Brazilian national Ildomar Cabrar Da Silva came to Ireland on a holiday visa and stayed for about five years. He accumulated 24 convictions and several short prison terms. A deportation order followed in July 2019, but the court later heard that he evaded it. In May 2020, gardaí stopped the mission he organised before it reached its target: the men wore gloves, carried a submachine gun, a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition, and had searched for an Offaly address on Google Maps.
Five years, 24 convictions
Da Silva came to Ireland at about 24 years of age on a holiday visa to learn English. He later worked in a meat factory and as a hospital porter. By the time of his 2020 sentencing hearing, however, the court was told that he had accumulated 24 previous convictions in Ireland.
The published record places most of the earlier offending at the lower end of the scale. Reported categories included road traffic offences, theft, drink-driving and possession of knives. He had received several short prison sentences of between three and four months. Those details do not support describing all 24 convictions as violent or equally serious, but they do establish repeated contact with the courts and repeated short custodial interventions.
Defence counsel said that most of Da Silva’s record up to 2018 concerned road traffic matters. That mitigation does not erase the later theft and knife-possession history or the fact that the offending continued across several years.
The deportation order that did not remove him
Da Silva had been subject to a deportation order since July 2019. At the firearms sentencing hearing, Detective Sergeant Caroline Lyng said he had evaded that order. The public report does not disclose the grounds for the order, attempted enforcement dates, reporting requirements or the precise method by which he avoided removal.
What the chronology proves is narrower and consequential: the order was in force, Da Silva remained in the State, and less than a year later he became the primary organiser of an armed mission. This is a documented enforcement failure without any need to speculate about the administrative steps behind it.
Guns, gloves and a target on Google Maps
On the night of 26 May 2020, Da Silva joined Jefferson Dos Santos and Hugo Henrique Rodrigues on a journey from Dublin towards Tullamore. A fourth man, Sergio Machado Filho, travelled in a second vehicle. The cars moved in convoy, passing the M4 toll at Kilcock and stopping for fuel. Da Silva paid for the fuel used by the vehicle carrying the weapons.
All three men in that car wore plastic gloves. Shortly after midnight on 27 May, gardaí intercepted them at River Street in Clara, Co Offaly. They recovered a 9mm PPS submachine gun with its serial number erased, 17 rounds of ammunition for it, a sawn-off shotgun and four shotgun cartridges. A bottle of petrol was recovered from the accompanying vehicle.
The weapons were dangerous but defective. A Garda ballistics examination found the submachine gun was in working order, though rusty and likely to jam after one shot. The shotgun also worked, but the cartridges found were unsuitable for it. Judge Keenan Johnson later stressed that firing a weapon, even to threaten, could go fatally wrong.
A phone associated with the group contained a Google Maps search for the intended address in Tullamore. Rodrigues told gardaí the plan was to threaten a person, fire at the person’s house and then burn the car. The men had become lost twice on the way.
Primary organiser, not a convicted attempted murderer
Judge Johnson found Da Silva the most culpable of the three men sentenced in December 2020. His payment for fuel and the target-address evidence supported the judge’s conclusion that he was the “primary organiser of the mission”.
The judge also said the men were not professional hitmen and appeared out of their depth. That judicial finding must be carried alongside the seriousness of the weapons. Initial court reports described a Garda belief that the four formed a hit squad hired to kill someone, but attempted murder or conspiracy to murder was not the final adjudicated offence.
The accurate account is that Da Silva pleaded guilty to possession of the firearms and ammunition and to breaching Covid-19 travel restrictions. The evidence at sentence established an intended armed threat and shooting at a house. This file does not convert that sentencing evidence into a murder conviction that does not exist.
Eight years, with three suspended
On 21 December 2020, Mullingar Circuit Court imposed an eight-year sentence on Da Silva and suspended the final three years. The active component was therefore five years. It was backdated to 26 May 2020, when he entered custody.
The court also placed Da Silva on a 10-year peace bond and ordered him to return to Brazil within 14 days of release. The return direction and the earlier deportation order are related parts of the enforcement history but are not the same legal instrument.
Reports on his co-accused describe the return requirement as a condition attached to suspended terms. Whatever its precise mechanism in Da Silva’s order, it is not proof that he was ultimately removed. No reliable later source located for this file confirms his release date, departure, deportation or present location.
A later drug-dealing sentence
In April 2021, Crime World reported that Da Silva received an extra one-year prison sentence for drug dealing while already serving the firearms term. The accessible report identifies him and the additional sentence, but does not expose the full sentencing order or establish whether the year ran consecutively to every part of the earlier term.
For that reason, the additional year is included in the adjudicated chronology but is not simply added to the five-year active firearms component or to the cost benchmark. A responsible total requires concurrency and commencement details that the public extract does not provide.
Chronology
- Circa 2015: Da Silva came to Ireland from Brazil on a holiday visa to learn English.
- 2015–2019: worked in a meat factory and as a hospital porter while accumulating repeated convictions.
- July 2019: deportation order issued; later court evidence said he evaded it.
- By May 2020: 24 previous convictions, including theft, road traffic, drink-driving and knife-possession offences, with several short prison terms.
- Night of 26–27 May 2020: armed group travelled towards Tullamore with guns, ammunition, gloves, target-address searches and petrol.
- 12.25am, 27 May 2020: gardaí stopped the car in Clara and recovered the weapons.
- 17 November 2020: guilty pleas entered to firearms and ammunition possession and breach of Covid travel restrictions.
- 21 December 2020: eight years imposed, final three suspended; sentence backdated to 26 May. Ten-year peace bond and order to return to Brazil within 14 days of release.
- 15 April 2021: later report recorded an extra one-year sentence for drug dealing.
- Latest located record: no verified departure, deportation or current-location outcome.
Exact record and disposition
Da Silva’s principal final convictions concerned possession of a 9mm PPS submachine gun, possession of ammunition for that weapon, possession of the sawn-off shotgun and shotgun cartridges as reported, and breach of the Covid travel rules then in force. The firearms term was eight years with three suspended, yielding five active years.
His record before that case stood at 24 convictions. Published categories do not provide a charge-by-charge ledger, so they are not inflated into claims of 24 serious or violent offences. The later drug-dealing sentence is reported separately and not used to rewrite the firearms disposition.
Conditional prison benchmark: €495,360
The Irish Prison Service reported a 2024 average cost of €99,072 for an available, staffed prison space, excluding capital expenditure. Applying that rate to the five-year active firearms component produces a conditional nominal benchmark of €495,360.
Using the full eight-year headline term would be misleading because three years were suspended. Adding the later one-year drug sentence would also overstate what is known unless its relationship with the existing term were established. At the same rate, one separate full year would mechanically equal €99,072, but that figure is not added to the case total here.
The €495,360 is not an audited bill or proof of five full years served. The sentence was backdated, remission and actual release are unknown, historic annual prison costs differ, and the average cost of a staffed space is not marginal spending attributable to one person.
Ordered to return—outcome unknown
The case exposes two distinct accountability points. Before the armed mission, Da Silva remained after a deportation order the court said he evaded. After conviction, the court again directed that he return to Brazil within 14 days of release.
The first intervention demonstrably did not remove him before the firearms offence. The outcome of the second is absent from the reliable public record reviewed for this page. An order must not be presented as an executed removal, and a projected release date must not be substituted for proof of departure.
Name spellings also vary across reports. The final Irish Times sentencing report uses Ildomar Cabrar Da Silva; other coverage uses Cabral, Canrar or De Silva. Those variations occur in reporting of the same defendant, co-accused, date and offence and are not treated as different people.
Sources
- Irish Times final sentence, organiser finding, deportation order and return direction.
- Irish Times sentencing hearing, Brazilian nationality, weapons, previous convictions and evaded order.
- Shannonside final sentence, holiday visa, prior record and deportation evidence.
- Longford Live guilty-plea report.
- Longford Live detailed sentencing hearing and 24-conviction record.
- Irish Examiner initial charges and national-origin reporting.
- Irish Times later confirmation of the trio’s pleas and sentences.
- Crime World report on the later one-year drug-dealing sentence.
- Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2024 cost benchmark.