Gang boss Cornelius Price who was chief suspect in four murders dies in Welsh hospital

Gangland boss Cornelius Price (41) passed away in a Welsh hospital this evening after being in a coma since 2021.

Price was the leader of the Maguire faction in the deadly Drogheda feud and was one of the country’s biggest drugs traffickers.

The Co Meath crime figure was suspected of involvement in at least four murders during his criminal career.

They included the murder of enforcer Robbie Lawlor and the fatal shooting of Benny Whitehouse.

He was believed to have ordered the murders of Willie Maughan (34) and his pregnant Latvian girlfriend, Ana Varslavane.

The notorious criminal has been in a coma since late 2021 after being diagnosed with a brain condition called limbic encephalitis.

Price was due to stand trial in November with five alleged associates charged with conspiring to falsely imprison and blackmail two men in July 2020 in the English Midlands.

The gangster was charged with two counts of conspiring to falsely imprison Muhammed and Shah Ali, as well as two counts of conspiring to blackmail both men on the same dates.

He was released on bail in the UK while awaiting trial for his part in the kidnapping plot and had been living in the Midlands in England before moving to Wales.

Price had been based in the UK since the gruesome murder of teenager Keane Mulready Woods in January 2020 which was carried out by mobsters opposed to him in the Drogheda feud.

He is believed to have ordered the abduction and murder of Willie Maughan (34) and his pregnant Latvian girlfriend, Ana Varslavane, (21) on April 14, 2015, near Price’s compound in Gormanston, Co Meath

The couple were planning on moving out of the compound to go back to Willie’s family home in Tallaght on the day they went missing and are understood to have been brutally murdered because they had key information about the gang’s activities including another murder.

No trace of their bodies has ever been found but it’s believed the remains were burnt after their gruesome murder.

Price’s mob are also the chief suspects for the murder of the unsolved murder of Benny Whitehouse and Price was previously arrested for this crime.

Mr Whitehouse was shot dead at Clonard Street, Balbriggan, on September 25, 2014 in front of his partner as part of a separate feud.

Price had forged ties with some of the country’s most notorious gangland criminals, including a Dublin gangster known as ‘Mr Big’ as well as the leaders of the McCarthy-Dundon gang.

Price had played a key role in the Drogheda feud after being released from Wheatfield Prison in Dublin in May 2019 after serving a three-year-sentence for reckless endangerment of a garda in which he drove a car at the officer.