Irish Times
Elaine Keogh and Jim Cusack
Known associate of the country's most dangerous criminals succumbs to cancer after a lifetime handling stolen property. Tommy Coyle, the biggest criminal "fence" ever to operate in the Republic and associate of some of the State's most infamous criminal and paramilitary figures, has died of cancer at the age of 50.
Coyle, who lived in Drogheda, "handled" the multi-million-pound haul of paintings stolen from the home of Sir Alfred Beitin Co Wicklow in March 1986. In 1990 he was detained in connection with one of the biggest robberies in Britain. He was arrested at Heathrow Airport as he was about to board a flight to Dublin along with two other men. British police found #77.3 million sterling in treasury bonds in luggage but were unable to get convictions. Charges against one of the men were withdrawn and Coyle and the other man were acquitted on charges of conspiracy to handle stolen treasury bonds.
The bonds were part of a haul worth #291 million which had been stolen in the City of London from a courier in May 1990. Other bonds turned up around the world as other criminal fences tried to dispose of them. Coyle's reputation as the State's leading "fence" (an agent who accepts and sells on stolen goods from robbers) led to his relationship with the notorious Dublin criminal, Martin Cahill, in the mid-1980s. Cahill's gang had carried off the relatively simple robbery of the paintings from Russborough House, Co Wicklow, on March 19th, 1986. Coyle had links to a former RUC detective who had turned to crime and built up a career as an international drug trafficker and who, in turn, had links to the stolen art and artefacts trade in Europe.
This man had close links with loyalists in mid-Ulster. Cahill handed over the paintings to Coyle who passed them on to the ex-RUC man and his associates. Cahill never met the loyalists.
The process of disposing of the paintings was difficult and in March 1990 three of the loyalists were arrested in Istanbul trying to sell the paintings. All the paintings, including a priceless Vermeer, were later recovered. It is believed that Coyle might have paid Cahill about #400,000 for the paintings but made relatively little himself.
Coyle, who was married with two adult children, was also an associate of the notorious republican gunman Dominic McGlinchey, who led a murderous gang of Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) members in the Border area during the 1980s before he was arrested after a shoot-out with gardai. After he was released from prison in the Republic McGlinchey moved back to the Border and was seen in the company of Coyle and another Dublin criminal figure, Martin Foley, who was shot and injured only a week ago.
On the evening of February 10th, 1994, McGlinchey and his son Dominic jnr had eaten with Tommy Coyle in Drogheda. A few minutes after McGlinchey left Coyle's company he was killed in a hail of bullets as he made a telephone call from a kiosk in the town.
McGlinchey was killed by members of a Border family with paramilitary and criminal connections. McGlinchey, and his wife Mary who had been assassinated in January 1987, had been blamed for killing two members of the family.
At the time gardai denied allegations that he was shot by the loyalist gunman Billy Wright who founded the extreme Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in 1996. This story appeared to arise from reports that Coyle met Wright some years ago as part of his operation to "fence" the Beit paintings. On July 4th, 1997, he was brought before the Special Criminal Court and charged with conspiring to rob millions of pounds worth of computer equipment being shipped from NEC Semi-Conductors, in Ballivor, Co Meath.
Gardai also recovered two stolen oil paintings by the leading Victorian Irish artist, Sir John Lavery. The charges against Coyle were subsequently withdrawn. The Criminal Assets Bureau looked into Coyle's sources of income, as he had no visible means of support. An enthusiastic gambler, he at one point owned a horse he named 77 Mill, apparently in memory of the treasury bond scam he almost pulled off. Gardai say Coyle maintained links to the international drugs scene and was a frequent visitor to a London-based criminal dynasty and to the south of Spain where he met a number of Irish drug dealers and criminals.
Last year Coyle allegedly suffered a beating at the hands of a UK drugs gang. He never made any complaint to police.
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