Gardaí seek charges after mini-bus hijacked at Dublin Airport with passengers on board
Gardaí hope to bring charges against two cousins who hijacked a hotel shuttle bus, with three passengers on board, at Dublin Airport, before embarking on a 100km-plus cross-border rampage.
Three police cars - two Garda vehicles and one PSNI car - were rammed, but no officers were injured.
The siblings, aged 25 and 26, from Navan, Co Meath, eventually crashed the bus in Co Monaghan, and stole a car, which was then subject to pursuit and a “hard stop” near Castleblaney by an Armed Support Unit jeep.
The cousins are “well known” to gardaí for a variety of crimes, including burglaries.
The drama unfolded at 1am on Wednesday after the pair appeared to engage in an "opportunistic crime" when they spotted the engine of a vehicle running outside Terminal 2 with the driver not at the wheel.
It is thought the driver may have been outside the shuttle bus tending to passengers at the time.
They locked the bus door and sped off, but sources said it was not clear if the cousins knew there were passengers on board when they took it.
The three passengers were dropped off some 25kms into the hijacking, at City North Junction on the northbound stretch of the M1, physically unharmed.
They are understood to have gone to the nearby hotel, ordered a taxi and travelled back to the airport and boarded their trans-Atlantic flight.
After the hotel driver alerted gardaí, GPS tracking was used to locate the bus and garda units spotted it on the M1 near Drogheda, Co Louth.
A patrol car near Dundalk was rammed by the mini-bus, which proceeded to cross the border.
The operation, coordinated by the Regional Control Room in Galway, alerted the PSNI.
A statement from the PSNI said: “Police received a report from our colleagues in An Garda Síochána that a stolen transit van had been tracked crossing the border.
“Officers observed the vehicle in Crossmaglen Square, and upon police entering the carpark the transit van collided with the police vehicle causing damage to the front of the car. The transit van then made off from the area and re-crossed the border. The PSNI officers were not injured during the incident.”
The Garda helicopter aided in the search once the bus crossed back in Co Monaghan and gardaí discovered it abandoned, having crashed.
Gardaí said the occupants fled on foot before stealing a parked car.
An Armed Support Unit pursued the vehicle and performed a “hard stop” on the car near Castleblaney.
ASU officers are trained in the risky tactic, but none of them were injured when their jeep was struck by the stolen car.
The cousins were detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act at Carrickmacross Garda Station and charges are expected.
“The whole thing is bizarre, but it could have ended an awful lot worse,” said one garda source.
