George ‘The Penguin’ Mitchell mourns death of beloved sister but doesn’t attend funeral

Gardai were on alert that the godfather might return to the country for the funeral, which was held in Ballyfermot, Dublin, earlier this week – but he failed to show.

Mitchell has avoided Ireland for years despite the fact that he is not wanted by gardai here, who would simply monitor his movements should he arrive.

Sources say that Mitchell was particularly close to his sister and had remained in constant contact with her as she battled illness.

Her death comes just two years after his brother and close criminal associate Paddy passed away, aged 73, in 2020 – and leaves just two remaining Mitchell siblings, Valeria and Imelda, who have no involvement in crime.

Notoriously private, Mitchell avoids all public events and has issued a ban on photographs of him being used on social media and family pages.

The last time he was snapped was when he was tracked down by a Sunday World investigations team in Germany, where we caught up with him ambling along the street of a sleepy town.

There, we found him with his long-time pal, Dutchman Hermann Xennt, since jailed for his involvement in a former Cold War cyber-bunker, from which he was running sites on the dark net.

While Mitchell was named during Xennt’s trial, he was not charged himself in relation to the bunker, despite a court hearing that he may have put up the money to fund it and that he is suspected to have business interests in the facility.

During the trial it emerged that Mitchell’s phones had been tapped and that he was under surveillance as he meandered around Europe, meeting members of notorious biker gangs and trying to sell an encrypted phone system that he had established.

Mitchell is one of the most wily criminals of his generation. He left Ireland in 1994 before the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and under threat from paramilitaries.

He set up in Amsterdam, where he grew an enormous drugs and weapons operation that he still runs to this day.

In recent years he has become so paranoid about his own health that he has been concentrating on attempts to launder and spread his funds around the globe so he can leave a legacy to his children, wife and partner.

Margaret Mitchell was an extremely popular mum of five with no involvement in organised crime, yet she had retained a very close relationship with her brother over his decades in exile.

Sources say that Mitchell adored Margaret and that the pair chatted regularly on the phone. However, he feared that returning for the funeral would have turned it into a media frenzy.

Two years ago, the service details for the funeral of Paddy Mitchell were not made public after he died at his home in Gallanstown, west Dublin, sparking speculation that The Penguin was going to show up at Mount Jerome Cemetery.

However, despite his close relationship with his older brother, Mitchell stayed away, fearing that he could be photographed by gardai or media at the event.

Paddy was a major criminal in his own right and worked as a right-hand man for his younger brother over decades in Ireland.

He had settled a case with CAB when he sold six of 10 properties he had accrued as a major part of The Penguin’s operation.

Paddy Mitchell moonlighted as a used car salesman and scrap car dealer most of his life, while running his brother’s interests in Ireland and meeting with other criminal gangs they were supplying.

Both brothers were ‘of their generation’ and tried hard to remain under the radar while building up huge amounts of money from drugs.

Despite his wealth, George Mitchell lives a low-key existence moving around Europe.

For the majority of the last two decades he has lived in an ordinary two-bed apartment in Spain while driving a second-hand car.

He speaks to associates in well-established code and shows known of the brash signs of wealth of the current breed of dealers.

Sources say he is first and foremost a family man who dotes on his children and his partner, his former secretary who he met in Holland and who he lives with.