BY C.J.MCGINLEY
LETTERKENNY and Buncrana has been targeted by a small group of specialist undercover gardai posing as drug addicts leading to the arrest of dealers.
Since being set up, the secret squad of eight young officers, nicknamed the Mockies – street slang for mock junkies – have broken up localised street-dealing gangs and put 3,000 dealers behind bars in over 20 provincial towns.
In the past four years alone the Mockie squad has been responsible for the arrest of almost 700 individuals, all of whom were described as being lower to mid-level drug dealers.
The undercover unit has also carried out several highly successful operations in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway specifically targeting dealers.
Despite its small size, the Mockie squad, which is part of the Garda National Drug Unit (GNDU), has notched up the impressive arrest rate since the beginning of the noughties.
However because Garda management has refused to increase the size of the unit sources say that it can only target one area at a time.
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