One of Ireland’s most famous drug dealers, Tony ‘King Scum’ Felloni, has died of a heart attack at the age of 81 in Dublin..
Born Anthony Carroll, Felloni was considered one of the worst criminals in the state’s history for flooding Dublin with heroin in the 1980s.
Notorious dealer was allegedly HIV positive when he died suddenly on Monday, newspaper reports Irish timesand his death is not considered suspicious.
Felloni was one of the most recognized dealers during the heroin epidemic of the 1980s and remained a key figure in the drug trade for 20 years.
He gained notoriety when it was revealed that he used his children to sell drugs after getting them hooked on heroin to ensure his control over them.
Felloni was considered one of the worst criminals in the State’s history for flooding Dublin with heroin in the 1980s.
He died on Monday of a heart attack aged 81, in Dublin’s south inner city.
His son, Luigi Felloni, was jailed for heroin trafficking in June 1996 and received a six-year sentence, while his daughter Regina was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.
Felloni, who also used heroin, also had several convictions for beating his wife and was the first person to receive a life sentence for drug trafficking.
His brutality toward women and his family earned him the infamous nickname “Scrum King.”
The father of six had kept a low profile since his release from prison in 2011, after being jailed in June 1996 for heroin trafficking.
While in prison, Felloni was targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau and Revenue Commissioners under money laundering legislation, where it was revealed he had made more than £860,000 from drug dealing.
But they reportedly took around £430,000 of his wealth in 2010.
After being jailed in 1996, Felloni served much of his sentence at Portlaoise Prison in Mountjoy; His final appeal of his sentence was dismissed by the courts in 1991.
In 1980, Felloni moved to Britain and ran a gang of armed robbers before turning to the lucrative drug trade.
However, following a series of psychiatric and probation reports carried out on him at that time, it was revealed that the crime boss had been completely institutionalized, was HIV positive and had managed to obtain drugs in prison.
He was unable to care for himself for more than two days.
Originally from Lower Dominick Street, one of the first Georgian streets in north Dublin before it was razed and converted into apartments, Felloni began his long career in crime in the 1960s seducing women while working as domestic help in large houses and rich
He would develop his relationships with them and gain their trust before taking compromising photographs of them, demanding half their salaries in exchange for not showing the images to their employers.
Over the years, Felloni racked up more than 20 convictions, many of them for robbery and assault, including against his wife.
Following such a conviction in 1980, he moved to Britain, where he began to develop contacts within the criminal world and led a gang of armed robbers.
But he quickly overcame his position as a gang leader and made his way into the more lucrative area of drug trafficking.
Felloni was arrested in Surrey in 1981 and jailed for four years for conspiracy to import heroin.
Upon his return to Ireland in 1984, he began to take the drugs business more seriously and, although he never earned the title of main operator, he became known as one of the few big dealers selling heroin on the streets.
Felloni also ran a professional gang of shoplifters in Dublin city centre.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in July 1986 and a decade later was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Felloni only served 15 years of that sentence after taking remission into account.