Editing Ulster Volunteer Force (section)

====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>