7 Arrested in Probe of Belfast Bank Robbery

Irish police arrested seven people, including a member of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, and seized millions of dollars suspected of being stolen in the December robbery of a bank in the British province of Northern Ireland, authorities said Thursday.

In the biggest of several coordinated raids targeting Irish Republican Army money-laundering operations across Ireland, police said they had recovered at least $4.4 million at a house in the village of Farran, 10 miles west of the city of Cork.

Police also seized about $155,000 at one property in Cork. Officers arrested three men and a woman in the Cork-area raids.

Police said the operation began Wednesday night with the arrests of three men at Dublin’s Heuston train station. Detectives trailed a suspected money-launderer from Cork. Police said they arrested him as he was delivering a suitcase containing $122,000 in laundered Euro notes to two men from Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

A team of more than 100 detectives had planned the raids for weeks in hope of finding the $50 million stolen Dec. 20 from the main cash vault of Northern Bank in Belfast, police said.

About two-thirds of the cash stolen was in newly minted notes bearing the bank’s distinctive design.

Police could not immediately confirm whether any of the seized money had been taken in the robbery. They said the recovered $155,000 consisted of Northern Bank notes.

Police in both Ireland and Northern Ireland have blamed the outlawed IRA for the robbery.

The IRA denies the charge.