Belfast Man On a Quest To Rid City Of Drug Dealers

A Belfast man is being charged with battering an alleged heroin dealer in his quest to hunt down and expose drug dealers in his city.

Gary Moore, 34, spoke with Sunday World about his guerrilla campaign against heroin dealers in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. He shared one of his recent videos of a dealer from the “Russians” gang who he recorded by the Lagan river. Moore goes after the man, warning him to leave the area. “This is a walkway where children play—not heroin dealers,” he tells him. The dealer dumps his stash in a nearby trash bin.

“There are kids everywhere down by the towpath by the Lagan,” says Moore. “What happens if a kid picks up a dirty needle and pricks themselves or another child with it and they get hepatitis?”

“In areas like that you notice over time that once they get comfortable selling the stuff there, they soon get comfortable shooting up there as well, and that’s a community area.”

The west Belfast man was hooked on glue as a teenager—a habit that may seem benign compared with the city’s growing heroin problem. 

“Me and my friends grew up sniffing glue and getting into trouble. There was no heroin back then,” Moore recalled. “Now I look at kids growing up in these areas and they’re going straight on to the needle. I honestly never thought I’d see the day when heroin got a hold here.”

He said that now, after spending a total of 11 years in jail and getting sober, the law enforcement officers who used to “terrorize” him as a kid are lauding him for his crusade against heroin dealers.

“I’ve been on and off drugs all my life,” said Moore. “I was no angel, but I never sold drugs. I believe that people can change and I’ve changed an awful lot.”

He warns that heroin use is spreading to every neighborhood. On July 4th, the Belfast Telegraph reported that two accused heroin dealers were banned from the city’s downtown area by a judge. The men were nabbed in a police operation that went after suspected heroin dealers. 

Both men said they were battling addiction and “purchasing for [themselves],” not selling to other people.

Moore says the drug problem is larger than petty feuds, and called for unity. “We need to put our differences aside and fight this war against heroin together,” he told Sunday World.