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Sentencing today of Kinahan cartel members for a bizarre and backfired weapon trafficking plot is the latest win for international law enforcement in a relentless hunt of the deadly crime gang.
The Kinahan cartel, described by the US Treasury Department as one of the world’s most dangerous, and comparable to Italy’s Camorra, Mexico’s Los Zetas, and Japan’s Yakuza, is estimated by gardaí to have made more than €1bn from criminality.
It is responsible for at least 18 murders in Ireland. But the gang’s violence has also made it a particular target for law enforcement.
The cartel is being dismantled systematically by national and international law enforcement, with millions of euros offered by the US for information that may lead to its leaders’ arrest and sanctions imposed on their assets, new extradition treaties being formed to help catch them, and police forces working across multiple jurisdictions to end their reign.
Today in the Old Bailey in London, Kinahan crime boss Liam Byrne, who is suspected of running the Kinahan’s Irish operation, was sentenced to five years in prison on weapons charges.
Byrne’s co-accused, Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, who is suspected of running the Kinahan’s UK operation, was sentenced to six years for similar offences.
Kavanagh, 57, is Byrne’s brother-in-law.
From prison, Kavanagh orchestrated a plot to collect a cache of weapons to then give to authorities in a bid to trick them into giving him a lighter prison sentence in a multi-million pound drug smuggling case.
But after French police hacked the encrypted messaging service EncroChat used widely by organised crime, messages about the plot to deceive law enforcement were found and shared with the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Kavanagh was sentenced to 21 years in prison for conspiring to traffic more than €30m of cocaine and cannabis into the UK.
He has now received an additional six years, to be served consecutively with his previous sentence.
Security was so tight that it cost the UK £30,000 per day to bring the Kinahan gang members from Belmarsh prison to court and even involved closing off busy London streets.
The gang, allegedly headed by Christy Kinahan Snr and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jnr, which had tentacles spreading across the world, is now being squeezed into the ever-shrinking corners of the globe where they feel safe from Western authorities.
Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE), once deemed a safe haven for criminals, is now unsafe for the Kinahans as the Irish Government is entering an extradition treaty with the Arab states.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee signed bilateral treaties with the UAE on extradition and mutual legal assistance on Monday.
Christy Snr, Daniel, and Christopher Jnr fled to Dubai from Spain in 2016 to escape possible extradition back to Ireland after gardaí investigating the Hutch-Kinahan feud murders began working with authorities in Spain.
Kinahan cartel heavyweight Sean McGovern, Daniel Kinehan’s right-hand man, is the first Kinahan gang member to be arrested in Dubai.
His extradition back to Ireland under the new agreement is believed to be a test case, or trial run, for extraditing the Kinahan family.
The Kinahans do not currently face charges in Ireland, and charges are necessary before extradition, but files are with the Director of Public Prosecution.
McGovern was charged with the murder of Noel Kirwan and with directing organised crime.
Kirwan’s murder was part of the bloody Kinahan-Hutch feud which began with the murder of Gary Hutch, once a close friend and later an enemy of Daniel Kinahan who is believed to have ordered his murder in Spain.
The Regency Hotel attacks in 2016 are believed to have been ordered as retaliation, where criminals armed with AK-47s and three dressed as gardaí opened fire at a boxing weigh-in and killed David Byrne, brother of Liam Byrne, but who were suspected of targeting Daniel Kinahan.
The Kinahans then targeted the Hutch gang and their associates in a bloody gang war.
The feud led to major garda operations targeting the Kinahans with multiple arrests, some 70 people jailed and the effective dissolution of the Kinahan’s Irish operation, run by Liam Byrne.
The Kinahans were then to come under major international pressure. In 2022, unprecedented US sanctions were imposed on the Kinahan cartel, with $5m also offered for information leading to the arrest of Christy Snr, Daniel, or Christopher Jnr, or to the financial disruption of the gang.
Seven Kinahan cartel members, including Sean McGovern, and three associated businesses were targeted by the sanctions.
“All property and interests in property of the designated individuals or entities that are in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons must be blocked and reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control,” the US Department of the Treasury said following the action.
The worldwide financial sanctions would land “a heavy blow if not a crippling blow” against the Kinahans, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said at the time.
Irish, American, and British law enforcement also launched co-ordinated action against the group.
The international world of organised crime was being targeted by cross-border co-operation between law enforcement.
Christy Kinahan Snr, aged 67 and known as ‘the Dapper Don’, is the alleged leader of the Kinahan cartel.
A scholarly criminal, he learned multiple languages including Spanish, Dutch, and Russian, to aid and grow his criminal enterprises.
He was first jailed in 1987 after pleading guilty to possessing heroin valued at £117,000, and was sentenced to six years.
He used his time in prison to study.
When he was next jailed in 1998 for four years after he was caught with £16,000 in stolen travellers’ cheques, he famously refused early release from prison in 2001 to complete a degree.
He has also been jailed in Holland and Belgium.
He moved to Spain and established suspected international drug trafficking operations through Latin America and North Africa.
He also established suspected connections with Russian mafia. It is now reported that he plans to flea the UAE to Russia before he can be extradited back to Ireland.
His property empire is believed to be worth many hundreds of millions of euros internationally.
Christy’s son, Daniel, 47, is suspected of running the day-to-day operations of his father’s empire.
Daniel tried to launder his reputation by becoming a boxing promoter.
He advised Tyson Fury and is a co-founder of the MTK Global agency, which represents some of boxing’s top fighters.
Daniel claimed to have cut ties with the company in 2017.
Christopher Jnr, 44, was also named by US authorities as a senior Kinahan cartel figure. They allege Christopher is involved in the payment of Kinahan gang members and collaborated to transport and sell drugs.