THE Criminal Assets Bureau is heading for its busiest year ever after a 60 per cent increase on the number of cases it had in 2016.

CAB boss Detective Chief Superintendent Pat Clavin said the “great majority” of actions it is taking are against drug traffickers, followed by those carrying out burglaries and robberies.

The bureau has scored a number of high profile successes this year, including seizing properties and cash belonging to senior Kinahan lieutenants Liam Byrne and Sean McGovern.

Just five days before Christmas, the bureau was also given permission to take €17,000 cash found at the home of Daniel Kinahan’s childhood friend, which the High Court ruled was the proceeds of crime.

Clavin said: “Our targets would be the biggest level of national figures who are involved in criminal feuding around Dublin, we have international cases but we also have local cases.

“We don’t just go after big cases we also go after smaller local cases and the reason we do this is try stop them from becoming bigger criminals, to catch them earlier.

“Certainly outside of Dublin we find that people are very concerned about the burglary and robbery gangs and we have done quite a number of operations where we suspect people have assets that are derived from robbery and burglaries”.

CAB is increasingly targeting rural crime gangs and has 350 asset profilers around the country trained to spot traces of unexplained wealth.

Officers attached to the unit recently carried out a series of raids in Rathkeale in Limerick aimed at targeting a gang involved in stolen classic cars.

Limerick has the highest number of CAB targets outside Dublin, followed by Meath, Wexford, Kildare, and Louth.

Clavin said members of the public can play their part by reporting anyone they see living a lavish lifestyle with no visible means of support to gardai.

He said: “They might see somebody who changes their car every year, who takes a number of expensive holidays to places like Las Vegas, to the States, to Dubai and always appears to have spending that is not in keeping with their earnings.”