THE inside of a pink cocaine lab allegedly run by gangster John Gilligan in his Spanish home has been revealed by cops.
Police seized up to €8million worth of drugs when they raided the Costa Blanca pad in December 18, 2024.
Heavily-armed officers used battering rams to smash into the property where the secret Breaking Bad-style lab was discovered.
And outside the gaff, cops found a weapon wrapped in plastic and stashed in a bricked-up hideaway
Thug Gilligan, 72, was arrested and remanded in prison.
Spanish police released the first images of the operation leading to his takedown.
And detectives accused the Dublin mobster of flooding the region’s streets with illegal narcotics — including toxic pink cocaine — with the help of a North Macedonia criminal gang he allegedly led.
Tragic One Direction singer Liam Payne had pink cocaine in his system when he fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last year.
The deadly substance — also known as tusi — is a mix of several drugs including meth, ketamine, MDMA and others.
Gilligan’s latest arrest came 15 months after he admitted running
a Spain-to-Ireland cannabis and sleeping pill smuggling ring.
He also copped to the illegal possession of a firearm after a gun initially linked to crime reporter Veronica Guerin’s murder was found buried in his back garden near the Spanish holiday resort of Torrevieja in October 2020.
However, Gilligan agreed a plea bargain deal in September 2023 with prosecutors as his trial got underway and was handed a suspended 22-month jail sentence.
Detectives specialising in fighting organised crime revealed they detected an “increase” in the brute’s criminal activity just nine months after he avoided prison.
And they went public for the first time on the huge scale of his latest alleged drugs trafficking op.
Sources revealed most of the narcotics seized — including more than 16kg of pink cocaine — was discovered at the clandestine drugs lab Gilligan was “running”.
They put a price tag on their street value of between €4million and €8million after the Operation Overlord bust last month.
Officers from elite Spanish police anti-drug units, including one based in the province of Murcia, were involved in the operation.
‘IRISH MAFIA’
The National Police in Murcia issued their first statement on Gilligan’s arrest.
The pint-sized yob wasn’t named but was described as a member of the “Irish mafia”.
A spokesman said: “The National Police has dismantled a synthetic drugs lab. Nine people have been arrested including the leader of the criminal organisation, a man belonging to the Irish mafia who had expanded his criminal activities to several parts of the eastern Spanish coast and continually changed home between the provinces of Murcia and Alicante to hinder his localisation.
“More than 16 kilos of tusi, or pink cocaine have been seized along with two-and-a- half kilos of cocaine, 540 litres of precursors for synthetic drugs, and a 75-litre drum of methylamine, which is a key precursor in the manufacture of methamphetamines.
“Officers have also confiscated different instruments and machinery needed to produce drugs, as well as a revolver hidden among bricks.”
JOINT OP
The UK’s National Crime Agency was also involved in taking down Dublin mobster Gilligan.
Spanish cops added: “Thanks to the joint operation with the NCA, a family crime clan of Macedonian origin, based in the Murcian village of La Alberca, was identified. They allegedly operated under the orders of the Irish criminal with the aim of making and distributing different types of drugs in the region on a regular basis.
“The police investigation led to the arrest of the alleged leader at a villa in Orihuela Costa on December 18 last year. A clandestine lab had been set up inside to make and adulterate different types of drugs, mainly the narcotic known as tusi, or pink cocaine.
“An important increase in the consumption of this drug had been detected at nightspots and other ‘black spots’ in the city of Murcia.
“Two more raids were subsequently carried out in La Alberca at residential properties belonging to the organisation’s Macedonian clan where a significant amount of drugs of the same type as those found at the dismantled clandestine lab were also seized.
“With the substances seized in the lab it’s estimated the criminal gang could have produced between 300 and 600 kilograms of drugs.”
BEHIND BARS
Gilligan has been locked up at Fontcalent Prison, in Alicante, after his latest arrest, with the hood spending Christmas behind bars.
The two-bed pad near Torrevieja where police discovered the drugs laboratory reportedly belonged to Gilligan’s ex Sharon Oliver.
The British national, 61, is not among the nine people arrested in the latest operation and is said to have been unaware of Gilligan’s alleged drug activities.
She was cleared in September 2023 of two drug charges she was facing, along with her ex-boyfriend, over their October 2020 arrest.
Sharon declined to make the plea bargain deal Gilligan and seven other defendants had struck with Spanish prosecutors.
They were demanding a six-year prison sentence for the gangster’s girlfriend if found guilty of two charges — trafficking cannabis as well as supplying and exporting medicines without permission.
Sharon denied any knowledge of the drugs smuggling operation her partner confessed to masterminding a day before her one-day trial began 15 months ago and was acquitted of the two raps.
Gilligan, who said at the time he was planning to quit Spain, was ordered to pay fines of just over €14,000 on top of his 22-month suspended prison sentence.
GUN FIND
Prosecutors had wanted him to be jailed for more than eight years if convicted of four charges he was originally due to be tried on.
The seven other men accused alongside him in September 2023 included his son Darren, 47, and 51-year-old playboy pal ‘Fat’ Tony Armstrong.
They were all given suspended 18-month sentences.
The Colt Python revolver found in his back garden during his 2020 arrest was the same type as that used to kill Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin.
The crime reporter was shot dead, aged 36, at a red traffic light on the Naas dual carriageway near Newlands Cross on the outskirts of Dublin on June 26, 1996.
She was shot by one of two men on a motorbike, with the gun never found.
Police carried out tests to check whether the weapon seized in the raid on Gilligan’s gaff was used in her murder.
However, it was subsequently found not to be the same weapon used in Veronica’s murder.
Gilligan was tried and acquitted of masterminding her murder in 2001.
However, he was convicted of importing two tons of cannabis resin and sentenced to 28 years in prison, reduced to 20 on appeal.
Ex-friend Brian ‘Tosser’ Meehan was convicted of her murder.
