Dale Farm travellers have paid hard cash for multiple legal plots, illegally-built homes and green belt land which councils fear could be developed.

Police sources have also revealed how the force has made inquiries into rumours one man at the site has a £2million bank account.

Oak Lane traveller kingpin John Sheridan has assets of at least £353,000. He has a £10,000 legal plot at Oak Lane and has creamed profits from selling Dale Farm illegal plots to other travellers for £343,500

* Oak Lane traveller John Flynn, known as Farmer, has assets of around £420,000. He has four plots at the legal site plus some of the camp's road network, worth a total of £410,000, and undeveloped green belt near the site costing £10,000.

He used the same London antique shop address as John Sheridan to register some of the land between 1998 and 2004

Dale Farm spokesman Richard Sheridan, also called Richard O'Brien according to fellow spokesman Patrick Egan (also called Patrick Gore), and partner Martina McCarthy have assets of around £67,500 between them

Martina owns a £25,000 illegal plot at Dale Farm and a £30,000 share of undeveloped land at Kennel Lane, Billericay

Basildon Council believes Mr Sheridan has a £12,500 share in £54,000 of undeveloped green belt at Pond Farm, Crays Hill

He is also thought to have links to Wolverhampton, according to travellers and campaigner Grattan Puxon.

The saga behind the Sheridan clan Dale Farm's Sheridan clan has been known to the Government since the 1960s.

Made up of Sheridans, McCarthys, Quilligans, Culligans, Gammells, Slatterys, Heggertys, Flynns, O'Briens, Egans, Gores and Boswells, it is one of the biggest Irish traveller groups, with more than 1,000 members.

Dubbed "highly-mobile business people", they shipped antiques to the USA and branched out into furniture.

The "long-distance traders" based in Wolverhampton, where some have homes, travelled an "orbital" route around the M25.

In the 1980s, the former Department of the Environment commissioned a study of their special needs.

The results were not published, but it was found it may not be possible for them to live on public sites due to problems with local authorities and other gipsies.

It is believed the clan name originated not because of large numbers of Sheridans, but after national newspapers pictured a north London eviction in the 1960s showing their Volvo estates piled high with expensive antique furniture, including a rare 18th-century Sheraton chair.

The nickname the Sheraton clan morphed into Sheridan.

They remain among the most traditional of Irish travellers, still using the dowry system at weddings, and using the age-old language Gammon.

Paper trail leads to proof of links between the camps

The Sheridan clan also has links across the Midlands, including rented commercial property.

In July 2003, John Sheridan, Daniel Sheridan and Patrick Sheridan paid £23,000 cash for land near the Smithy Fen site, Cottenham, registering it to 55 Main Street, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

This is a shopfront owned by Daniel Sheridan, who rents it to motorbike shop DJ Scooters.

Sheridans also live on a site in Mansfield, according to local police.

Dale Farm title deeds list an address in the town and travellers' cars were registered to a redundant antique shop in Chesterfield Road North, Mansfield.

A Spanish tarmac business flyer found near the Smithy Fen site had a Mansfield address with a Cottenham phone box number.

Some travellers are registered with Coventry GPs, and a recent influx of "new faces" to Crays Hill saw a number of travellers taxing Coventry-registered vehicles in the village shop.

They are believed to have links in Gloucestershire, where Danny, Patrick and James O'Brien ran O'Brien Brothers Transport from the Lansdown Industrial Estate in Cheltenham, a business registered to Wolverhampton's Low Hill area.