In 1986, eighteen-year-old Hyland was sent to prison for various offences including conspiracy to commit robbery, burglary, malicious damage and car theft.
The gang were involved in the importation of large shipments of cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin as well as VAT fraud, car theft, armed robbery, extortion and the supply of firearms.
[4] Between 2002 and 2004 his gang was involved in a spate of robberies of security vans delivering money to ATM bank machines in Dublin.
[1] Hyland also had links with other major criminal gangs in Dublin and supplied guns to one of the factions involved in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.
Hyland was sleeping in a bedroom upstairs while 20-year-old Anthony Campbell, an apprentice plumber who had called to the house earlier to work on a faulty radiator, was downstairs.
One of the gunmen held Anthony Campbell downstairs while the other crept up the stairs and shot Hyland twice in the head and four times in the back as he slept.