Plain clothes/undercover Gardai

So you went to a festival to stare at random strangers

thelad95 wrote: »

Fitted the description above, stood on his own for ages with no friends holding a pint that he didn't drink from once in the fifteen minutes we were looking at him.

Hey, maybe I just didn't feel like drinking right then

Back when we were young (Yes; And dinosaurs roamed the earth :rolleyes:) the wife and I were hitching home one night. A young couple picked us up and they turned out to be really grand. We were all chatting away and getting on like a house on fire.

So much so that, after a bit, I conveyed to the wife that we might offer them a smoke. Wife indicated her agreement and, as she opened her mouth to speak to them, an unseen radio crackled to life, somewhere up front. " Charlie Two Delta ..... "

The guys whole persona changed. He was suddenly very focused and businesslike. The girl hurriedly apologised and said they'd have to drop us off here. The wife and I were Never so fcukin grateful to loose a lift! We threw ourselves out of that motor. And off it sped.

Don't ever kid yeselves that ye can spot True undercover operators.

Scary!

thelad95 wrote: »

Was at Oxygen a few years ago and I saw a guy who I definitely thought was one. Fitted the description above, stood on his own for ages with no friends holding a pint that he didn't drink from once in the fifteen minutes we were looking at him. I've often seen a few hanging around the smoking areas in all the harcourt street nightclubs.

While technically they are Gardai in plain clothes, they're not really undercover Garda in any real sense. They're regular guards with very little training in covert operations who are used in specific instances, generally major events with the prospect of a lot of public order offenses, and petty drug crime. Often used a disincentive, so people think there could be a plain clothes guard around the corner and so curb their activities.

They're also used in close protection of certain people. My father had a detective in plain clothes follow him around at an event because my father was responsible for collecting the events fees and profits which at the time were entirely cash, so he was carrying a buttload of money around him and there was a strong possibility he could be the target of a robbery.

If you're talking about actual trained detectives used in clandestine policing operations infiltrating criminal and terrorist organisations they're pretty good at what they do.

One example is the UK police in such operations who got caught having seduced, began and continued romantic relationships with women in eco organisations. They were found out recently, and the police force were sued for condoning rape of these women. It got so serious in some cases that these "couples" (i.e. the woman and the undercover guard) were attending couples counselling over the man's refusal to have a child with the woman. Refusing to have a child because he was using her to get access to ecoterrorist organisations and had his own real wife and children elsewhere.

Anyone who reckons that they "can always tell" is very naive and possibly in for a shock some day.
One occasion springs to mind.
A car pulled up alongside me in traffic (I'm in a van looking down on them), two young lads, little bit skanger looking, unshaven, munching their way through a burger king take way. Passenger had the elbow out the window looking like all was good in life.
No roof stubs, nothing on the dash.
Just two lads in a dirty oul car.
Suddenly passenger opens the glove box and is on a w/t, with that there are sirens, and the fe@kin thing lights up like a christmas tree, they hop onto the opposite side of the road and are gone.

Was at the EP a few years ago, fairly merry. We were looking for some pills but couldn't find any. Eventually we just said we were guards to people that were obviously on something, and asked them to hand over a couple of pills and we'd be on our way.

Some come down the next day.

Reminded me that I was "accused" of being an undercover cop on two separate occasions

I was wearing a suit on both occasions and was in a less than attractive part of town


Like any self respecting fake rozzer I told em to feck off or I'd arrest em


Ps I've never been in the police........of course that's exactly what an undercover policeman would say

We always bring Walkie talkies (proper Motorola ones) to gigs and festivals so Going to Slane one year we were sitting in the grass having a few cans before we went in. Some lads were rolling joints beside us, then spotted us with the walkies and almost died. We quickly let them no we weren't gards.

They then asked us to set up there mate who was a couple of feet away selling some exctasy. We went up and caught the lad mid deal and 'placed him under arrest'. He had a bag of at least 50 and start crying when we told him how long he could go down for with that amount.... During this time everyone in the area was dumping all sorts of drugs out of there pockets. We kept it going for a while while we waited for 'a car'.
Then asking what date his birthday was (he gave whatever date) and we said no mate, today is your birthday because we're not gards and this is just a wind up. Que all his mates burst out laughing. It took a while for him to believe us.

We ended up staying with a lads and had a great oul laugh.

I wouldn't be the most observant person but the once or twice that I id see undercover gardai, I'd have never guessed.