16 February 16, 2020

GANGLAND: MOB’S SHOCK AS PHOTOS S

POLICEPICSROCKKINAHANCARTEL

NABBED:Ridouan Taghiwas busted inhis apartmentby Dubai cops

POLICE in Dubai and Colombia havereleased images of the high-profilearrests of two of the Netherlands’most wanted men — sending shock-waves through the upper echelonsof the exiled Kinahan cartel.

Both Ridouan Taghi, lifted in a hideoutin the United Arab Emirates, and hisright-hand man Said Razzouki, arrestedin Medellin, Colombia last week, havebeen working with the Kinahan cartelsince 2014.

The pair, who previously ran a brutalMoroccan Mafia, formed a ‘Super Cartel’on the Costa del Sol with the Kinahans,Bosnian trafficker Edin Gacanin and theCamorra crime syndicate.

The images have rocked the Kinahan mobwho have been in exile in Dubai for years,

believing they are safe from European policeforces as no extradition treaty exists withthe UAE.

‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan Snr and hissons Daniel and Christopher Jnr have attempt-ed to make the Gulf their home, with theboys even starting families there in abid to convince Emirati authoritiesto let them stay.

SHOCKED

Sean McGovern, wanted in con-nection with the murder of Noel‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan amongst othercartel crimes, is also hiding outthere.

Sources say that the Kina-

hans were left reeling by the arrest of Taghi,who is wanted in connection with a spree ofmurders in Holland, including that of statelawyer Derk Wiersum.

They were even more shocked that policein Dubai this week released video footage ofTaghi’s hideout in an effort to convince theinternational community of their tough stanceon crime.

At the same time, in another major blow to theSuper Cartel, Taghi’s partner Said Razzouki

was arrested last week in Colombia wherehe was living in squalor trying to pass fora 60-year-old man.

Razzouki was discovered in the cityof Medellin where the original cocainelord Pablo Escobar hid out for years.

Images released by Colombian policeshow Razzouki grey haired and bentover as he is dragged into custody in thesearing heat. Piles of cash were found

in his flat but the criminal appearsdishevelled and neglected in the

images. Taghi was returned to Holland withinthree days of his arrest last December but thisweek police in the Emirates decided to show-case their hard work in finding him.

Dubai has been gaining a reputation in recentyears for being a safe haven for millionairecriminals. However, police there are now anx-ious to portray to their European counterpartsa zero-tolerance attitude.

A video which was released on a Dutch mediasite shows officers proudly showing off the villawhere Taghi had been living like a hermit. In itthey point out a coffee table where fake pass-ports were hidden in the event of the mobsterhaving to make a quick getaway.

SMOKING

Dubai police even released a new photo ofthe 42-year-old taken shortly after his arrestin which he sports a recently-grown beard.They said he was with his girlfriend when hewas nabbed and was discovered after he putEXILE: Daniel Kinahan

Cops release images of most wanted associates of Kinahan mob aEXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

HIGH-PROFILEARREST

N

17February 16, 2020

S SHOW BEDRAGGLED THUGS IN CUSTODY

CRACK cocaine dealer Andrew Goonery has stepped up asone of the Byrne Organised Crime Gang’s (BOCG) most sig-nificant lieutenants left to secure their drug business here.

The former soccer coach — who was caught trying toget rid of coke during a garda raid in 2009 — has risenup the ranks since the demise of the gang, who were keytargets of a major crackdown on the Kinahan cartel andtheir associates.

The BOCG has been dealt blow after blow following themurder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel attack in 2016.

They have been targets of the Criminal Assets Bureaualong with the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureauand the National Crime Agency in the UK.

The structure of the gang was laid bare in documentsput before the High Court as they attempted to fight CABproceedings which were later settled.

Goonery, from Clondalkin, west Dublin, had been a lowlyassociate of BOCG boss Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanaghfor years but since the break-up of the mob he has beenelevated in importance.

PHONES

In 2009 he and pal Darren Boylan were given five-yearsentences on appeal after they were caught with drugs.

The pair pleaded guilty to possessing €45,000 worth ofdrugs for sale and supply at a flat in Palmerstown.

During a raid of the apartment, gardai found almost€3,000 stuffed down Goonery’s boxer shorts. As theyforced their way into the building, he was seen throwingitems off the balcony which turned out to be a quantity ofcrack cocaine, two mobile phones and digital weighingscales. Boylan was seen in the kitchen trying to flush morecrack cocaine down the sink.

At the time, Goonery was a volunteer in a local soccerclub while Boylan was working in a programme targetingyoung people at risk of getting involved in drug use.

They were initially given a three-year sentence which wasincreased on appeal to seven years with two suspended.

This week, the garda offensive continued with the arrestof a man suspected of being the BOCG bag-man in Ireland.

The 41-year-old, who was arrested when two vehicleswere intercepted on the Naas Road, has been a long timeassociate of Liam Byrne, who is now based in Tamworthin Birmingham.

He had previously been stopped with more than €4,000in cash as he was about to board a flight to Ibiza.

It is understood that he has also seen his status andimportance increase in the mob since they were put underpressure by the gardai.

SOCCERCOACH’SRISE UPRANKS

COKE DEALER: Andrew Goonery has stepped up

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

READ CRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR NICOLA TALLANT EVERY WEEK

out a bin which stank and drew the attentionof concerned neighbours.

Nieuwsuur TV cameras were invited by thepolice into the villa and shown how he wasdrinking a glass of red wine and smokingcigarettes when the arrest team burst in.

They said he tried to run but was pinned tothe floor. Dubai police chief Jamal al Jallafsaid that information leading to his arrest didnot come via the Netherlands but through hisown department’s painstaking work.

Dutch police say that Taghi was at the top ofa criminal organisation which has also beenlinked to Noafal Fassih — arrested in Dublin ina Kinahan safehouse — and the Chilean drugtrafficker known as ‘El Rico’, who was arrestedin Santiago in 2018.

Already, Taghi’s lawyer, Inez Weski, hasindicated that the circumstances of his arrestand deportation to Holland will form partof the defence argument in his much antic-ipated up-coming ‘Marengo’ trial involving17 suspects accused of various murders and

attempted murders.Colombian authorities are likely to return

Razzouki in the coming months where he toowill form part of the ‘Marengo’ trial. He wasfound in an apartment in Medellin which wasreported to be filthy and smelling of smoke.

The Moroccan mafia are understood tohave been involved in hash smuggling forgenerations but in the past decades bothTaghi and Razzouki decided to move intococaine, moving thousands of kilos per monthvia Morocco and Spain to the Netherlands.

SMUGGLERS

It was the trade in cocaine which led DanielKinahan to the gang around 2014 when hetook over his father’s business on the Costadel Sol and before a huge rift within the cartelled the Hutch and Kinahan factions to war.

Officers believe that the murder of SamirBouyakhrichan — once one of Europe’s big-gest cocaine smugglers — is central to the

Moroccan and Irish mafia link-up.Bouyakhrichan, nicknamed Scarface, was

shot dead in a Benahavis restaurant by askilled hitman who officers suspect may havebeen provided by the Kinahan outfit. Daysafter his shooting rocked organised crimegangs, Dublin drug dealer Gerard ‘Hatchet’Kavanagh was shot dead in a Marbella bar.

The ripple effect of the Scarface murder wasmassive. Fassih, who was with him in the restau-rant and put his arm around him minutes beforea hitman burst in, was forced to go into hidingand was discovered in Dublin by gardai in 2017.

The overweight Moroccan was identi-fied after officers contacted Europol anddiscovered that he was one of Holland’s mostwanted.

A plan to break him out of Mountjoy jail wasaverted after officers received intelligencethat El Rico had put together a team and wasorganising his escape. He was transferredback to Holland where he was jailed for 18years for his role in an attempted murder.

HAUL:Cops seizedphonesand otherequipment

ARMEDFORCES:Dubai policeare comingdown hard

DISGUISE: Said Razzouki was lifted inMedellin after posing as a down-and-out

mob after shock busts in Emirates and Colombia

N

24 March 29, 2020

RINGLEADER: CARTEL BOSS BACKS BOXING

DON KING

DANIEL KINAHAN’S massive egoand desperation for recognitionis behind a recent spate of socialmedia adoration by top coachesand boxers from the MTK stable.

Kinahan was forced to step asidefrom the boxing promotions labelwhich he founded in Spain becauseof his damaging reputation as amajor drug trafficker.

But sources say he has been gag-ging to take credit for the successof boxers and the company whichrepresents Michael Conlon, CarlFrampton and even superstarTyson Fury.

“Daniel Kinahan’s massive egoand narcissistic personality dictateseverything he does. He literally can-not stay away from the limelight. Hewants to claim all the success of thecompany MTK which he claims tohave walked away from,” a sourcesaid.

“He has been hiding out in Dubai for yearsnow and he must have been chomping at thebit for all these boxers to declare how won-derful he is. If ever there was a person laidbare this is it.”

Kinahan has been in exile and in hiding inDubai since 2017 when he fled Spain

as European police joined forcesagainst his father Christy Kina-

han’s Cartel.

SHADOWS

Since then business-woman Sandra Vaughan,who once owned FakeBake tanning, an-nounced that she hadbought out the companyand moved its headquar-ters to Dubai. She said

Daniel Kinahan would nolonger have anything to dowith the brand.But this week Kinahan

stepped out of the shadows topose for a photo-

graph withMTK’s

lat-

est signing, boxer Darren Till and thelabel’s new advisor in the Kingdom ofBahrain and greater Gulf, Mohamed BinMansoor Al Arayedh. The photograph wasspotted by The Irish Sun and run on its sitedetailing Kinahan’s links to organised crime.

But the report was met with a chorus ofsupport for Kinahan from his boxing “fam-ily” including Vaughan’s husband DannyVaughan.

In a post on his Instagram site he gushed:“When the world is in Crisis and thousandsof people are dying the ‘Scum Sun’ wants tocontinue to write bullshit...who gives a f**kwho knows who. I am proud to be a very goodfriend of Daniel Kinahan he has changedthe lives of many boxers/trainers with hisadvice and his vast boxing knowledge and Ihope he continues for a long time. Well done@darrentill2 @saundersbillyjoe time to standup to these scumbags.” Vaughan went on tohashtag the newspaper as “ratbastards”.

MMA star Till, who signed with MTK in 2017and who trains along with Gypsy King TysonFury, reacted but tried to distance Kinahanfrom the boxing company again.

“Yes I am friends with Daniel Kinahan..andwhat? I’ve never hidden this friendship andwhy should I when the man has given me morevaluable advice as a friend than anyone I’veever met in a professional capacity.

“I’ve been friends with Dan for years andyears long before I ever joined MTK Global

so why would it automatically be pre-sumed the two are linked. There arethousands of people dying all over the

world right now, people losing theirjobs and struggling to keep a roof

over their heads and put foodon the table and this is news?

“These journalists who

are harassing me right now for a statementand writing lies and hatred in an effort tomake this news need to take a long hard lookat themselves and ask what they are reallycontributing to the world.”

His comments were liked by an army of MTKboxers including Kofi Yates and Billy Joe Saun-ders who said he couldn’t understand why mediawouldn’t “put all the good his (sic) done for a lotof people” in the news.

Saunders posted a picture of Kinahan withIrish Olympic star Paddy Barnes in a separatepost describing him as a friend who “gave megreat advice moving up in the ranks. Danielhas done a lot of good and helped people in alot of ways but they won’t print that”.

PRAISED

Boxer Derry Mathews gushed: “One of thebest fellas could meet, absolute diamone heis.” Declan Geraghty agreed: “100”.

Last year Kinahan was praised by MTKGlobal president Bob Yalen during a pod-cast interview in which he also announcedthat the company’s ban on Irish media hadbeen lifted.

Yalen praised Kinahan for his work in thesport saying he “perfectly understood” whyhe had stepped away from the company.

“The Irish press made a big deal of DanielKinahan’s involvement...he agreed to stepaside and he perfectly understood what theissues were.

“In fairness to Daniel, I’ve met very fewpeople who have a fighter’s best interest atheart more than Daniel Kinahan.”

Paddy Barnes also defended Kinahan in recentyears after signing to MTK.

Kinahan remains the top target of the Gar-da’s National Drugs and Organised CrimeBureau who say he is at the very top of theKinahan Cartel.

Gangster Kinahan seeks credit for MTK boxing successBY NICOLA TALLANT

HEAVYHITTERS:World champTyson Fury isrepresented byMTK stable

KEEN TO BESEEN: DanielKinahan at thewin of MichaelConlan (right)with PaddyBarnes (farright); withOlympic starBarnes (below)

GAGGING FORCREDIT: (From left)fighter Darren Till,Mohamed Bin Man-soor Al Arayedh andDaniel Kinahan

24 April 5, 2020 N

CARTEL: NOTORIOUS GANG BOSS DANIEL’S N

Kinahan’s top man, Barry Doyle, trying to keep peaceas praise heaped on boss while others languish in jail

GANGSTERMOB boss Daniel Kinahan’sattempts to pass himself offas a respectable business-man has not gone down wellwith his ‘prison family’ whoare raging at plaudits beingshowered on him by hisboxing pals and a ridiculousrap video about his plight.

It isunderstoodthatKinahan’stop man in jail, convicted killerBarry Doyle, has been tryingto keep calm among the jailedmobsters, many of whom feelthey are doing life for Kinahanwhile he is living it up on theoutside and whingeing that hehas been badly treated.

Tensions are rising behind barssince Kinahan first popped hishead up in Dubai to a chorus ofpraise from boxers in his ‘former’MTK stable.

SHADOWS

A video released this week by awell-known rapper telling the tragicstory of the criminal’s fight againstthe authorities was greeted withshock, sources say.

It is understood that Kinahan’sattempts to step back into the boxinglimelight may have backfired at thefirst hurdle as loyalty wanes in jailswhere more than 40 members of hismob are imprisoned and now facingtight restrictions due to Covid-19.

A smiling picture of Daniel Kinahanfirst appeared last week when he steppedout of the shadows to pose with MTK’slatest signing, yet another new memberof the promotion company’s staff in theGulf along with boxer Darren Till.

It was met with posts of approvaland in particular from coach Dan-ny Vaughan — whose wife SandraVaughan says she owns and runs MTKGlobal after buying it from Kinahanand his former partner Matthew

Macklin.Danny Vaughan posted about Kina-

han: “He has changed the lives ofmany boxers/trainers with his adviceand his vast boxing knowledge andI hope he continues for a long time.”

A plethora of boxers and coachesfrom the MTK stable weighed in,including ex-con Herbert Marvin whosurvived a shooting attempt, coachJamie Moore, who was himself shot

in Kinahan’s front garden, and boxerDeclan Geraghty.

MTK have previously denied thatDaniel Kinahan has any involvmentwith the company.

STARDOM

Sources close to Kinahan’s innercircle say he has got fed up in hidingand wants to line out in support of hisboxing friends and former protégées

as many rise to stardom worldwide.However, this has been seen as a

total disregard for his ‘prison family’,many of whom have families survivingon a cartel wage and who are begin-ning to feel used.

“They are none too happy in the jails,none at all,” a source said. “It was onlya matter of time before they becamedisgruntled and this has really done it.”

This week, a bizarre rap video by

UK underground star J Spades toldthe story of Daniel Kinahan featuringfootage of the Regency Hotel boxingweigh-in and photographs taken bythe Sunday World on the day of DavidByrne’s murder.

Posted by boxer Billy Joe Saunders,only recently forced to apologise to vic-tims of domestic violence over a videohe shot, the song entitled ‘Major Plans’names Kinahan and appears to accuse

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

OUT OF HIDING

SINGING HISPRAISES:Rapper JSpades’ singsof ‘injustices’done to DanielKinahan

LORDS OF THE RING: Mat-thew Macklin and Jamie

Conlan, who have noinvolvement in crime, with

Daniel Kinahan

MURDER:Gunmenfleeing theshotting atthe RegencyHotel

25April 5, 2020

GANGSTER’S moll Anita Freemanhas been marooned in Ireland due toCovid-19 after she returned last week tobe with her ill mother.

The partner of Daniel Kinahan’s right-hand man Sean McGovern was caughthere when the United Arab Emiratesclosed its borders to everyone exceptits own citizens. Freeman is unlikely togain access back to the Cartel boltholeuntil at least May.

The blonde from Crumlin had flownhome to say goodbye to her belovedmother who was buried under strictCovid-19 funeral guidelines after shedied at Harold’s Cross Hospice followingan illness.

The family had to observe the new10-person funeral rules invoked in orderto stop the spread of the deadly virus.

Despite the family tragedy, McGoverncould not accompany his partner orcomfort her during her loss. He hadto remain in exile in the United ArabEmirates rather than return home to facequestioning regarding his whereaboutsduring the murder of Noel ‘Duck Egg’Kirwan and other serious crimes.

McGovern isDanielKinahan’sright-handman and one of Ireland’s most wanted.

In a family notice, mourners weretold that a small service would be heldand asked friends and family to taketime to light a candle and think of MrsFreeman. “We will have a celebration ofDeirdre’s life with family and friends indue course,” the notice stated.

McGovern is understood to have beenworking under the direction of the mobboss before he fled the country after theDecember 2016 shooting of Kirwan inthe driveway of his Dublin home.

He and partner Anita, along with theirchildren, have been among a chosenfew given safe passage and refuge inDubai where the mob’s top tier havebeen living ever since the war brokeout within the cartel ranks, leading to18 murders and countless arrests andincarcerations of gang members.

Anita Freeman is expected to returnto Dubai, although sources say shedesperately misses home.

The blonde mum of two has alreadylost her Crumlin home to the CriminalAssets Bureau and her future looksless and less certain in the United ArabEmirates after authorities there handedover a wanted mobster to Dutch policedespite there being no extradition treatyin place.

McGovern is second only to Kinahanon a list of the gardaí’s most wantedout of the sun-drenched bolthole andofficers have been working tirelesslywith their international counterparts tobuild the case against them.

Freeman has been in the companyof gangland figures since she was justa teenager.

She was present the night Brian Rat-tigan stabbed Declan Gavin to deathat an Abrakebabra in Crumlin in 2001— an incident which directly led to thebrutal Crumlin and Drimnagh feud.

As Rattigan formed one side of a fac-tion and convicted murderer ‘Fat’ Fred-die Thompson led the other, Freemanbegan a relationship with McGovern,who was close friends with Liam Byrneand seen as part of the extended family.

She formed a social circle with schoolpals Kelly Quinn, the former partnerof murdered David Byrne, and Liam’spartner Simoan McEnroe.

Together the three socialised, holi-dayed and shopped together, enjoyingtheir position as Crumlin’s top molls.

All three were later named in theCriminal Assets Bureau proceedingsagainst the Byrne Organised CrimeGang. Each went on to have kids andlived in trophy homes in the Crumlinarea, where they had grown up andwhere their partners led the drugs moblinked with the Kinahan cartel.

Since the murder of David Byrne bothFreeman and McEnroe have lost theirhomes while Kelly Quinn remains in hersas part of a settlement with the CAB.

EXILE: SeanMcGovern andAnita Freemanfled to the UAEafter Noel Kirwan’smurder in 2016

PALS: Byrne and McGovern (top)and McEnroe, Freeman and Quinn

S NEW VIDEO LEAVES INMATES IN SHOCK

Gangster’smoll fleesboltholefor mum’sfuneral...

N

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

RAP

the media and police of covering up theattempt to murder him.

In an accompanying tweet, Saundersquipped: “An attack on boxing is anattack on all of us. 4 years since aman was killed and 2 others seriouslyinjured at a boxing event in front ofchildren. The police, government andmedia have a lot to answer for.” TheUK boxer’s tweet is accompanied with#TruthAboutRegency.

Saunders — a former Olympic sports-

man — is one of MTK’s top stars. On hisprofile page he is described as: “One ofthe most naturally gifted fighters onearth, Saunders was always going toexcel under the technical demands ofamateur boxing.”

MTK Global has expanded into terri-tories all over the world since Kinahanstepped aside and the promotions com-pany is now up there with the biggest inthe world, sharing a stage with famedBob Arum in the US among others.

READ CRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR NICOLA TALLANT EVERY WEEK

FEUD: GerryHutch (left)and ChristyKinahan

ARREST:Daniel Kinahanbeing broughtfrom a Spanishcourt in 2010

BOXING TRIUMPH: Daniel Kinahan withJamie Conlon and Paddy Barnes

38 April 26, 2020 N

GARDAI HELP FOREIGN POLICE TO

DUTCH CRACK CRIMELINEGerry:Asong ofsolidarity

HIT: Gerry Marsden

THE frontmanof Gerry and thePacemakers hasrecorded a new ver-sion of the band’smega-hit You’llNever Walk Alone.

The new versioncomes with a musicvideo featuringsinger Gerry Mars-den and messagesabout the NHSstaff in the UK.

You’ll NeverWalk Alone hasenjoyed a resur-gence duringthe coronaviruspandemic after acover of the songfeaturing 99-year-old Captain TomMoore reachednumber one in theUK singles chart.

Marsden said hewas “delighted” tobe involved withthe project.

He added: “Thisis about solidarityand shows what canhappen when youcall a few friends.”

Stephen Ed-wards, creativedirector of PlanetBroken Blueprint,who came up withthe project, said“It’s a song of soli-darity.

“No money isbeing asked for. Wewant people shar-ing it and singing itas loud as possiblefrom their frontdoors.”

BY NEILFETHERSTON

CYBER-CRIME experts in theNetherlands have recovereddetails about gangland murdersand drug shipments from anencrypted phone seized by gar-dai when they raided a KinahanCartel safehouse in Dublin fouryears ago.

Details of some of the messageswere revealed in a Dutch courtthis month in a hearing involvingKinahan-linked mobster Ricardo‘El Rico’ Riquelme Vega.

The Chilean thug is due to standtrial in June for charg-es including drugtrafficking, mon-ey laundering andthe running of acriminal organisa-tion.

The PGP (preetygood privacy) Black-berry was discoveredby gardai when theyarrested Dutch-Ar-ab gangster NaoufalFassih, who had beenhiding out at the Kina-han safehouse on Bag-got Street in Dublin inApril 2016.

Fassih, a closeassociate ofalleged Moroccan-Dutchcrime boss RidouanTaghi — who is alsoawaiting trial in theNetherlands on gangcharges — was extraditedto the Netherlands afterhis arrest here and hassince been sentenced tolife for his involvement inmurder and gun attacks.

Law enforcement

agencies believe Taghi, Fassih and ElRico joined forces with the Kinahancartel, Camorra boss Raffaele Imperialeand Bosnian trafficker Edin Gacanin toform a “super-cartel”.

Members of the cartel are under in-vestigation by law agencies around theworld, including the US Drug Enforce-ment Agency.

Now, authorities have managed toaccess various encrypted con-

versations between playersin the cartel, with the latestmessages only uncovered lastmonth.

ERASED

A Dutch court recentlyheard that the Netherlands’Forensic Institute finallymanaged to recover deletedmessages on Fassih’s phoneon March 16 this year —almost four years after hisarrest. The court heard hehad erased the messages butthe forensic experts wereable to recover the data.

Prosecutors believe themessages confirm El Ricowas a leading member ofan international criminalorganisation and that therecovered conversations showhim and Fassih taking aboutunderworld killings.

They say that in one mes-sage on March 14, 2016, thetwo men discuss ‘500 kilos’and also talk about howthey are going to ‘deliverthat snake’, referring to a

man named in court as Jalal el A. Themessages revealed there was a plan to“kidnap him” there “in colo” — referringto Colombia.

It is believed Jalal el A has connections toDutchman Karim Bouyakhrichan whosebrother Samir ‘Scarface’ Bouyakhrichan wasmurdered after a set-up in Spain in August2014 while in the company of Fassih, who issuspected of setting up the murder.

Scarface was a major drug baron whohad based himself in Spain and author-ities suspect a Kinahan gunman pulledthe trigger in the hit.

The murder is believed to have helpedcement the relationship between El Ricoand the Kinahan cartel, who formed analliance to run a major international drugtrafficking syndicate.

After the murder, associates of Bouy-akhrichan became embroiled in a gangwar with Fassih and his associates, in-cluding his alleged boss Ridouan Taghi

Taghi was extradited from Dubai lastyear and is awaiting trial in the Nether-lands on a number of charges includingmurder.

Meanwhile, the Dutch court also be-lieves El Rico sent a message to Fassihfrom Camorra drug baron boss RaffaeleImperiale.

The Italian criminal was sentenced to18 years in his absence in a Dutch courtwhich found him guilty of drug traffick-ing – he is believed to have fled to Dubai.

Prosecutors allege Imperiale, who operatedin Amsterdam for years, worked closely withEl Rico and Taghi.

Dutch investigators believe El Rico,Imperiale and other associates hadjointly targeted Karim Bouyakhrichanin a murder plot.

They believe Imperiale messaged El

EXCLUSIVEBY ALAN SHERRY

CARTEL: (From top) RidouanTaghi, Raffaele Imperiale andRicardo ‘El Rico’ Riquelme Vega

Messages uncovered four yearsafter raid on Kinahan safehouseshow links to ‘super cartel’ group

39April 26, 2020N

BUILD COURT CASE AGAINST ‘EL RICO’

DUTCH CRACK CRIMELINE

}One phonemessageread ‘Sir, askHermanowhat top ofthe line stuffcosts inGuyana’~

ARRESTS:Christy Kinahan

is lifted and(right) NaoufalFassih, who

was sentdown for 18

years after hisextradition from

Ireland

Rico the location where Bouyakhrichanwould exercise four times a week and howhe would have food at a bar afterwards.Prosecutors have asked El Rico to explainthe messages but he did not answer que-ries in relation to them when he appearedin court this month.

NICKNAME

They say they believe that on March25, 2016, El Rico sent a message to Fassihfrom which “it can be deduced” he wantssomeone killed, referring to them as a“cancer rat”.

Prosecutors told the court they would like tohear El Rico’s explanation for the message ifit did not relate to plotting a murder.

In another message sent from Fassih’sphone just before gardai raided the Kina-han safe house, he allegedly passed on amessage from Taghi to El Rico saying: “Sir[Taghi’s nickname] ask Hermano [Rico’snickname] what top-of-the-line stuff costsin Guyana!”

Prosecutors believe the messages con-firm El Rico, Taghi and Fassih formed atriumvirate.

El Rico’s lawyer, Leon van Kleef, argued

that prosecutors put forward a “dubioushypothesis” that the three men wereleading the organisation and added thatprosecutors wrongly draw all kinds of con-clusions from fragments of conversations.He added that it had not been proven thatthe suspects sent the messages.

Colombian authorities arrested Taghi asso-ciate Said Razzouki in March after receivinghelp tracking him down by the DEA and FBI.He is wanted in the Netherlands on drugs,murder and terrorism charges.

Both he and Taghi are facing charges inrelation to five murders.

Fassih was extradited from Ireland andwas later sentenced to 18 years behindbars for ordering a gun attack on Dutchgangland enforcer Peter Raap, who sur-vived the shooting.

He was subsequently jailed for life fororganising the December 2015 murder ofMohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi, an Ira-nian dissident living in the Netherlands.

Samadi was convicted in absentia of the1981 bombing of Iran’s Islamic RepublicParty headquarters, which claimed 73lives.

DUE FOR TRIAL: Richard Eduardo Riquelme Vega, or ‘El Rico’, at an airport in Chile

CHARGES:El Rio is takento court inAmsterdam

18 May 17, 2020 N

HEAVYWEIGHT A

DRUG LORD OFADVISOR ROLE:Boxing giantBob Arum withDaniel Kinahan

May 17, 2020

DRUG LORD OF MTK BOXING

MOB boss Daniel Kinahanhas been crowned thePoison Prince of the MiddleEast after promising toflood the oil rich nationswith US boxing dollars.

But as his friends come outfighting against his toxicreputation as the head of the‘murderous’ Kinahan Organ-ised Crime Gang, senior lawenforcement sources say hehas made a final, fatal errorin believing his own lies.

In an extraordinary week,Kinahan was named as the new ad-visor to a sport company backed byBahrain’s royal family and namedby US boxing giant Bob Arum asthe powerbroker fixing the biggestmatch in history between TysonFury and Anthony Joshua.

But instead of being able to enjoyhis new-found fame, Kinahan andhis army of devotees have had to putthe gloves on to insist that he prize-fight material – and to distance himfrom his drug dealing empire andfrom the 15 murders in Dublin inthe past five years that have come onthe back of the Kinahan-Hutch feud.

Cheerleader Sandra Vaughan,the businesswoman who boughthis MTK business and claimed shehad cut all business ties with themob boss, says Ireland should beproud of him.

FAMILY

Vaughan, who threatened legalaction on anyone who linked herbusiness with Kinahan, said Irelandshould be proud of the mob boss andrecognise that he is making boxinghistory.

“I want to explain the situationabout who he is to me. I’ve knownhim for 20 years. I am personalfriends with his wife [gangland wid-ow Caoimhe Robinson]. My husbandDanny is great friends with him. Iknow the kids and they are a creditto him. They are an amazing familyand anyone that knows him knowshow he is an astute businessman.

“I would go to him for advice onanything and have done so, not justabout MTK, but also about otherbusiness interests I have had. Eventhough he is a lot younger than me heis a lot wiser than I am.

“Whether the Irish media likeit or not, he is now one of the mostpowerful men in boxing and combatsport. They really need to suck it up.

They write about crazy stuff andit’s insane. They are going to have toacknowledge at some point that peo-ple like Bob Arum and the Princeof Bahrain... that it all happensbecause of Daniel Kinahan. At somepoint, would you not be proud thatsomeone from inner-city Dublin issitting at a table with that level ofthe organisation?

Vaughan goes on to state: “He ismaking history, making fights. Heis amongst all that. Would you notbe proud of that? That someone out

of the inner city has made a hugesuccess. That is a fact.”

Vaughan, the former ‘Fake Bake’tan queen, said that Ireland was alaw unto itself and that she had toset out her position for the Irish inan ‘idiots guide’.

The interview was screened oniFLTV, a streaming channel for hercompany MTK.

During the conversation she ad-

mitted that Daniel Kinahan hadbrought boxing giant Tyson Fury toMTK — but claimed that no moneyexchanged hands and that the drugboss had introduced them for free.

JOKE

“Daniel is an advisor to Bob Arum,that’s the reason we [MTK] manageto get dates for ESPN. He gave methe introduction to Top Rank [Ar-

um’s promotion company]. He wantsMTK to do well. He was founder butall that was taken away from him.He has stepped away, he is his ownperson.”

Vaughan said that the Irish mediareporting on Daniel Kinahan is a“standing joke”.

This week in the Special CriminalCourt Daniel’s ‘Kinahan OrganisedCrime Group’ (KOCG) was named

as a ‘murderous’ organised crimeoutfit which had directed a plannedassassination on Gerry ‘the Monk’Hutch’s brother Patsy, which wasbusted by cops.

The KOCG has been named anumber of times in Irish courtsas being at the very top of globalorganised crime and being respon-sible for massive drug and weaponsimportation into Ireland.

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANTCRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR DONE DEAL

n Kinahan vows to bring millions into UAE fromboxing audience revenue but police are on alert

19May 17, 2020

BIG BUSINESS:Bob Arum withboxer Tyson Fury,who is set to fightAnthony Joshua

N

T ATTENTION ON HEAD OF THE CARTEL

LORD OF RINGS}Whether theIrish media likeit or not he isnow one of themost powerfulmen in boxingand combatsport. They

really need tosuck it up~

}Kinahan hasmade the fatalerror now of

believing his ownhype.. He has

lost touch withreality – hebelieves he

deserves this~

INTERVIEW:Sandra Vaughanis now the CEO ofMTK, foundedby Kinahan

KINAHAN RISES FROM THE ASHES IN THE FIGHT GAME SEE PAGES 20&21

THE

SUPPORTER

Kinahan was himself namedduring the murder trial of his friendJames Quinn of having ordered theshooting of Gary Hutch in Spainin 2015.

Quinn was jailed for more than 20years and was described as Kina-han’s personal hitman.

But despite Kinahan’s well-publi-cised involvement in the criminlalunderworld, Vaughan said that the

negative media coverage in Irelandis too negative. “They [media] arethe butt of Irish jokes. That is whypeople make jokes about the Irish,”she said.

FURORE

“They even contradict themselves.It’s not journalism. When I first tookover I found the Irish [media] was toonegative and it took up too much of

my time. We are too busy for that.”In a recent interview, legendary

fight promoter Arum said he admiredKinahan, who he referred to as ‘TheCaptain’ and said his influence in thesport was “tremendous because peopletrust him”.

But behind the furore and theheadlines many believe that Kina-han has made a huge mistake inpromising to bring an avalanche

of US dollars in audience revenueto Bahrain and the United ArabEmirates in pay per view fight ex-travaganzas.

Sources say he has unwittingly un-leashed a fresh wave of war againsthim as police forces, including theUS Drug Enforcement Agency, vowto redouble their efforts now thingshave become political.

Kinahan remains the top target of

the Irish Drugs and Organised CrimeBureau and other European policeforces who have been hampered intheir efforts at returning him toface justice from the United ArabEmirates.

A senior source said: “Kinahan hasmade the fatal error now of believinghis own hype.

“He has surrounded himself withpeople on his payroll who have toagree with everything he says.

“He has lost touch with reality. Hebelieves he deserves this and thateverything that has gone beforeshould be set aside.

“It doesn’t work that way. The DEAhave really sat up and taken noticenow. Watch this space.”

n Supporters clamour to distance him from drugempire and murders associated with Hutch feud

GREAT PALS:Daniel Kinahanwith formerprofessionalfighter MatthewMacklin (right).The former boxerhas no involve-ment in crime

20 May 17, 2020 N

ROUND TWO FO

DANIEL’SBROKENDREAMS

May 17, 2020

DANIEL’S MTK BOXING

IN the summer of 2013 theSunday World sent a teaminto the heart of KinahanCartel HQ, then located inthe south of Spain.

The mission was to uncoverhow the Irish mob had risenfrom the ashes following amulti-agency offensive knownas ‘Operation Shovel’.

Carried out in a blaze of pub-licity three years previously, itwas widely claimed the policebust had brought an end to theirreign as one of the leading drugsand weapons suppliers in Europe.

It’s hard to believe it is just sevenyears since we stood on the outskirtsof the millionaire’s playground ofPuerto Banus on the Costa del Soland gazed curiously at what lookedlike an underground car park.

Our investigations had brought usto what we would later discover wasthe beginning of Daniel Kinahan’sdream, one that has been dashedand rebuilt and which now seemsto be almost within reach. The carpark was in fact MGM — a smallgym which would rise to globalprominence in a few short years.

Our investigation in 2013 borefruit. We photographed the ‘DapperDon’, Christy Kinahan, eating fishat a waterside sushi bar, we linkedhis mob to some big internationalplayers and even wrote how they hada direct line to the Columbia cartels.They were becoming a monster, wewarned.

CELEBRITY

Daniel’s gym, which he would laterproudly say he founded with theboxer Matthew Macklin – who has noinvolvement in crime – seemed likean aside, a hobby for the privilegedson of the ageing drug lord.

Daniel liked to box himself andwould often take to the ring in frontof crowds attending MGM-spon-sored white-collar charity events.Everyone cheered no matter howhe performed.

Things didn’t look so silly as thereputaion of MGM grew and beganto host a range of boxing and sport-ing stars at the facility.

They courted celebrity, witheveryone from former world champFrank Bruno to innocent boxers likeKatie Taylor, invited to go and trainat the gym.

Boxer after boxer signed up, temptedby the money, the opportunities andthe lifestyle that no other promotercould afford to offer them.

Then in 2016 it all went wrong.Just as Kinahan was about to makehis name as a boxing promoter be-fore his gym’s first Irish homecom-ing – entitled Clash of the Clans – anold foe re-surfaced ruined it all.

On a February afternoon in theRegency Hotel the sound of gun-shots signalled the end of Daniel’sdream as he shot to internationalstardom for all the wrong reasons.

Images of mob lieutenant DavidByrne’s bullet-ridden body wentout across the world as his body layslumped in the hotel reception, avictim of an internal dispute thathad broken out within the gang andhad already resulted in the murderof Kinahan’s one-time best friend,Gary Hutch.

A Spanish court would later hearthe hitman used in that shootingwas ordered by Daniel Kinahan tocarry out the assassination.

In the mayhem that followed, theSunday World reported murder aftermurder as the Kinahan mob doledout bloody and brutal revenge forthe botched murder attempt byHutch associates.

But while the anger of DanielKinahan played out on the streets ofDublin, his dreams were shattered in

a way he could never have imaginedas his name became toxic to the sportthat he loved and to the company hehad nurtured into a giant.

MGM soon changed name to MTKand it was finally announced thatKinahan had stepped away and hadsold his baby to the highest bidder— a businesswoman called SandraVaughan who once headed Fake Baketanning products.

Vaughan was no stranger as shewas married to Danny Vaughan,Kinahan’s top trainer in Marbellaand one of his best friends.

SHADOWS

As Spanish police raided thePuerto Banus premises, Kinahanheaded for Dubai where he wasgiven refuge by authorities in theUnited Arab Emirates.

MTK refinanced and the com-pany, now alleged to be operatingcompletely independently, followedout to Dubai where it was registeredin a new HQ.

As Kinahan remained in theshadows, terrified to leave Dubaiand fully aware that there wouldbe no more chances should a hitmanget near, MTK continued to grow atan eye watering rate.

By last year, 100 boxers, includingsome of our best-known Irish stars,were signed up to the company.

All were careful not to mentionDaniel Kinahan on their socialmedia and MTK sent out a raft ofletters threatening legal actionshould anyone suggest he was stillpart of the company.

US boxing great Bob Yalen washired. He denied Daniel Kinahan

n Regency Hotelshooting halteddreams of makingit big with MGMgym in Marbella

n Kinahanslippedinto shadows asbusiness boughtby tan queen ...but now he’s back

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

CUFFED:DanielKinahan wasarrested inSpain in 2010

22 May 24, 2020 N

KNOCKOUT: CARTEL BO

BOUT WITH THE OLD& KIN WITH THE NEn ‘12 disciples’ will be left behindas mobster aims to join boxing elite

HE is hoping to become thenext Don King of boxing butif Daniel Kinahan wantsto get in the ring with thebig boys he will have toleave his most dedicatedfollowers behind.

Just like the guru he be-lieves himself to be, Kinahanhas a tight inner circle ofcloses associates who he seesas his 12 disciples.

Together they are suspected ofholding key executive positionsin Kinahan Inc and many haveclawed their way up the ranksthrough hard graft and unques-tioning loyalty to the boss.

Just like his father before him,Daniel Kinahan has structured hismob just like an ordinary business– with himself at the top of the treein the role of chief executive.

Underneath him and by his side inDubai is his drugs and operationsman Sean McGovern. Originallyfrom Crumlin and once the bestfriend of Kinahan’s underling LiamByrne, McGovern quietly forged aplace for himself at the top tableunbeknownst to many.

When he and his partner, AnitaFreeman, and family were wel-comed into the United Arab Emir-

ates and set upby Kinahan,many eyebrowswere raised —none more sothan those ofThomas ‘Bomb-er’ Kavanaghwho had runa campaignof violenceon behalf ofKinahan in Ire-land followingthe RegencyHotel attackand has subse-quently beenbrought downby it.

VIOLENCE

McGovernhad grownup with theByrnes and was

like part of thefamily in their

Raleigh Square stronghold – buthe was the only one of the Crumlinmob afforded Kinahan’s specialtreatment.

In Dubai McGovern runs a num-ber of key drugs routes for Kinahanwhile the boss concentrates on hissporting career.

Another of Kinahan’s key lieuten-ants is his cousin Ian Dixon, who wasarrested along with James Quinn forthe murder of Gary Hutch in Spain.When Daniel fled the Costa, Quinnwas brought before the courts butDixon was released pending inves-tigation.

He quickly moved out to join Kina-han in Dubai while Quinn facedcourt alone. Quinn, a childhoodfriend of the Cartel boss, was alsohis personal hitman in Spain andlived it up with private yachts andplush villas while he awaited work.

When he was jailed for 28 yearsfor the Hutch murder the courtheard that it was Kinahan that hadordered the killing. At that pointDixon was firmly embedded byDaniel Kinahan’s side in the sun-soaked paradise of the Gulf.

A self-employed businessman,who cannot be named, is Kinahan’smoney man at the top of his organi-sation — a high level bagman whooperates as the cartel’s financialdirector.

He was the subject of a Criminal

Assets Bureau search last Februaryand up until then believed himself tobe under the radar here in Ireland.He rose dramatically up the ranksto take a senior role due to the dis-mantling of the upper echelons ofthe mob at home.

Since the bust, he has been spendingmore and more time in the Dubai HQand less time in Ireland, where helooks after payments to prisoners andstreet soldiers.

Like many of Kinahan’s innercircle, the money man is an avidboxer and has been a close personalfriend of both Daniel and Christo-pher Jnr for years. Christopher Jnr— who once looked after the moneylaundering wing of his father’s car-tel — still oversees the finances atboard level, along with ChristopherSnr, who also relocated to Dubaiwith his sons.

He still fulfills the role as a sort of

May 24, 2020

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

HIGH LIFE: SeanMcGovern (left, withDavid Byrne) hasbeen welcomed toDubai by Kinahan

FRIENDS INHIGH PLACES:Kinahan withUS boxing chiefBob Arum

FALLINGOUT: LiamByrne wasonce close toMcGovern

MOVE: KinahanSr is also in Dubai

LIAM BYRNE

SEAN MCGOVERN

23May 24, 2020N

OSS WILL DISTANCE FROM FOLLOWERS

BOUT WITH THE OLDWITH THE NEW

n Trusted lieutenants act as moneymen and operatives in Spain and Dubai

READ CRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR NICOLA TALLANT EVERY WEEK

chairman of the operation.In Spain, where Kinahan built

his cartel, four north inner citylieutenants keep a tight grip on theDon’s interests in one of the mostimportant European centres forinternational drug traffickers.

DISPUTE

Lieutenants Gary Finnegan, DavinFlynn, Bernard Clancy and KevinLynch are the most important of the

Kinahan army remaining in Spain.All have a long history of involve-

ment with the Kinahans and whole-sale drug dealing.

At one time Gary Finnegan, his cous-in Barry Finnegan, Daniel Kinahan,Gary Hutch and James ‘Mago’ Gatelywere inseparable – before they all fellout and the dispute led to murder.

Gary Finnegan is one of Kinahan’slongest and closest associates fromthe north inner city. He is wanted

for questioning in connection withhis whereabouts on the night thatEddie Hutch was shot dead.

Davin Flynn is a fellow southsiderfrom Oliver Bond flats and grew upwith the Kinahan boys. Convictedarmed robber Kevin Lynch, whoonce acted as a bodyguard to Kina-han, has never got the nod to go toDubai despite his loyalty to the boss.He has remained in Spain while Ber-nard Clancy has reached the ranks

of an operative for the mob in Spain.Meanwhile, back home the Crimi-

nal Assets Bureau case against RossBrowning — a former enforcer withthe mob turned wealthy business-man — is expected to be completedin the coming months. The Bureau isunderstood to be hoping to demandthat the State can take possession ofhis vast homestead in north countyDublin which includes lands and anumber of properties.

LOYAL: GaryFinnegan is one ofDaniel Kinahan’sclosest associates

SENT DOWN: Jailed in the UK

AMBITIONS:Daniel Kinahanwants to be amajor player inboxing promotion

IAN DIXON

DAVIN FLYNN

JAMES QUINN

THOMAS‘BOMBER’

KAVANAGH

GARY FINNEGAN

KIN’ OFTHE RING

6 June 14, 2020 N

‘BOUT OF CENTURY’ I

Kinahan has just takenhis life...the end could be a self-made destructionMOBSTER DANIEL’S OVERWHELMING DESIRE TO BE ADORED MAY

‘

DANIEL Kinahan believesthat he is a born winnerand he loves the taste ofsuccess more than any-thing else. It feeds his egoand it strokes his over-whelming desire to be ap-plauded.

Just like US President Don-ald Trump, Kinahan tries togag his critics and award hissupporters with money andopportunities that they couldonly ever dream of.

If Kinahan inhabited a cor-porate world, many of his syco-phants would be frighteninglyover-promoted within his board-room, compensated for uncondi-tional loyalty rather than ability.

Kinahan doesn’t even realise it,but he has just taken the greatestgamble of his life and the next fewmonths could make or break him.

Like many before him, such asMexican Cartel boss Joaquin ‘ElChapo’ Guzman and Colombiankingpin Pablo Escobar, the endcould very well be a self-madedestruction.

DOWNFALL

Who could have predicted thatit would be on the political stage– where Labour leader Alan KellyTD and the Fine Gael TD NealeRichmond spoke out this week –that Daniel Kinahan’s downfallwould begin.

Who would ever have guessed thatthe soft-spoken Leo Varadkar couldlevel such a crushing left hook toKinahan’s dreams.

Those who have followed Kina-han’s rise, along with the scoresof gardai who have devoted theircareers to bringing him to book,are universally flabbergasted bythe events of recent days.

Most can’t even speculate whatwill happen next. The boxing giantsstanding shoulder to shoulder withKinahan don’t seem to care abouthis background, indeed Bob Arumof Top Rank in Las Vegas said thatbluntly.

But will the TV companies whoscreen these mega-bouts finallyact? Will a media giant like SkySports carry on regardless with theAnthony Joshua and Tyson Furyextravaganza knowing so blatantlywho is behind it?

Kinahan is big news now for allthe wrong reasons. His grinningface made headlines on Al Jazeera,

in The New York Times and, inrecent days, across the pages ofsome of the biggest newspapersin the UK.

But instead of celebrating hisachievement in brokering the box-ing bout of the century, he is nowthe subject of questions as to wheth-er the Joshua and Fury clash willhappen at all.

Daniel Kinahan has always beenconvinced that he is right. Evenwhen he was growing up in OliverBond flats, the son of a cleaninglady and an absentee drug dealerfather, Kinahan would only play ifhe could win.

Decades later, when he eventu-ally was handed the reigns of hisfather’s multi-million drug empire,he knew one thing – he would doit his way.

VISION

As he recently prepared for hishighly-publicised comeback as a starof global boxing – a power brokerin one of the most lucrative sportsin the world – he had a vision ofhow he should be presented back intosociety.

Be under no illusion, but it is Dan-iel Kinahan’s own press relationsplan that has been playing out and

which has now come a cropper.First there was the online book,penned by a mystery author andcontaining details of the allegedplot to kill him in the RegencyHotel with the bizarre suggestionthat Fine Gael conspired with theGarda, the media and the Hutchmob to have him murdered so theycould suppress the growing threatof Sinn Fein.

Next came the pattering of tweetsand Instagram rants from someof the most famed boxers signedto the MTK company, founded byKinahan and, like him, based inDubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Then the bizarre docu-drama, againhighlighting events of the RegencyHotel, and the strange conspiracytheory that Sinn Fein’s success wasat the heart of everything that hap-pened on February 5, 2016.

COMPLIMENTS

Finally, came the fawning compli-ments of some of the biggest figuresin global boxing, describing ‘Dan’as the ‘Captain’ and a ‘great guy’.

Sandra Vaughan, the business-woman who claims to have boughthis boxing company MTK outright,came next.

In an impassioned interview from

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANTCRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR

June 14, 2020

NICOLA TALLANT ONE STEPBEHIND

PHONE HOMEPHONE HOMEMOBSTER:

Daniel KInahanpictured on trip to

Dublin

BEHINDON THE TRAIL:Outside courtwith our reporterNicola Tallant inEstepona, Spain

7June 14, 2020N

’ IS BIG NEWS FOR WRONG REASONS

READ CRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR NICOLA TALLANT EVERY WEEK

the greatest gamble ofhis life...the end could be a self-made destruction

‘

HAVE HAMMERED HOME THE FINAL NAIL IN CARTEL COFFIN

Dubai, she said that Irish peopleshould be proud of Daniel and whathe has done. After all, she said, hecame from nothing.

Days later came the announcementfrom Bahrain that the royal fami-ly-owned promotions firm had hiredhim as an advisor and teamed-up withthe same MTK to promote sport in theMiddle East.

When Tyson Fury announced ona self-made Instagram post thatthe deal was done and that ‘DanielKinahan’ had secured the agree-ment for his clash with Joshua, theshow was complete.

And in Daniel Kinahan’s mind it

was time to sit back and toast hissuccess.

But then, Kelly got up in the Dailand pointed out that the Emperorhad no clothes. Varadkar agreed,and the news that the Irish Govern-ment was liaising with authoritiesin the United Arab Emirates aboutKinahan has caused a huge rippleeffect across the globe.

BEGINNINGS

Look back on the pages of theSunday World today and see howwe have charted his rise from hislowly beginnings in Dublin to thelofty heights of a Cartel boss on

Spain’s Costa Del Sol. The Sun-day World was watching when heopened his first gym in Spain in2013, when he returned to Dublinlike a mob boss for the funeral ofhis beloved mother in 2014, whenhe fell out with his friend GaryHutch in 2015 and ordered hiscold-blooded murder.

We were there in 2016 when anattempt was made on his life at theRegency Hotel, when he appearedwith his army of young followers atDavid Byrne’s funeral, all dressed inthe colours of his Cartel.

We pursued him back to Spain,where he eventually fled for Dubai

in 2017 to a life in exile and outof the reaches of European lawenforcement.

We reported on his activitiesthere, his marriage, the birth ofhis child as a citizen of the UAEand the growth of the companyhe founded, MTK, as it envelopedeverything that punched in boxing.

FORGOTTEN

In Daniel’s world, things shouldbe different now, they should havechanged and his past should havebeen forgotten.

By now, Ireland should beashamed that we ever doubted

him and we should be embarrassedby all the nasty comments we havemade.

Preparations should be under wayto welcome back Dublin’s finestson – we should be dusting downthe open-top bus and polishingthe airport.

On Planet Kinahan the SundayWorld should have been firmlygagged – its printing presses si-lenced forever.

But sometimes life doesn’t turnout like we hoped and as boxingfans would say it isn’t over until thefinal bell.

Welcome to round 12.

FRED CENTRE2014

20142014HEAVY-HITTER:Talking to gang palLiam Brannigan atMacklin’s weigh-infor his MiddleweightTitle fight in Citywest

IN THE THICKOF IT: At theMacklin weigh inat Citywest

CLOSE TIES: Withhis brother ChristyKinahan Jr

FRED CENTRECARTEL: With ‘Fat’Freddie at the funeralof David Byrne in 2016

FAMILY:Visiting hismother inhospital

HEARNINGFOR BIG TIMEFOR BIG TIME

WEIGH-IN: Daniel(circled) at Citywestweigh-in with boxing

promoter Eddie Hearn

14 June 21, 2020

RUNING OUT OF TIME: MOB BOSS IS DE S

DAN’S EXITPLAN K.O.

N

BENJAMINNEIL PITT

NORDIN EH

AMIR FATENMEKKY

ARRESTED

ARRESTED

ARRESTED

ARRESTED

ARRESTED

BN

DANIEL IN THELION’S DEN:Daniel Kinahan isin the crosshairsof Dubai’s police

ROUNDED UP:Some of the othercriminals living inDubai who havebeen arrested

DANIEL IN THE MOB BOSS

15June 21, 2020

E SPERATE TO LEAVE AS NET CLOSES INN

MOB boss Daniel Kinahan issweating under the Dubai sun aspressure mounts and his innercircle fear he is about to be liftedby police.

Kinahan is becoming increasinglypanicked that he has reached the endof the road after a major crackdownby authorities in the United ArabEmirates on foreign criminals.

Sources believe he had planned an exitstrategy from Dubai to Bahrain – but thatwas shut down after a marketing campaignfailed miserably and Taoiseach Leo Varad-kar put paid to his attempt to re-inventhimself as an ordinary businessman.

Kinahan had been banking on the fact thathis reputation as the head of his ‘murderous’mob would remain at home and he could quashany bad press in the Middle East by ridiculingIreland’s media, gardai and politicians.

However, his plans backfired when heavy-weight champion Tyson Fury named him as the‘fixer’ who had organised his historic fight withAnthony Joshua for next year.

Days after, Bahrain backed away from Kina-han, saying it was cutting ties with him andnaming him in an official statement – the UAE’stough stance on criminals became crystal clear.

In a series of revelations this week, it has emergedthat wanted gangsters from Australia and Europehave been arrested in sting operations as a growingsense of unease prevails amongst an underworldhiding out with the super-rich.

Belgian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Spanish,Australian and Indian police are understoodto be liaising with officers in Dubai, who havearrested a string of major criminals in a seriesof sophisticated operations over the past month.

Garda representatives have met and liaisedwith their Dubai counterparts since 2018.

All those arrested are wanted in their homecountries on offences relating to organised crimeand have been hiding out in the UAE, just likeKinahan and his sidekick Sean McGovern.

Kinahan moved to the UAE in 2017 aroundthe time his one-time pal James Quinn wasarrested in Spain for the murder of Gary Hutch.Quinn was later convicted of the murder whichwas ordered, the court heard, by Kinahan. Hisbrother Christopher Jnr also moved to Dubai.Their father, ‘the Dapper’ Don Christy Kinahanalso based himself in Dubai despite a previousconviction for heroin trafficking from Ireland.

Daniel Kinahan was regularly spotted in thevicinity of the Iris Blue building in the Marinadistrict and he married gangster’s moll Caoim-he Robinson at a hugely expensive wedding atthe seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel, which wasattended by gangsters from the UK and Spain.

Robinson is the former partner of murdered drugdealer ‘Micka’ Kelly – aka The Panda. Kelly was shotdead in Dublin on the orders of the Kinahan mob.The couple had a child which they hoped wouldsecure their residency in the UAE.

Sean McGovern, the former business partnerof Liam Byrne, fled Ireland following the murderof Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan and was given refuge

in the UAE by Kinahan. There, he operates as hisright-hand-man but, like Kinahan, is wanted inIreland for serious charges connected to murdersand running a drug gang.

Senior Garda sources said they are hopeful ofgetting Kinahan home from the UAE but thatthey will not leave McGovern behind.

Last week, two Australian ‘kingpins’ of a majordrug importation outfit were arrested after yearson the run. Benjamin Neil Pitt and MatthewBattah were lifted as they made plans to fleeDubai. It is understood they had been livingthere since 2015 and continued to organise hugeshipments of drugs into Australia.

On Thursday, a Belgian drug lord suspectedof running an international cocaine-traffickingoperation was arrested in Dubai, and plans areunderway to return him to his native Antwerp.

The 32-year-old, identified as Nordin EH,is suspected of being behind several grenadeattacks in the Flemish city over the past threeyears, which he ordered from the UAE.

Authorities in Antwerp will now officiallyrequest his extradition.

Amir Faten Mekky, the leader of a murderousdrug gang wanted by Interpol was arrestedearlier this month by police in Dubai.

He is wanted for crimes in Sweden, where he has

been linked to murders in Malmo, and Spain, wherehe is the suspect in a number of explosions.

The Danish national entered the UAE inNovember 2018 using bogus travel documentsand is understood to be associated with RidouanTaghi – the Dutch criminal returned to Hollandby Dubai authorities late last year.

Taghi, a business associate of Kinahan, nowfaces some of the most serious charges in Dutchcriminal history after he was accused of beingbehind the murder of the lawyer Dirk Wiersum.

Following Mekky’s arrest, Dubai State Secu-rity said: “The high-profile arrest sends a clearmessage that Dubai will not tolerate internation-al criminal activities, even if the crimes have notbeen committed in the UAE. It also emphasis theUAE’s commitment to fulfil its responsibilitiestowards combating transnational crime.”

Kinahan has hit global headlines at a veryinopportune time, as he tries to remain underthe radar of the authorities in the Middle East.It is understood that he has become increasinglyunsettled in his desert home and has tried tobuild relations in other parts of the Emirates.

In a last-ditch bid to reinvent himself as alegitimate businessman, he has pulled out allthe stops to be recognised as a fight fixer andnot an international criminal.

But his plan to re-brand himself has backfiredspectacularly and hit a massive political speedbumpwhen he was called out by world heavyweight Ty-son Fury as the man organising the bout betweenhimself and Anthony Joshua.

Kinahan had just made vital ties with Bahrainwhen Fury’s video went viral, sparking politi-cians, including Fine Gael’s Neale RichmondTD and Labour’s Alan Kelly, to raise the issuein the Dail. Their calls led to Taoiseach LeoVaradkar making contact with the UAE andRichmond writing to sports giants, includingSky Sports and BT Sports, to inform them aboutKinahan’s background.

Days later he was fired from his job as an ad-viser to KHK Sports in Bahrain, with officialssaying they were severing ties with him.

In Dubai, it seems the temperature at Cha-teau Kinahan is rising and the loudest noise isa ticking clock.

n Dubai police are liaising with theirinternational counterparts to removecriminals from Middle East boltholen Kinahan’s bid to keep low profileand move to Bahrain scuppered asgardai hopeful of getting thug home

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANT

4 July 5, 2020 N

POLICE HACK: IRISH GANG BOSS FEELS

PARANOID KINADEALER ARRESTE

DANIEL Kinahan hasbegged his wife Caoim-he Robinson not to returnto Ireland for her belovedmother’s funeral as his Car-tel are braced for a wave ofarrests following the arrestthis week of their main en-crypted phone supplier.

Robinson, the gangland wid-ow he married in an extrava-gant ceremony in Dubai in thesummer of 2017, is understoodto be homesick in the UnitedArab Emirates and devastatedby the sudden death of mumHilary during a routine oper-ation this week.

Kinahan’s troubles in paradisehave hit crisis point after his long-time associate who supplied hismob with EncroChat phones wasnabbed during a Criminal AssetsBureau raid this week and hisparanoia is ‘off the scale’.

The 46-year-old, who was picked upby gardai this week in Co. Wicklow,grew up in a privileged south Dublinsuburb but got involved with theKinahan mob as it began to emergeas a major player in Holland and lateron the Costa Del Sol.

The hacking of EncroChat hasalready led to a series of arrests inNorthern Ireland and across Europeof top-tier criminals and the arrestof the supplier in Ireland duringa probe into money laundering byChinese gangs has left criminalshere scrambling for cover.

SURVEILLANCE

Robinson’s mum Hilary is due tobe laid to rest on Wednesday after acremation service in Dublin, andGarda officers are planning heavysurveillance on the event.

However, it is understood thatKinahan does not want his wifeto return to Ireland as he fearsshe has grown unhappy in Du-bai where he remains at armslength from the law.

Kinahan and Robinson, theex-partner of murdered gang-land thug ‘Micka’ Kelly aka‘The Panda’, held an extrav-agant wedding at the Burj AlArab hotel which was attendedby a Who’s Who of criminals.

Amongst those in attendancewere crooks from all over the world,including notorious British gangsterRichard Cashman, the business part-ner of the famous John ‘Goldfinger’Palmer. Underworld heavy JohnnyMorrissey attended, too, years afterhe had plotted to kill a Criminal As-sets Bureau lawyer back in Ireland.

Later leaked court documents

from Holland would reveal that thebiggest cocaine barons in Europe,including Dutch criminal RidouanTaghi, Chilean trafficker RichardEduardo Riquelma Vega, aka ElRico and Bosnian Edin Gacanin, ofthe notorious Dino and Tito Cartel,

were also guests. Together they weredubbed a ‘super’ mafia and officersbelieved they had worked togetherto flood Europe with cocaine.

Kinahan’s luck has gone from bad toworse in recent months after he wascalled out by Tyson Fury as the manwho had organised the forthcomingbout between himself and AnthonyJoshua. Despite support from some ofboxing’s most influential, including TopRank’s Bob Arum, Kinahan was laterdropped by a Bahrain sports companyas an adviser and forced to step backfrom the boxing extravaganza.

But it is the crime side of his busi-

ness that has been dealt even heavierblows and only this week he was lev-elled with a crushing left hook whenthe hacking of EncroChat by Dutchand French police was revealed at amajor conference at Eurojust.

The encrypted phone service wasused by gangs throughout Europebut this week a main supplier of thephones, a long-time associate of hisfather Christy Kinahan Snr, was dis-covered lying low in Ireland during aCriminal Assets Bureau raid.

The man who has been based inGeneva and has not been back inIreland in years was discovered in

a house in Wicklow and is now setto be subject of a proceeds-of-crimecase by the Bureau.

PHONES

The 46-year-old is suspected ofbeing involved in the supply ofencrypted phones and money-laun-dering services to gangs in Ireland.

He was caught up in a sting on Jennif-er Guinness kidnapper John Cunning-ham – Kinahan’s business partner – inAmsterdam in 2000.

Then officers had Cunninghamunder surveillance as he organised

EXCLUSIVEBY ROBIN SCHILLER BREAKTHROUGH:

Police hacked theEncrochat serviceused by criminalsaround Europe

SHOT: ‘Micka’ Kelly with Caoimhe

n DANIEL’SPARANOIAIS ‘OFF THESCALE’ ASHIS EMPIRECRUMBLES

n CARTELBOSS BEGSWIFE NOTTO GO HOMEFOR MUM’SFUNERAL

TRAGIC:CaoimheRobinsonand hermum (left),who is dueto be buriedthis week

R1

5July 5, 2020N

S THE HEAT FOLLOWING MAJOR BLOW

NAHAN’S PHONEED IN CAB BUST

huge shipments of drugs back toDublin. Dutch police would laterestimate that Cunningham hadshipped €150 million worth of drugs,arms and ammunition to gangs inDublin, Limerick, Beflast, London,Manchester and Liverpool.

A number of key associates went toground after the arrests, includingthe man nabbed this week by CABofficers. He has travelled in and outof Ireland sporadically over the pasttwo decades and his family homein a posh south Dublin suburb wasamongst the properties raided thisweek, although he was later discov-

ered in a Wicklow property.His arrest came as details of the

joint European investigation car-ried out by French and Dutch policeforces were revealed.

In a press conference, it emergedthat police had hacked millions ofEncroChat calls – a phone networkwhich guaranteed customers abso-lute security on their phones.

The CAB had been targetting Chinesemoney launderers who are being usedby criminal gangs to wash their dirtymoney through a network of proper-ties, takeaways and other businessesincluding nail salons, and phone shops.

It is understood that the suspectoperates as a co-ordinator for themoney-laundering facilities andoffers their services to a number ofinternational gangs, including theKinahan outfit.

BREAKTHROUGH

However, in recent years he hasalso specialised in supplying en-crypted phones to gangs and he hasbeen identified by Dutch and Frenchpolice in their massive breakthroughinto the EncroChat network.

Over a two-month period Dutch

and French police were able to watchlive chats between major criminalsall over Europe on the secure net-work which was hacked at sometime in April.

They described how they had tointervene in a number of real-timecrimes including kidnaps, torture,murder attempts and numerous drugand firearms deals but they also havea treasure trove of one billion messagesto trawl through.

The bust is the most significantcoup for law enforcement againstorganised crime in decades and isexpected to result in the break-up

of supply routes and gangs over thecoming months.

It is expected that French policehave Kinahan’s man in their sights

as a supplier of the phones to bigcriminal gangs in Europe.

CAB and the Garda’s Drugand Organised Crime Bu-reau are expected to focuson Chinese money laun-derers in a special effortto crack down on theiroperations in Ireland.

The Bureau began toestablish the signifi-cance of the Chinesegangs over the past fewyears as they investigat-ed the finances behindnumerous grow housesthat had been uncoveredaround Ireland.They are in the middle

of proceedings against anumber of suspects who they

believe used their earnings tobuy properties.

TRAFFICKED

They have uncovered a chainwhere the same gang will set up agrow house and place trafficked ‘gar-deners’ to run them but who are alsolaundering their own funds as wellas significant criminal gang fundsthrough a network of businesses.

They have been difficult to police asofficers have discovered they do theircriminal businesses in numerousChinese dialects, making it difficultto unravel their systems.

However, the Bureau have beenfollowing the money, which hasled them to a bigger undergroundmoney-laundering system than waspreviously known.

While An Garda Siochana haverefused to comment on the Encro-Chat investigation and massiveintelligence which has been passedonto them, police forces in otherjurisdictions have been quick tomove against criminals.

On Friday, a dissident republi-can terrorist appeared in court inBelfast facing 12 charges relatingto the transport and shipment oflarge quantities of drugs and cash.Prosecuting lawyer Robin Steertold Craigavon Magistrates Courtthat having accessed messagesand images in an encryptedphone, police believe Bryan Mc-Manus (64) is heavily involved indrug crime.

The PSNI have to date charged fivepeople and searched up to 25 prop-erties as a result of the EncroChathack with a further wave of arrestsexpected. The PSNI said it had also‘mitigated’ more than 15 threats tolife as a result of the operation.

In Britain, 746 arrests have beenmade and dozens of organised crimegroups have been dismantled. There,the National Crime Agency saidthe operation has had ‘the biggestimpact on organised crime gangs ithas ever seen’.

PRESSURE:Daniel Kinahanhas had numeroussetbacks in recentweeks

}They hadto intervenein a numberof real-timecrimes,includingkidnaps andmurderattempts~

SEIZED: CABraids led tothe seizure of€449,000 incash

RAID:Vehiclesseizedin CAB’ssearches

PARANOID

10 July 12, 2020 N

DOWNFALL: KINGJuly 12, 2020

‘BOMBER’

DANIEL’S‘KIDNAPPLOT’...

DANIEL Kinahan formeda blood bond with hisgangland hero Thomas‘Bomber’ Kavanagh afterKinahan told the fearedcriminal he had uncovereda plot to kidnap his child.

Kavanagh was stunned whenhis own first cousin and busi-ness partner Gerard ‘Hatchet’Kavanagh was named as thebrains behind the abductionand ransom plan, which hewas told was imminent.

But gardai believe that the storywas likely concocted by Kinahanso he could curry favour with thefeared ‘Bomber’ and cement hismob ties with him.

Both ‘Hatchet’ and youngerbrother Paul Kavanagh would bothbe murdered as a result of the fakekidnap plot and officers believe that‘Bomber’s’ alliance with Kinahanmarked the beginning of the end forhis empire.

When David Byrne was murderedin the failed hit on Kinahan at theRegency Hotel, it was ‘Bomber’who offered to manage the violentwave of revenge for his ‘under fire’partner — in a decision that wascatastrophic for his operation.

LAUNDERING

Today, the once mighty gang leaderhas reached the end of the road andhis powerful empire lies in tatters.Not only is he facing a hefty sen-tence after pleading guilty to drugtrafficking and money laundering,but his alleged number one partnerin Ireland, Peadar Keating, is alsobefore the Special Criminal Courtcharged with directing a criminalgang between December 7, 2016 andApril 2017.

Sources say the ‘Bomb Squad’— once the most feared force inthe Irish underworld — are gonefor good, leaving his remaininglieutenant, Liam Byrne, exposedin Birmingham where he fled afterlosing his Dublin home.

As he sits in his cell counting hislosses, ‘Bomber’ is sure to think back towhere it all began to go wrong.

In a special investigation, theSunday World can reveal that Kava-nagh was tricked into believing hiscousin had turned on him and wasplanning a most heinous crime tosteal €1 million from him.

‘Hatchet’ and ‘Bomber’ had grownuptogether intheirnativeDrimnagh,south Dublin, and both had formed a

businessventurewithanothercousin,James Mulvey, in Birmingham —their alliance forming an impressivedrug and weapons dealing operationbetween Spain, the UK and Ire-land.BackinDublinPaulKavanagh,‘Hatchet’s’ younger became a fourthpartner.

When five associates were bustedin 2009 the kingpins all managed toslip the net, while Mulvey was forcedon the run, moving between Spain,Brazil, Holland and Portugal as hestayed one step ahead of the law.

But ‘Bomber’s’ luck held steadyand his fortunes grew thanks to aslick money laundering operationinvolving the export of high-end usedcars from the UK to Ireland, managedby his brother-in-law Liam Byrne andhis business partner Sean McGovern.His mob began working closely with

Kinahan’s outfit and both expandedto become a multi-million euro con-glomerate.

Kinahan even tried to court ‘Hatchet’in Spain where his son Jamie Kavanaghwas an emerging boxer with his sightson a professional career. Kinahan want-ed to sign Kavanagh to his MGM stable,which would later be rebranded as MTK.Jamie Kavanagh has no involvementwith crime.

For years the mobs worked to-gether, but when Daniel Kinahanapproached ‘Bomber’ with news ofa kidnap he claimed ‘Hatchet’ hadplotted from his Benalmadena base,all that changed.

In an intricate gangland doublecross, gardai say they believe that‘Hatchet’ was murdered in Marbellain September 2014 as a direct resultof the kidnap claims, although no

evidence that it was actually beingplanned has ever been uncovered.

In fact, many investigators believethat the plot was so high-risk that aveteran criminal like ‘Hatchet’ wouldnever have considered it in order tomake an amount of money he couldfar easier pocket in one drug deal.

When ‘Hatchet’ was shot dead atHarmon’s Bar a number of theorieswere peddled around the Costa,including that he had fallen foul ofa Russian mafia. His assassinationcame just weeks after Jamie Moorewas shot on the grounds of Kinahan’sEstepona villa.

Seven months after his murder,Paul Kavanagh was shot dead inDublin and the double cross wascomplete. Gardai believe both weremurdered by the Kinahan mob as a‘favour’ to ‘Bomber’ and to solve his

‘kidnap problem’.The alliance would mark the be-

ginning of the end for ‘Bomber’ andwithin a year, as Kinahan went towar with the Hutch faction, he hadthe feared gangland boss firmly byhis side.

Ironically, Jamie Kavanagh, Hatchet’sson, was present on the MGM card at theweigh-in at the Regency Hotel when theHutch faction made their daring bid totake out Kinahan.

Days later ‘Bomber’ and Kinahanstood shoulder to shoulder at DavidByrne’s funeral with an army offollowers dressed in the black andblue ‘Cartel’ uniform in a show ofstrength against all other under-world factions in Dublin.

For ‘Bomber’ the decision to takeon the plans to avenge the Regencywas for both personal and business

EXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANTCRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR ‘KIDNAP

WAS BEGINNING OFTHE END FOR GANGBOSS ‘BOMBER’

FEARED: Thomas ‘Bomber’

Kavanagh was told of kidnap plot

ALLIANCE:Kinahan is likelyto have madeup the story to‘Bomber’

11July 12, 2020N

GPIN’S TIP-OFF LED TO TWO MURDERS}Officers believethat ‘Bomber’s’

alliance withKinahan marked thebeginning of the end

for his empire~

ON THERUN:‘Bomber’s’cousinJamesMulvey

SLAIN: Gerard‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh(far right) was shotdead in 2015

FALL OF AN EMPIRE BOMBER’S REIGN OF TERROR SEE PAGES 12&13

PAUL KAVANAGHGERARD

‘HATCHET’KAVANAGH

‘Bomber’s’

GRUESOME

reasons. David was his brother-in-law and the adored son of Sadie andJames ‘Jaws’ Byrne, who were veryclose to ‘Bomber’ and who weredevastated by their loss.

As Kinahan relocated to Dubai, atarm’s length from the law, ‘Bomber’poured all his resources into a mas-sacre that played out on the streetsof Dublin.

Gardai have linked his associates tothe murders of innocents Martin O’Ro-urke and Trevor O’Neill as well as NoelKirwan and an assassination attempton James ‘Mago’ Gately.

They also believed that his associ-ates financed the murders of DerekCoakley Hutch and Jason ‘Buda’Molyneaux. A massive weapons ar-senal found in Greenogue IndustrialEstate in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, andprimed for use in the Kinahan-Hutch

feud, were linked to ‘Bomber’,while his money launderer DeclanBrady, aka Mr Nobody, was nicked.

Working as one force with theUK’s National Crime Agency(NCA), gardai from the Drugsand Organised Crime Bureauspent four years dismantling what‘Bomber’ built and finally endedhis reign as Ireland’s most fearedunderworld criminal.

‘Bomber’ will be sentenced nextOctober when details of the moneylaundering and drug traffick-ing charges the NCA have builtagainst him and others will beheard.

However, what is clear fromhis guilty plea, is that unliketen years ago, he had no way ofslipping the net and has endedup resigned to his fate.

feud, were linked to ‘Bomber’,while his money launderer DeclanBrady, aka Mr Nobody, was nicked.

Working as one force with theUK’s National Crime Agency

LIAM BYRNE PLUSH HOME: ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh’s house in Tamworth, near Birmingham

12 July 12, 2020 N

FEARSOME: MOBS

POWERHUNGRY:Kavanagh usedabject fearas a weapon

July 12, 2020

‘BOMBER’

‘Bomber’ rarelysmiled and hecarried himselfas a true Mafia

godfather...THE fear he instilled in others washis greatest power and Thomas‘Bomber’ Kavanagh had finelytuned his theatre of terror.

Standing at over six feet, broad andsquare jawed, ‘Bomber’ rarely smiledand he carried himself as a true Mafiagodfather.

Those who worked with him knew only tospeak when addressed and to always be ontheir guard against the ferocious temperthat welled inside him. When the powerfulfists came they showed no mercy and onlythe dumbest would try to intervene.

Humiliation was generously doled out— through orders to do menial jobs on thegrounds of his stately Tamworth mansion inthe heart of Birmingham’s Premier Leaguebelt or in a trip to A&E for those seen to havestepped out of line.

He had an arsenal of weapons and was neverslow to use them to kneecap or terrorise thosewho disobeyed his orders.

He wasn’t just a mob boss, he was a ‘Godfa-

ther’ feared and revered in equal measure byan army of soldiers who wanted a place in hisfamily. No one ever challenged his positionand all were happy to serve.

For ‘Bomber’, the business of understandingfear was as important as the cost of a kilo ofcocaine and he studied the psychology of itwith gusto.

PARALYSED

He liked to pass his knowledge down thelines so his underlings could hold their own.

During his coaching sessions he woulddescribe the ‘states of fear’ of human beingsand how to reach them. A thin line existed,he explained, between controlling someoneand making them so frightened they becameparalysed and useless.

Threats, torture and beatings were all to beused to exert power and control and most im-portantly, everyone should know their place.

In Ireland and the UK, he had a clear struc-

ture under him with each lieutenant having adetailed role and responsibility for logistics,weapons, drug trafficking or enforcement.

Failures in any areas resulted in severepunishments. He had chauffeurs, mindersand even outriders and spotters to protecthim as he moved about.

Everyone within his ranks was controlledwith violence and even more mature lieuten-ants, including former car dealer Lee Cullenand notorious Graham ‘the Wig’ Whelan, wereregularly beaten for digressions.

Cullen was so savagely beaten a number oftimes, once with a wheel brace, that he wasadmitted to hospital with his injuries.

‘Bomber’ enjoyed being violent but he wasalso hugely generous to his family and associ-ates, who he lavished with gifts of jewellery,cars and holidays.

He was particularly close to his mother-in-law Sadie Byrne and it was the loss of herfavourite son, David, at the Regency Hotelthat spurred him to make the biggest mistakesof his career.

Sadie and husband James ‘Jaws’ Byrne hadbeen like parents to ‘Bomber’ since he first

started dating their daughter Joanne as ayoung teenager.

They had purchased their first home inDrimnagh, south Dublin, but when theCriminal Assets Bureau came after him in1996 he moved to the UK where the coupleestablished a ‘car sales firm’.

EXPENSIVE

The couple first bought a modest house inBirmingham before upgrading to a gatedmansion in Tamworth where they employeda gardener and a maid.

Each drove high-end Range Rover SUVsand passed themselves off as respectable carsales millionaires.

For years they returned to their native Crumlinand Drimnagh to show their communities justhow well they were doing.

Each time they returned home ‘Bomber’and Joanne came in bigger and more expen-sive cars laden down with gifts. When shecelebrated her 40th birthday he forked outfor a five-star trip to Las Vegas for her and alarge group of girlfriends — all expenses paid.

They holidayed at their private villa in

COLD CHIEF NOTORIOUS FOR VICIOUS TEMPER AND BRUTALEXCLUSIVEBY NICOLA TALLANTCRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR

‘

‘

POWER RUTHLESS

13July 12, 2020N

STER REVELLED IN REIGN OF TERROR

READ CRIME JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR NICOLA TALLANT EVERY WEEK

Majorca where in August 2016an associate randomly spottedJonathan Hutch arriving for afamily vacation.

When gunman Glen Clarke wasflown to the island to assassinateHutch he killed the wrong man,innocent holidaymaker TrevorO’Neill, in a fit of anger. Clarkewould later kill himself by accidentby shooting himself in the facewith a gun.

GIFTED

Officers were quick on thescene in Majorca but the gunused in the attack was nev-er found and it has long beensuspected that it was sourcedon the island from Kavanagh’sprivate collection.

Gardai would describe ‘Bomber’as the one that stood out from hiscontemporaries in the criminal under-world. He had a coldness about him thatfew could match.

Despite his sta-tus as the head of his

father’s former mob,Daniel Kinahan is a pre-

tender compared to ‘Bomb-er’. Where ‘Bomber’ workedhard to be a ‘Godfather’ and

gained his status on merit,Kinahan was gifted his po-

sition in gangland. ‘Bomber’s’demise marks the fall of an em-

pire and one that has left its markon gangland like no other.

In a world where lines in thesand are constantly being redrawn‘Bomber’ crossed the biggest onewhen he rewrote the gangland codeand waged a war on a family and nota drug gang.His on-the-run former partner,

drug smuggler James Mulvey, wasrecorded expressing his own con-cerns about his gangland life as hetold a girlfriend:“They go to the people you love.

They kill the people you love.”

VIOLENCE AGAINST HIS OWN ASSOCIATES

VIOLENTREPUTATION:Kavanaghput his ownhenchman inhospital

}Threats,torture andbeatingswere allused to exertpower andcontrol, andeveryoneshould knowtheir place~

RAIDED:Police andgardai atKavanagh’shome

ASSOCIATES:‘Fat’ FreddieThompson andThomas ‘Bomber’Kavanagh at thefuneral ofDavid Byrne

TOP OF RANGE: Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh and his wife Joanne

CHARGES:Kavanagh(centre),leavingStoke-on-Trent CrownCourt