Timmy Donovan, who was previously convicted of manslaughter in the killing of off-duty police officer Pc Neil Doyle, has been sentenced to 14 years and six months in prison for his involvement in a major money-laundering operation.
Donovan, 40, played a key role in an organised crime group that laundered between £10 million and £13 million between December 2019 and June 2020. The group was involved in the supply of class A drugs and used encrypted communications platform EncroChat to avoid detection.
Donovan had been serving his sentence on licence when he joined forces with five other offenders, including Aaron O’Sullivan, Christopher Roper, and his brother-in-law James Vaughan. The group used various methods to collect, store, and transfer large sums of money from illegal drug sales.
During the investigation, led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), evidence was gathered from EncroChat messages, which helped identify Donovan and his co-conspirators. Donovan was arrested as part of Operation Venetic, the UK’s response to dismantling encrypted criminal networks.
O’Sullivan, 41, was sentenced to seven years and six months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and money laundering. Other members of the crime group, including Roper and Vaughan, received sentences ranging from three years and 10 months to four years and three months.
Kean and Duncan, who were involved in money laundering, were handed suspended sentences of two years each.
Paula Lloyd, a specialist prosecutor for the CPS, praised the work of law enforcement and emphasized the group’s attempt to profit from the harmful trade of illegal drugs. The CPS is now pursuing confiscation proceedings to recover the criminals’ ill-gotten gains.
Gary Cathcart, head of financial investigation at the NCA, condemned Donovan’s return to criminality and stressed that their work in dismantling the crime group has helped protect communities from further harm.
