Anthony "Tony" Felloni (born Anthony Carroll, 1943) is an Irish heroin dealer, pimp and career criminal. He became a hate figure in the 1980s and 1990s, blamed for "flooding" Dublin with
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
and creating the city's first generation of "junkies."
Early life
Felloni was born in Dublin in 1943 to Renaldo Felloni (an Italian immigrant) and a Miss Carroll. As his parents were not married, he was given his mother's surname, calling him Anthony Carroll.
Carroll adopted his father's surname in 1959. He married Anne Marie Flynn in 1969.
Criminal career
Carroll began as a
blackmailer
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fam ...
; he would seduce impressionable women from rural areas and force them to pose for nude photographs, threatening to send the pictures to their parents unless they paid him. He later began to force women into
prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
; in 1964 he was convicted of " procuring young girls for immoral purposes". In the 1970s he turned to
burglary
Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...
.
In 1980 Felloni moved to
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
and began to work in the growing drugs trade; he was arrested in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
in 1981 and jailed for four years for conspiracy to import heroin. He returned to Dublin and was again imprisoned in 1986 for heroin dealing, receiving a ten-year sentence, and being
parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
d in 1993.
In the 1980s and '90s he was one of Dublin's largest
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
suppliers, after usurping Larry Dunne's position as the city's main dealer. His children worked as couriers and tasters, many of them being later imprisoned. Ali Bracken claimed in the ''
Sunday Tribune
The ''Sunday Tribune'' was an Irish Sunday broadsheet newspaper published by Tribune Newspapers plc. It was edited in its final years by Nóirín Hegarty, who changed both the tone and the physical format of the newspaper from broadsheet to tab ...
'' that "He enlisted his children to help him sell heroin when they were just teenagers and encouraged them to experiment with the drug so that he could control them."
In June 1996 Felloni was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for heroin trafficking. Assets of over
IR£
The pound (Irish: ) was the currency of the Republic of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or IR£ for distinction). The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin cir ...
400,000 were seized in 1998; it was estimated that Felloni had earned £875,000 from drug dealing since 1988.
In 1998, Paul Reynolds published ''King Scum: The Life and Crimes of Tony Felloni'', a bestselling book about Felloni and his criminal career.
In 2010, Gardaí seized another €500,000 from the family. Felloni was released in January 2011 after serving years; at 67 years old and suffering from
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
, he was not expected to return to crime.
Personal life
Felloni's wife is the sister of Dublin politician
Mannix Flynn
Mannix Flynn (born Gerard Mannix Flynn, 4 May 1957) is an Irish independent politician who has served as a Dublin City Councillor since May 2009. He had six children with her and two more with a mistress. Most of his children were part of the Felloni crime network, many of them developing heroin addictions and
HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
. Felloni was also physically abusive to Anne Marie, being three times convicted of assaulting her.