Money bags seized in bank raid probe

Seventeen bags of money were removed from the home of a leading Cork businessman today as police intensified their investigation into a major IRA money laundering operation.

As homes in Londonderry were raided as part of a widening of the inquiry, forensic officers also carried out a full examination of the home of Ted Cunningham, 57, who is among six men and a woman being questioned in Cork and Dublin.

The cash was taken from his house at Farran, a few miles outside Cork city, where most of the police inquiries are centred. The money was inside heavy, brown paper sacks and driven away in a garda vehicle accompanied by an armed escort of two detectives carrying sub-machine guns.

Police in Belfast and Dublin said they were still unable to establish if any of the £2.3 million seized was linked to the £26.5 million stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast just before Christmas.

But security sources in Northern Ireland revealed today that documents were being examined after raids on two houses in Derry's Gobnascale estate.

Two men from the city, both believed to have republican connections, are among the seven held.

As well as Mr Cunningham, Tom Hanlon, a former Sinn Fein elected representative, who would be known to party president Gerry Adams, and the others are being held under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.

Other arrests are likely although sources in Dublin and Belfast insisted today they were unaware of any more people to be detained.

But the scale of this investigation has confirmed a definite cross-border link involving at the very least people with strong Sinn Fein connections.

And if there is an IRA link, then this inquiry could have a cataclysmic impact on the leadership of Gerry Adams and his chief negotiator Martin McGuinness.

Mr Adams is due back from Spain and will face serious questions about the affair.