Crime World

Hailed as one of the oldest settlements in Ireland, Killala has a long and chequered history. St Patrick is rumoured to have brought a dead woman back to life in the centre of the village, while a French general landed there with more than 1,000 troops to kick off the 1798 Rebellion against English rule.

In the late 80s, Ann O’Grady gets a small council flat on Courthouse Street in the village and brings her niece Sandra ...

Despite early tragedy and straitened circumstances, the Collins family enjoy a loving and stable childhood in the townland of Fotish, near Crossmolina. 

They may have little in the way of material wealth, but the six children are doted on by their parents, and two aunts, Bridie and Ann.

However, when Ann develops a painful degenerative condition, and her marriage breaks up, one of the Collins children is expected to go s...

While clearing out their aunt and uncle’s house in Liverpool, the Collins family find a tape recording of their eldest sister, Sandra, reading out a poem she learned in school. 

It has been more than two decades since they last heard her voice. The 28-year-old disappeared on a bitterly cold winter’s night in 2000 from Killala, a fishing village on Mayo’s north coast. 

For years her family hold out hope tha...

The disappearance of Sandra Collins remains one of the most frustrating murder cases on the books of An Garda Síochána.

Aged 28, she was pregnant and planning an abortion when she disappeared on a bitterly cold December night in 2000 from the fishing village of Killala in County Mayo.

Ten years later, her case was upgraded to a murder inquiry and a subsequent trial heard she had been having a relationship with a local married man Mar...

When Robbie Lawlor was murdered outside a house in the Ardoyne area of Belfast in April 2020, reporters were left with more questions than answers.

What was one of Ireland’s most feared criminals doing in the north? Why had he crossed the border? Who had the audacity to arrange for him to be shot while up there?

This episode of Double Cross: The Murder of Robbie Lawlor was originally released in November 2024.

The murder of Robbie Lawlor in Belfast in April 2020 is sure to be one of the biggest gangland stories of the decade.

In an eight part podcast series called Double Cross, Crime World investigated just what happened in the run up to and aftermath of the broad daylight assassination of Ireland’s most wanted.

As we run the series over the coming week, Nicola talks to Niall Donald as we update our listeners and viewers on the cases...

Staring down decades in prison, Bomber attempts a final gamble by orchestrating a fake weapons surrender from behind bars to trick the authorities into granting him a lighter sentence. 

The deception backfires spectacularly when compromised encrypted messages unmask his lies, resulting in additional years of jail time and dragging his own son and family into the ruins of his collapsed empire.

The Science of Fear: The Bloody Reig...

A seemingly trivial pink stun gun found atop a kitchen cupboard provides the legal hook to pull Bomber from his life of luxury and lock him behind bars while investigators build their massive narcotics case. 

The untouchable persona of the cartel boss finally shatters during a high-stakes interrogation, where the sheer weight of the evidence causes him to physically collapse as the reality of a 25-year sentence sets in.

The Scie...

As Bomber waits in the shadows of his English mansion, a single forgotten logistics document from an Irish raid allows the National Crime Agency to bridge the gap between his legitimate front and his billion-euro drug empire. 

Meticulous digital forensics begin to peel back the layers of his encrypted secrecy, exposing “The Gaffer” as the cold CEO of a transnational narcotics machine that law enforcement is finally ...

Bomber’s empire begins to unravel, as an innocuous scrap of paper found in a raid of a weapons-filled industrial unit in Dublin gives international law enforcement a thread to follow in their investigations. Meanwhile, a lavish marriage ceremony in Dubai attracts a lot of attention.

The Science of Fear: The Bloody Reign of Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh was originally released as a subscriber-only series in January 2026 on crimeworl...

The criminal underworld is shattered when gunmen armed with AK-47s storm a Dublin hotel weigh-in, leaving Bomber’s brother-in-law dead and igniting a “psychotic” revenge feud that turns the city into a war zone.

Forced out of the shadows, Bomber stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Daniel Kinahan at a military-style funeral, a public show of defiance that finally earns him and the gang the undivided attention of intern...

In the “champagne years” of the international drug trade, Bomber emerges as a global power-broker, helping Daniel Kinahan forge a lethal “Super Cartel” alliance with Dutch and Italian kingpins to dominate the European cocaine market. 

Amidst a backdrop of first-class flights and fortified mansions, he earns the nickname “Santa” for his flash displays of wealth, even as murder and violence und...