Gardaí have smashed a cash supply line financing international Islamic terrorists.

A major investigation by garda specialist units, working in close co-operation with law agencies overseas, uncovered the money trail to suspected Isil activists.

Officers believe the supply line was being used by a group of Isil sympathisers here to channel cash through financial institutions to terrorists fighting in Syria.

Four members of an extended family – a man and three women – were arrested by members of Garda Special Branch after six searches in Dublin yesterday.

During the searches officers seized financial documentation, electronic equipment such as mobile phones and laptops and €4,500 in cash.

Gardaí suspect money was being raised here by a support cell and then funnelled through bank accounts overseas, eventually being transferred for use by Isil.

The investigation was launched last year by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau at Harcourt Square and the Security and Intelligence section at Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park following inquiries with the assistance of law agencies in other jurisdictions.

They believe the supply line was being used to channel a large five figure sum of cash in smaller amounts through a network of financial transactions.

Officers arrested a man in his 40s and three women in their 30s, 40s and 60s.

All four were detained for suspected crimes of terrorist financing under the Terrorist Offences Act, 2005.

They were held for questioning throughout the day at two garda stations under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.

Transfer

This allows officers to hold the suspects without charge for a maximum of 24 hours, excluding rest periods.

Further inquiries are being carried out into the source of the money, the number of bank accounts being used to transfer the cash and the destination of the money.

Suspected Isil sympathisers based in this country are monitored by officers attached to the counter terrorism international section of the Special Branch as well as military intelligence, whose officers are in regular contact with Garda security and intelligence.

Last month Kurdish fighters captured five men who included Alexandr Ruzmatovich Bekmirzaev.

He had been suspected by gardaí while he was based in Ireland of being heavily involved in an Isil support cell, raising funds and providing false identity documents for potential fighters heading for what Isil described as the Caliphate -Syria and Iraq.

Foreign fighters had their documentation taken from them when they arrived in Turkey before they moved on to Syria or Iraq and were then in need of new identity papers if they decided to move back to Europe. This made the role of the back-up cells so important, according to gardaí.

Bekmirzaev eventually came under the influence of an active Isil supporter and was radicalised, leaving here in 2013 for Syria.

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