Editing Ulster Volunteer Force (section)

===Finance===
{{Further information|Paramilitary finances in the Troubles}}
Prior to and after the onset of the Troubles the UVF carried out armed robberies.<ref name="bruce191">Bruce, p. 191</ref><ref name="cusack86">Cusack & McDonald, p. 86</ref> This activity has been described as its preferred source of funds in the early 1970s,<ref>Wood, Ian S., ''Crimes of Loyalty'', Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p.20 {{ISBN|978-0748624270}}</ref> and it continued into the 2000s, with the UVF in [[County Londonderry]] being active.<ref name="cain.ulst.ac.uk" /> Members were disciplined after they carried out an unsanctioned theft of £8 million of paintings from an estate in [[County Wicklow|Co Wicklow]] in April 1974.<ref name="taylor125">Taylor, p. 125</ref> Like the IRA, the UVF also operated [[black taxi service]]s,<ref name="cusack85">Cusack & McDonald, p. 85</ref><ref name="boulton174">Boulton, p. 174</ref><ref>Adams, James, ''The Financing of Terror'', New English Library, 1988, p. 167, {{ISBN|978-0450413476}}</ref> a scheme believed to have generated £100,000 annually for the organisation.<ref name="bruce191" /> The UVF has also been involved in the extortion of legitimate businesses, although to a lesser extent than the UDA,<ref name="bruce198">Bruce, p. 198</ref> and was described in the fifth IMC report as being involved in organised crime.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/imc/imc240505.pdf |title=FIFTH REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT MONITORING COMMISSION |website=Cain.ulst.ac.uk |access-date=2017-06-23 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200553/http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/imc/imc240505.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2002 the [[Northern Ireland Affairs Committee]] estimated the UVF's annual running costs at £1–2 million per year, against an annual fundraising capability of £1.5 million.<ref name="DDBVGEW">{{cite report|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmniaf/978/97806.htm|title=Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs - Part One: The continuing threat from paramilitary organisations|date=26 June 2002|website=UK Parliament}}</ref><ref>House of Commons: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, ''The Financing of Terrorism in Northern Ireland: Report and Proceedings of the Committee volume 1'', Stationery Office Books, 2002, {{ISBN|978-0215004000}}</ref>

A Canadian branch of the UDA also existed and sent $30,000 to the UDA's headquarters in Belfast by 1975. The Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee noted in its report that "in 1992 it was estimated that Scottish support for the UDA and UVF might amount to £100,000 a year."<ref name="DDBVGEW"/>

====Drug dealing====
The UVF have been implicated in drug dealing in areas from where they draw their support.  Recently it has emerged from the Police Ombudsman that senior North Belfast UVF member and [[Royal Ulster Constabulary]] (RUC) Special Branch informant [[Mark Haddock]] has been involved in drug dealing. According to the ''[[Belfast Telegraph]]'', "70 separate police intelligence reports implicating the north Belfast UVF man in dealing cannabis, Ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine."<ref>''The Belfast Telegraph''</ref>

According to Alan McQuillan, the assistant director of the Assets Recovery Agency in 2005, "In the loyalist community, drug dealing is run by the paramilitaries and it is generally run for personal gain by a large number of people." When the Assets Recovery Agency won a High Court order to seize luxury homes belonging to ex-policeman Colin Robert Armstrong and his partner Geraldine Mallon in 2005, Alan McQuillan said  "We have further alleged Armstrong has had links with the UVF and then the LVF following the split between those organisations." It was alleged that Colin Armstrong had links to both drugs and loyalist terrorists.<ref>{{cite news |last=McQuillan |first=Alan |title='Drugs link' man is ex-policeman |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4379973.stm |access-date=16 June 2012 |publisher=BBC News |date=24 March 2005 |archive-date=23 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923161227/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4379973.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Billy Wright, the commander of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade, is believed to have started dealing drugs in 1991<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11112737 |publisher=BBC News |title=Who was Billy Wright? |date=14 September 2010 |access-date=22 June 2018 |archive-date=16 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916150127/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11112737 |url-status=live }}</ref> as a lucrative sideline to paramilitary murder. Wright is believed to have dealt mainly in Ecstasy tablets in the early 90s.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11279120 |publisher=BBC News |title=Billy Wright timeline |date=14 September 2010 |access-date=22 June 2018 |archive-date=16 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916150147/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11279120 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was around this time that Sunday World journalists Martin O'Hagan and Jim Campbell coined the term "rat pack" for the UVF's murderous mid-Ulster unit and, unable to identify Wright by name for legal reasons, they christened him "King Rat." An article published by the newspaper fingered Wright as a drug lord and sectarian murderer. Wright was apparently enraged by the nickname and made numerous threats to O'Hagan and Campbell. The Sunday World's offices were also firebombed. Mark Davenport from the BBC has stated that he spoke to a drug dealer who told him that he paid Billy Wright protection money.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markdevenport/2010/09/remembering_billy_wright.html |title=BBC - The Devenport Diaries: Remembering Billy Wright |access-date=20 November 2014 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924161551/http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markdevenport/2010/09/remembering_billy_wright.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Loyalists in Portadown such as Bobby Jameson have stated that the LVF (the Mid-Ulster Brigade that broke away from the main UVF - and led by Billy Wright) was not a 'loyalist organisation but a drugs organisation causing misery in Portadown.'<ref>The Lost Lives, David McKittrick, Page 1475</ref>

The UVF's satellite organisation, the Red Hand Commando, was described by the IMC in 2004 as "heavily involved" in drug dealing.<ref name="cain.ulst.ac.uk">{{cite web |url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/imc/imc200404.pdf |title=Report_Cover |website=Cain.ulst.ac.uk |access-date=2017-06-23 |archive-date=23 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180423062640/http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/imc/imc200404.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>