I have always been a big fan of Paul Williams series of books on organized crime in Ireland & its no surprise that after such a long string of publishing’s behind him that a DVD was to follow. Williams is more widely known for his work on the Sunday world newspaper as the resident crime correspondent & its no surprise that he holds the title, not only does he do the full research on the criminals that he writes about but he is constantly putting him in the line of fire. Ireland was rocked back in July 1996 when crime journalist Veronica Guerin was assassinated by a gang of drug traffickers & it’s those same traffickers that threatened the life of Williams too. The DVD was aired as a 6 part series on tv3 & concentrated mainly on establishment of the CAB (criminal assets bureau) - before the CAB Irish gangland was thriving & there was nothing the law enforcement community or even the government could do about it. After the murder of Guerin Ireland was galvanised in such a way that the people were calling for a change & so the law was changed to seize the proceeds of organized crime. Each episode runs at almost an hour long & tackles a different area ranging from government corruption to the godfathers of not only Irish but international organized crime & even to the vast wealth of the provisional IRA. Targets investigated & profiled in the series include the mastermind Martin Cahill “the general”, Gerry Huth “the monk” & of course the man charged with the murder of Guerin..john Gilligan.
Having read the book “ the untouchables” the series didn’t exactly provide me with anything I didn’t already know but for anyone who is interested in organized crime especially Irish OC should definitely check this out. Its extremely well produced & really doesn’t blow anything out of proportion - it sticks to the facts & that’s what’s so powerful about it, few people really understand the size of organized crime in Ireland & after seeing this they will. With such detail & innovating production quality “dirty money” is sure to score high on the list of DVDs bought this Christmas - if however DVDs are not your thing then I would highly recommend any of the books by Paul Williams on the same topic.
Having read the book “ the untouchables” the series didn’t exactly provide me with anything I didn’t already know but for anyone who is interested in organized crime especially Irish OC should definitely check this out. Its extremely well produced & really doesn’t blow anything out of proportion - it sticks to the facts & that’s what’s so powerful about it, few people really understand the size of organized crime in Ireland & after seeing this they will. With such detail & innovating production quality “dirty money” is sure to score high on the list of DVDs bought this Christmas - if however DVDs are not your thing then I would highly recommend any of the books by Paul Williams on the same topic. 
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