they were to be handed over. The CAB applied to the High Court to ask Maria Byrne to promise that the Raleigh Square house would be handed over intact. In October 2020 a 28 year old man was charged with the arson attack in Grangeview Road.

In the early hours of 12 August 2020 the house on Grange View Road, Clondalkin that CAB had seized from Liam Byrne was attacked by a car deliberately reversed into the downstairs living room and then petrol bombed. Four fire engines and an ambulance from Tallaght fire station were called after reports of a jeep crashing into the house. Nobody was injured and the fire was prevented from spreading to adjacent properties. The house had been valued at €320,000 before this arson attack and was about to go on the market.

He lived in a house that was owned by his sister but lived in by himself, his partner and children. The house in Raleigh Square, Crumlin was confiscated by the Criminal Assets Bureau in March 2019. Maria turned over the house along with €27,000 in a bank account.

The High Court gave the Byrnes four months to leave the Raleigh Square house and Liam had already left it for the UK by 3 September 2019.

His parents are James and Sadie Byrne (née Roe). He is the second youngest of six siblings. He has a sister Maria and his youngest sibling was David Byrne who was shot dead in February 2016 as part of the Hutch–Kinahan feud. He is a brother-in-law of Thomas Kavanagh. He is a cousin of Freddie Thompson, who has been convicted of murder.

In July 2016 there was €110,087.03 left on his mortgage and he was paying back €2,000 each month. His sister Maria was withdrawing €2,000 on the same date but didn't make a claim on the Clondalkin property in the High Court.

On 26 February 2016 two of the Foundation's three council members signed a resolution: "It is noted that the Board of the Foundation have taken a decision to write off the loan of €150,000 provided to Mr Sean Gerard McGovern due to his recent demise". In fact, Sean McGovern had survived the Regency Hotel attack.

Sean McGovern bought a house on Kildare Road in Crumlin valued at €270,000 in March 2015. It was extensively renovated for over €247,000. He lived there with his partner, Anita Freeman, who the CAB discovered was receiving local rent authority payments and then paying them into Liam's account.

The second investigation, into VAT fraud and money laundering, involved charging VAT on invoices that was never paid to UK Revenue. The money was paid either via cash or to people operating under false names. This disguised that the money was going to the Byrne Organised Crime Gang. Between June 2014 and April 2015 £353,000 was paid to the Mule State Foundation.

In 2013 he set up LS Active Car Sales in the Bluebell Industrial Estate. The business did not act as a car sales business but the cars were for the exclusive use of the gang and their families. By the time the business was raided by the Criminal Assets Bureau it had not sold a single car.

During 2007-2008 Freddie Thompson got involved with a feud with the INLA. He fled Dublin for several periods, leaving Byrne to assume control of the gang.

The Criminal Assets Bureau discovered that Maria got the money when she sold a house in Ashbourne to sister Melanie Johnson. €400,080 of that money was lodged to Maria's account between November 2007 and March 2010 and €49,800 was then lodged from her account to Liam's. The High Court declared the Grangeview Road house to be the proceeds of crime.

He claimed in 2006 that he was a spray painter who had a garage in Lucan and earned €530 a week with a €5,000 bonus. This did not tally with his tax returns which showed he only earned €10,827 and paid only €245.51. He was also able to make mortage payments of €697.22 per month on a house in Clondalkin while paying €850 a month rent on the house in Raleigh Square.

Byrne was eventually released from jail in November 2004.

In March 2001 Christy Kinahan was released from prison. He wanted to avoid the Criminal Assets Bureau, the feud and to be closer to the European cocaine wholesale market. He moved to Spain a few months later.

Liam pleaded guilty to burglary, dangerous driving and firearms charges. In January 2000 he was found guilty and given a suspended sentence of four years.

On 23 April 2000 Trevor Donnelly and his partner Jennifer Doyle were involved in a row with three women in the Abrakebabra in the Crumlin Shopping Centre. The women followed them from the takeaway, hitting them as a security guard intervened. Byne arrived in his car and began beating Donnelly with a baseball bat, hitting him even as he lay on the ground. When Jennifer pleaded with him to stop, Liam said "Tell him if he wakes up it's bullets."

When he was brought before the court his suspended sentence was activated and he was jailed for the first time on 23 May 2000.

In September 2000 senior member of the gang Liam Roe bought a house on Grangeview Road, Clondalkin for €119,000. Liam then bought the house off Liam Roe for €270,000 with thirty-year mortgage of €150,000. It is not clear where the €120,000 came from.

Byrne and his close friend Liam Greenhalgh, the Ireland under-16 captain, carried out armed robberies on two shops in Dublin's south inner city in July 1998. During the second robbery, an off-duty Garda walked into the shop.

Christy Kinahan was arrested and jailed in Dublin in 1997 after being linked to a batch of stolen cheques. Leadership of the gang passed to Freddie Thompson and Byrne and his associates started sourcing their drugs from elsewhere.

Liam Byrne (born 30 October 1980 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish criminal and member of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group founded by Christy Kinahan.