January 30, 2011

Drug dealer Tony Felloni freed from jail after 15 years Dealer became a hate figure in the 1970s and '80s after flooding Dublin with heroin Ali Bracken, Crime Correspondent

Felloni emerges from jail with his face covered NOTORIOUS drug trafficker Tony Felloni was released from Mountjoy prison yesterday, having served 15 years of a 20-year prison sentence for the sale and supply of heroin.

The 68-year-old was released from Mountjoy Training Unit at 10.15am yesterday. He emerged wearing a hat and with a scarf covering his face. He also wore a tracksuit and runners and carried five black bin bags containing his belongings.

He was whisked away in a silver Toyota Yaris driven by a woman, who emerged from the prison with him. It is understood that Felloni, who earned the nickname King Scum, sought the assistance of a community welfare officer prior to his release. Community welfare officers are attached to the homeless persons unit in the HSE and assigned to prisoners who need assistance finding accommodation. They also advise prisoners about their social welfare and other entitlements. Felloni's family have cut all ties with him.

Felloni, described by sources as a "model prisoner", was driven through the Phoenix Park and then out onto the quays. He got out of the car and went on foot across the Ha'penny bridge and then through Temple Bar. He then walked into the back entrance of the Clarence hotel before exiting through the front in a bid to get away from photographers in pursuit. He then got into a taxi.

Felloni, formerly of Dominick Street in Dublin, was responsible for flooding the Dublin drugs market with heroin in the 1980s. He became a hate figure in the 1970s and 1980s and was a target of the Concerned Parents Against Drugs campaign group. He enlisted his children to help him sell heroin when they were still teenagers and actively encouraged them to experiment with the drug. He gave his eldest son, Mario Angelo, heroin as a 16th-birthday present; his second-eldest child, Anne, became a heroin addict when she was still in school and contracted Aids. Of his seven children, all except one have spent time in prison and became addicted to heroin. Felloni also physically assaulted his wife Anne several times and she had to be hospitalised.

He had 26 previous convictions dating back to 1959, including a 10-year sentence imposed in 1986 for drug trafficking. He also ran a prostitution racket. In 1964, he was convicted of procuring young girls for immoral purposes and was sentenced to three years in prison.

His wife Anne has divorced Felloni and reverted to her maiden name of Flynn. She lives in Dublin city centre and declined to be interviewed when approached last week.

Last year, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) made legal history by seizing almost 500,000 in assets from the notorious drug trafficker and two of his children, Luigi and Regina. The case, one of the first to involve the CAB, was fought in the courts for 14 years. The case involved the use of "ordinary"

powers to seize assets under the Criminal Justice Act rather than the Proceeds of Crime Act, which was introduced after the setting up of the CAB.

Tony Felloni (68) leaving Mountjoy Prison on Saturday. He became notorious when it emerged that he used some of his children in his drug dealing and got some of them hooked on drugs.Photograph: Colin Keegan Byline: by Ronan O'Reilly TO The casual observer, the bloated 67-year-old walking through Temple Bar last week must have cut rather a pathetic figure in shell-suit pants, ill-fitting jumper and mismatched hat and scarf. But those who knew Dublin of the eighties and Nineties would have recognised Tony Felloni. his nickname, King Scum, only hints at his catalogue of criminality -- which was acknowledged in 1996 with a record 20year jail term for drugs offences. From his first conviction at the age of 16, Felloni honed his particularly odious brand of lawlessness. Amongst his other endeavours, he would inveigle himself into the trust of young women up from the country before luring them back to a house where he would take pictures of them naked and use them to either extort money, or alternatively, force the women into prostitution. But it was as a drug dealer that Felloni came to prominence, flooding vast swathes of Dublin with heroin, and plunging the capital into the utter despair and crippling deprivation that marked much of the eighties and early Nineties. Although Felloni is now free having served his term, his terrible shadow still looms large over parts of the city. And while he has long since been replaced place in the criminal hierarchy, the suffering caused by his heroin empire will not be so easily erased... WRAPPED up against the elements, he looked like a typical pensioner as he shuffled past the weekend crowds beginning to mill around Temple Bar. But it wasn't the chill winter weather that Tony Felloni was primarily shielding himself from as he made his way through Dublin's self-styled Left Bank. Instead, as arguably the nation's most notorious drug dealer and a man who got his own children hooked on heroin, the 67-year-old was more concerned at concealing his identity as he tasted freedom for the first time in 15 years. Carrying five black refuse sacks, Felloni -- a woollen hat and scarf masking his features -- walked out of the Training Unit of Mountjoy Prison

Notorious drug dealer Felloni to be released from Mountjoy in January Ali Bracken, Crime Correspondent

Felloni: has served 15 years in prison TONY FELLONI one of the country's most notorious and despised criminals is preparing for his release from Mountjoy prison after serving 15 years for heroin trafficking.

Nicknamed 'King Scum', 67-year-old Felloni was the most high-profile drug dealer during the 1980s heroin epidemic in Dublin and remained a key dealer for two decades. He became notorious when it emerged he recruited his children to join the family business and got them hooked on drugs to ensure his control over them. His brutality towards women and his family earned him his nickname.

Ann, his second-oldest child, became a heroin addict while she was still in school and contracted Aids. Her eldest brother Mario Angelo started in the family trade when he was just a teenager.

At the age of 16 his father gave him his first taste of heroin as a birthday present. Of his eight children, five have spent long spells in jail and others have become heroin addicts. Felloni also beat his wife Anne so severely on several occasions that she had to be hospitalised.

In 1996, he was sentenced to 20 years for trafficking heroin. Like all inmates, he is entitled to 25% remission, meaning he will serve 15 years. His release date has been set for the end of January. In recent days, the 67-year-old was moved to Mountjoy's training unit. The training unit is a semi-open prison, and inmates serving long sentences are often moved there to prepare them for being reintegrated into outside world after spending such a long stretch behind bars.

In May, garda made legal history by seizing almost 500,000 in assets from the notorious drug trafficker and two members of his family. The High Court finally gave the go-ahead to garda and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) to confiscate the cash, which had been stashed away here, in Northern Ireland and in England.

The case involved the use of "ordinary" powers to seize assets under the Criminal Justice Act rather than the Proceeds of Crime Act, which was introduced after the setting up of the CAB.

Felloni has 26 previous convictions, dating from 1959, including a 10-year sentence imposed in 1986 for drug trafficking.

His son, Luigi Felloni (36), was sentenced to six years' imprisonment in June 1996 after pleading guilty to trafficking in heroin. He had 10 previous convictions, including three for the supply of drugs.

His daughter, Regina Felloni (34), was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison in June 1996 after she had also pleaded guilty to trafficking in heroin. She had seven previous convictions, including one for drugs supply. November 14, 2010 King Scum: The Life and Crimes of Tony Felloni, Dublin's Heroin Boss by Paul Reynolds (Published by Gill & Macmillan) Tony Felloni is a ruthless, intelligent criminal. The huge heroin problem in Dublin in the 1980s was largely due to Felloni and his family. Despite numerous arrests, it was 1996 before the police caught up with him and were finally able to make charges stick. In this book, Reynolds traces Felloni's criminal career from the beginning. He started as a blackmailer in the early 1960s. His scam was simple: lure young girls to a flat on the pretext of a party, terrorise them into stripping naked, photograph them and then demand money on the threat of sending the photographs to employees and parents. On some occasions he even raped the girl in question. Over the years he graduated from petty thief to major Dublin drugs baron. His children sold drugs with him. Of his six children, all, bar one, are junkies and have criminal convictions. He dealt heroin in huge quantities and was caught three times by the Garda while on bail for previous offences, setting off public demands for a bail referendum that led to a constitutional change. Paul Reynolds, who is a criminal reporter for RT, has written a book

about real life in the style of a thriller. In King Scum he gives a glimpse of the hopelessness of the Irish urban under-class, telling a story of serial and ongoing dysfunction. Buy now: Special online price: 8.79 March 2005