UDA get a million pound peace bonus

UDA get peace million pound dividend, just as Police say there is significant evidence of UDA racketeering.

The Ulster Defence Association are "still up to their necks" in extortion rackets, a senior police officer has confirmed. This news comes just a day after the british government said it was to give £1.2m of public money to the UDA. British minister Peter hain claims the million pound deal is a package to encourage the UDA away from violence. But many people think it is a wrong move, including Det Supt Esmond Adair of the PSNI's anti-extortion team.

Det Adair said there was "significant evidence the UDA are involved in extortion. We have a number of successful operations carried out this year so far, where we have mounted three operations and 11 searches and 10 people have been arrested. We are very aware that extortion is rife in the north of Ireland. It is a vastly under-reported crime. We reckon that only 1-3% of extortion is actually reported to police."

It's madness - it's like the Americans handing the mafia £1m or £1bn to go away said a developer who called in to the BBC radio talk show. In reference to the UDA demanding protection money from a building site, the caller said "It is a big contract and by the time that site is finished, he will have paid £92,000. This is going on as we speak. I had four men on that site at one time, and they were put off that site because of their religion. "They (the UDA) are taking about their areas being deprived - they have put their own people out of business. It is so corrupt in every shape and form, and then they (the government) turn round and give them a million quid. It's madness - it's like the Americans handing the mafia £1m or £1bn to go away."

According to the Sutton database of deaths at the University of Ulster's CAIN project, the UDA was responsible for 112 killings during the Troubles. Seventy-eight of its victims were civilians (predominantly Irish), twenty-nine were other loyalist paramilitaries (including twenty-two of its own members), three were members of the security forces and two were republican paramilitaries. Some believe that a number of these attacks were carried out with the assistance or complicity of the British Army and/or the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

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UDA get a million pound peace bonus