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Desperate leaked texts from ex mob boss John Gilligan reveal what his life is like behind bars in Spain
The Irish gangster who was tried for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin has reportedly been begging for money across WhatsApp groups from prison.
John Gilligan, 73, from Dublin, was imprisoned in Alicante, Spain after he was discovered running ' Breaking Bad'-style pink cocaine drug lab thought to have produced €8 million worth of narcotics.
Dubbed 'Factory John' by the media due to his involvement in warehouse heists, the mobster was placed in police custody after being arrested on 18 December - but is thought to have been unable to pay his lawyer due to unpaid legal bills from previous court appearances.
Now, the gang veteran is said to be sharing texts across WhatsApp groups in Spain and Ireland where he is begging for cash.
According to Sunday World, the messages read: 'My name is **** I am a good friend of John Gilligan, he is 73, and in prison in Spain broke. John helped loads in his life and now he needs help money wise, no amount too small.
'Please share this WhatsApp with you friend an how John's friends get to see it. To sent to lawyers bank account (Details given). RE John Gilligan. Money gram, western union or bank transfers.'
He is currently imprisoned in Forcalent where he has been for the last eight months, and is currently waiting to be charged, which he may have to wait up to four years for.
Gilligan is 'washed up' and desperately short of cash, say Gilligan's friends, according to the report.
Earlier this year, footage released revealed Gilligan being arrested by heavily-armed Spanish police at a two-bedroom apartment in Costa Blanca.
Accused of plying the region with cocaine with the help of a North Macedonia clan he allegedly led, Gilligan was placed in jail where he has been since Christmas, read reports by the Sunday World.
Upon his arrest, a revolver wrapped in plastic was also discovered at the property inside a hideaway on an outside wall.
The property situated near Torrevieja - where police are said to have discovered the laboratory - belonged to his ex-partner, Sharon Oliver, according to reports.
Gilligan has been attempting to raise funds for bail since Christmas while the investigation proceeds.
At the time of his arrest, he had been residing in his former partner's Spanish property rent free after she had returned to England following her own arrest on a previous drug offence which resulted in a fine for Gilligan and a suspended sentence.
She was eventually cleared in court of involvement in Gilligan's drugs business.
Once Ireland's biggest drug dealer, Gilligan's lost his hold over the narcotics trade after he was accused of order the murder of Veronica Guerin.
He was previously given a 22-month suspended prison sentence by a Spanish Court after admitting using a courier service to smuggle cannabis and prescription-only drugs without a licence to Ireland.
He previously served 17 years in prison for drug trafficking before being released in 2013.
He later moved to Spain where he owned a number of properties, including a pub called, The Judges Chambers.
Gilligan had been involved in low-level street dealing and was arrested in 2020 when police discovered a stash of cannabis and prescription drugs.
Following a short stint in custody, he was able to secure bail and was relieved of his sentence. It was during this time that he recorded a documentary and wrote a book claiming his innocence in the Veronica Guerin case.
But in December, lengthy surveillance operation by police revealed Gilligan had been supplying the region with pink cocaine.
He was arrested in a house filled with the illegal substances, but reports claim the Dublin-born gangster was just 'a small cog in the wheel', involved in little more than street dealing and small debt collection.
Desperate to get out of prison, where he has previously expressed fears over 'dying', texts begging for financial support for his bail began to circulate WhatsApp groups earlier this summer.
He currently owes a number of previous court appearances he must pay off first.
The operation leading the arrest was titled Operation Overlord and involved officers from elite Spanish police anti-drug units, as well as the UK's National Crime Agency.
Gilligan was accused of ordering the murder of the Sunday Independent journalist Guerin in 2001. He was instead sentenced to 28 years for smuggling cannabis, and was freed in 2013.
Guerin's murder led to multiple other convictions. Paul Ward was sentenced to life as an accomplice on the grounds he had disposed of the murder weapon, but the conviction was subsequently overturned on appeal.
Brian 'Tosser' Meehan was convicted of her murder and remains in prison, although reports last year said he could be out in just five years after he was transferred from a maximum security jail.
Guerin was working for the Sunday Independent when she was shot dead at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross on the outskirts of Dublin on June 26 1996.
The Colt Python revolver used to shoot her by one of two men on a motorbike, which had been loaded with .357 Magnum Semiwadcutter bullets, was never found.
Her funeral was attend by Irish Taoiseach John Bruton, who described her murder as an 'attack on democracy' and the head of Ireland's armed forces.
In the run-up to her assassination, Ms Guerin had filed charges for assault against Gilligan after he allegedly hit her at his £5million equestrian centre in County Kildare in September 1995 while she tried to quiz him about how he made his money.
The judge who acquitted the drugs baron accepted he had made a chilling telephone threat on September 15 1995 to kill her and kidnap her five-year-old son.
The journalist also had shots fired at her house in October 1994.
The following January she opened her door to a gunman wearing a motorbike helmet who shot her in thigh the day after writing an article about another high-profile Irish criminal.
Award-winning Ms Guerin was killed two days before she was due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London. The topic of her segment was 'Dying to Tell the Story: Journalists at Risk.'
Within a week of her murder the Irish parliament enacted two pieces of legislations enabling assets from the proceeds of time to be seized by the government. It led to the formation of the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Her life - and death - was later turned into a film starring Cate Blanchett as the fearless reporter.
Gilligan was accused of ordering the murder but was acquitted at trial in 2001. He was instead sentenced to 28 years for smuggling cannabis, and was freed in 2013.
At the trial, Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan said of Gilligan: 'Never in the history of Irish criminal jurisprudence has one person been presumed to have caused so much wretchedness to so many. A haemorrhage of harm that is unlikely to heal in a generation.'
When asked about how he felt when Ms Guerin was killed, he said: 'Nothing really. I could say it for the cameras, 'oh my God, I was shocked'.
'I wasn't. It didn't matter to me.'
When asked further about the reporting of crime and gang activities, he added: 'If you go into the kitchen, don't expect not to be burned.'
However, the crime boss did admit that the journalist's death was 'the beginning of the end for him'.
'I wish them people had never done it, for her sake and for her family's sake, not just for mine.'
In 2023, he appeared in a three-part series on Ireland's Virgin Media channel called Confessions of a Crime Boss, which has caused outrage on the Emerald Isle for 'glorifying' a notorious gangster.
Around the same time, he released a book, The Gilligan Tapes: Ireland's Most Notorious Crime Boss In His Own Words, where he revealed he fears dying in prison, and that he wishes he had never gone into crime.
