Crime WorldEpisode 342: The Witness Protection Programme in Northern Ireland
It operates under different legislation in a country divided by a border which may be invisible to criminals, but which is very clear in different policing practices.
But has the North had any more success with evidence given by those on the witness Protection Program than the Republic where the latest signing Jonathan Dowdall is set to disappear into the sunset without achieving anything for the state.
Nicola is joined by the Belfast Telegraph's crime correspondent Alison Morris about the Ulster criminals who broke Omerta and agreed to testify against their own in the courtrooms of Belfast and beyond.
From Killer Brothers Robert and Ian Stewart, to Gary Haggarty, a former commander of the brutal Ulster Volunteer Force, we consider what the taxpayer has got for their money and who are the real winners of a program struggling to survive in the modern era of facial recognition and social media?
