Irish mobster Daniel Kinahan was arrested in Dubai in April this year. The 48-year-old's capture was part of a months-long bi-lateral collaboration between Irish and United Arab Emirates officials to apprehend one of the world's most wanted alleged criminals.
Kinahan has since been extradited back to Ireland, where he faces charges including directing a criminal organisation. Authorities allege he and his father, Christy Kinahan, directed a $1.5 billion international cartel that ran narcotics, money laundering, and an extortion network which began decades ago.
Court adjourned over scheduling conflict
The court was adjourned on October 5 for one week after Kinahan's newly appointed solicitor was unable to attend court due to an unexpected scheduling conflict.
The Kinahan Organised Crime Group was established by Daniel's father Christy Kinahan, a Dublin native, during the late 1990s.
Rise of the Kinahan cartel
Christy's criminal record stretches back to the late 1970s and includes housebreaking, vehicle theft, burglary, receiving stolen property and forgery.
The organisation allegedly started as a street gang of inner-city narcotics dealers in Dublin, but rapidly expanded on an international scale to become the multi-million pound criminal enterprise that exists today. Christy Kinahan operated as the head until the role was transferred to Daniel. Irish courts have since determined that the group constitutes a murderous organisation engaged in the international smuggling of narcotics and weapons.
Hierarchy and operations
The hierarchy of the criminal gang started with Christy and Daniel, with Daniel's brother Christopher Kinahan Jnr. Elsewhere were veteran Dublin-born criminal Bernard Clancy, Daniel's "advisor and closest confidant" Sean McGovern, former KOCG enforcer now Marbella-based money launderer "Johnny Cash" Morrissey and Ian Dixon.
Despite the US imposing sanctions on the group in April 2022, it was reported in August 2022 that Spanish-based associates of the Kinahan cartel were continuing to orchestrate multi-million-euro drug operations. In February 2023, a swoop on premises in the Long Mile Road area of Dublin resulted in the confiscation of equipment, the detention of eight individuals and 40 kg of cocaine. More than 2,000 containers of nitric oxide were recovered, alongside €78,000 in cash, a hydraulic drugs press, communications devices, mixing agent and a money counter.
Feud and ongoing scrutiny
The Kinahan cartel had been residing openly and conducting their activities from Dubai, benefiting from the protection that the city provides to organised crime syndicates. Between 2015 and 2018, their feud with the Hutch crime family resulted in the deaths of 18 people.
Valued at no less than €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion), the cartel has been blamed for 20 murders in Ireland, Spain and across Europe, and is now under unprecedented scrutiny. This pressure comes from an extensive and unyielding campaign against them by the gardai, which kicked off late in the evening of 5 February 2016. Just hours earlier, the Hutch Organised Crime Gang had tried to take out Kinahan in a bold daylight attack on the Regency Airport Hotel in north Dublin - narrowly missing him but killing key ally David Byrne. The Regency Airport Hotel attack remains one of the most chilling shootings in Ireland's history and kick started the bloody feud.
