IRA link with pounds 5m US robbery

POSTAL orders bought by three men accused of receiving millions of dollars from one of America's largest armoured car robberies might lead the FBI to establish an IRA link to the theft, officials said yesterday.

For several months before the arrests on Friday night undercover FBI agents had been watching the three suspects, Patrick Moloney, a Roman Catholic priest aged 61, Thomas O'Connor, 54, a retired Rochester police officer, and Samuel Millar, 38, a comic bookstore owner and fan of Superman.

The agents say they caught the men buying postal orders for sums up to dollars 4,000 ( pounds 2,700) with stacks of dollars 20 bills, which the FBI believes came from the dollars 7.4m ( pounds 5.1m) robbery. The suspects opened bank accounts, and bought a car and holidays with the cash.

The FBI says it could trace the recipients of the money through serial numbers on the postal orders. All three suspects have ties to the IRA cause.

If funds have reached the IRA the case would represent a distinct shift in tactics by supporters of the cause in the United States, who have concentrated on legal fund-raising through Noraid, a US-based organisation that supports Irish nationalism. A Noraid spokesman emphatically denied any link with the raid.

Suitcases stuffed with dollars 100 bills were found hidden in an apartment linked to Mr Moloney. The FBI says the cash was so-called 'bait money' - specially marked bills used by armoured car companies.

The white-bearded, paunchy priest is known as Father Pat in Manhattan's East Village, where he has cultivated a reputation as a humble defender of the poor.

Since 1956 he has run a shelter for runaway teenagers in Manhattan. However, investigators say he stole the name of a dead resident and gave it to an accomplice in the robbery to get a false driver's licence. In 1982, he was arrested in Northern Ireland on charges of smuggling arms for the IRA but was not prosecuted.

Mr O'Connor, who retired in 1982 after 20 years as a Rochester police officer, was one of three guards on duty on 5 January, the night of the robbery in Rochester. He told the FBI that men wearing ski masks handcuffed and kidnapped him at gunpoint, but later dropped him off at a bar. The three suspects, who are being held without bail, are not charged with the hold-up.

The third suspect, Mr Millar, who is a native of Belfast, served six years in an Irish jail on explosives and firearms charges. He was smuggled into the US in 1984, possibly with the help of Mr O'Connor, the FBI believes. The FBI said Mr O'Connor had met Mr Millar in Northern Ireland in 1983.