Police raids against the East Belfast UVF resulted in the seizure of loaded and prepared handguns.
The eight firearms were discovered late Friday night on the lower Newtownards Road during dramatic sweeps of three homes and a business.
Three pipe bombs and a significant amount of ammo for the weapons were also found nearby in covert stashes.
The firearms and pipe bombs, according to a security source who spoke to this newspaper, would be utilized in connection with the gang’s local drug trafficking and extortion activities.
The senior figure claimed that they did not think they were going to be employed in the gang’s recent threats of anti-protocol violence, but rather that they were going to turn on residents of the east Belfast neighborhood.
A revolver and a semi-automatic pistol were among the “workable and usable” weapons, some of which were loaded.
According to the source, the Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF) officers moved swiftly as soon as the location of the weapons was discovered.
Along with two vehicles, the terror gang’s flags and a number of UVF symbols were also taken. It is believed that they are not of the sort connected to the illustrious UVF, formed in 1912.
Four men, ages 34, 47, 49, and 51, were taken into custody during the operation and questioned at Musgrave Serious Crime Suite, where they were still at the time of publication.
Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Hill, director of the PSNI’s Organized Crime Branch, claimed after the raids that it was necessary to restrict roads and evacuate surrounding residents during the operation.
He remarked, “We would want to thank the people for their understanding as we conducted this operation.
“The paramilitaries’ careless behavior in storing these weapons in this residential area exemplifies how they don’t care about the people they endanger, disrupt, or do harm to.
“The East Belfast UVF continues to engage in a variety of paramilitary crimes, harming their own communities while engaging in acts of violence, intimidation, money laundering, and drug peddling.
“The Paramilitary Crime Task Force is still devoted to rooting out the East Belfast UVF and eradicating their threat to the community.
“I believe this to be a very significant find that, by us taking it off the streets, denies East Belfast UVF and paramilitaries the opportunities to bring harm to the local population.”
Reports that an office in east Belfast had been searched were debunked on Saturday night by the UVF-affiliated organization Action for Community Transformation (ACT) Initiative, which gets government support.
“There is no established east Belfast ACT. The Shankill Road and mid-Ulster in Tandragee are the only locations where we have formal offices, according to Dr. William Mitchell.
The Charity Commission and any of our respective funders, including the Executive Office, may corroborate this historically.
As they are thought to make up the majority of the gang’s arsenal, the most recent seizures are a death blow to its drug dealing and extortion businesses, which are reportedly led by Stephen “Mackers” Matthews.
Since May of last year, the PCTF has seized nearly £200,000 in illicit currency in addition to £1.2 million worth of drugs that belonged to the organization.
Matthews detests being mentioned and depicted in the media and has attempted to have his identity removed in connection with the gang’s lucrative narcotics trade.
His costly legal attempt to prevent Sunday Life from naming him in a story about the PCTF crackdown on the unit earlier this year was unsuccessful when a high court judge denied his request for an injunction.
A banner and damaged poppies placed in the memory of murder victim and east Belfast resident Ian Ogle were burned by the gang last week, to the disgust of many of its own members and regular loyalists.
According to a loyalist source, poppy wreaths placed at loyalist murals were never damaged, not even during the bloody loyalist feuds of the early 2000s.
A reassessment of the “basis” for its ceasefire was underway, according to UVF sources, who also claimed that “discussion of joint authority has pushed the organization to the edge.”
After the Loyalist Communities Council issued a warning that there would be “dire consequences” if the procedure was not moved forward, senior sources within the terror organization confirmed the information.
