South East Antrim UDA chiefs call crisis meeting after anti-terror cops raid homes of leading members

South East Antrim UDA chief Gary Fisher

SEA UDA mural Rathcoole

South East Antrim UDA chief Gary Fisher

Sunday Life Investigations

August 01 2022 07:30 AM

South East Antrim UDA chiefs called a crisis meeting after two of its most senior members had their homes raided by anti-terror cops.

Searches of the properties in Newtownabbey uncovered a quantity of class B drugs and a significant amount of cash.

Neither of the loyalists — the SEA UDA’s ‘military commander’ and ‘1st battalion commander’ — were arrested, but the Paramilitary Crime Task Force operation has left them rattled.

They later met with the drug cartel’s leader Gary Fisher to express concern about the increased PSNI attention.

The raids came on the back of a bully-boy UDA member in the Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey targeting a police officer in a sinister poison pen campaign.

Almost 1,400 people forced from homes by paramilitaries

He had been the gang’s second-in-command in the estate, but was stood down last year after locals complained he was terrorising them along with his now deposed boss ‘Skidmark’.

A SEA UDA source told Sunday Life: “He’s the same fella who threatened the Housing Executive contractors working in Rathcoole last year, and that led to another big PSNI crackdown.

“Most of the media and police attention on the UDA in Rathcoole is because of him, the fella needs to stop acting the big man and keep his mouth shut.”

UDA sources say senior figures in the gang are growing increasingly concerned by the thug’s erratic behaviour and the unwanted scrutiny it brings.

“Earlier this year Fisher told all the commanders to make sure the men kept their heads down and didn’t step out of line,” added an insider. “This guy ignored that order and it’s no coincidence you now have homes being raided by the police.”

The Paramilitary Crime Task Force’s Detective Superintendent Neill confirmed the house searches formed “part of an investigation into suspected criminality linked to the South East Antrim UDA”.

The most recent MI5/police intelligence assessment of the SEA UDA, which has 2,000 members, describes it as “having access to arms” and being “heavily involved in drugs supply, community coercion, intimidation and other criminality.”

The SEA UDA is understood to clear £2.5m per year in profit from flooding Northern Ireland with drugs imported from crime gangs in northwest England and the Kinahan cartel in Dublin.

According to insiders the sale of drugs at SEA UDA bonfires in Newtownabbey, Larne, Carrickfergus and Ballyclare earlier this month brought in a hefty sum.