“When you’re in the Wild West, you can expect a few gunslingers to come into town.” It’s the understatement that underpins Darragh McIntyre’s comprehensive investigation, Panorama: Boxing & The Mob (BBC 1, Monday), into Daniel Kinahan’s involvement with top-tier boxing.
It’s a question that has baffled many with an eye on Dublin’s gangland goings on, and isn’t an easy one to answer (even with the heft of a Panorama investigative team behind you): how exactly has a company that Daniel Kinahan allegedly set up become one of the most powerful in sport? “And why isn’t the world of boxing stopping him?” McIntyre then asks.
The parallels between the grim theatres of the boxing world and the criminal underworld are hard to ignore. There is pomp, often tempered with glamour. The boxing world is largely unregulated, allowing people to operate to their liking, and largely with impunity. And, as it is alleged here, it seems altogether too easy to straddle both spheres.
Irish viewers may well be familiar with the Kinahan-Hutch feud, yet in this BBC documentary McIntyre brings the uninitiated cleanly up to speed. With a tapestry of Spanish police footage, Instagram videos and shocking CCTV of men being gunned down, a savage picture of the Kinahan family – headed by father Christy – comes to light.
The family are also, McIntyre’s documentary notes, responsible for the distribution of most of the heroin throughout Dublin city. Cross this “extremely violent” family/cartel, as Europol classifies them, at your peril.
“You could get your guns and drugs [from them] and then send your money to be washed,” journalist Nicola Tallant says. “Perfect, if you want to get into that.”
Speaking of the series of Kinahan and Hutch funerals brought about by the feud, former Lord Mayor of Dublin Nial Ring notes: “One of [the pallbearers] might well be in the next coffin coming into the church in a few months, and that’s what happened.”
Running the show
Christy Kinahan’s son Daniel Kinahan, acknowledged to be a key member of the Kinahan cartel, meanwhile, managed to find a gap in the market for upcoming boxers. Matthew Macklin’s name was above the door of MGM Marbella gym and event promotions/management company, but, as Tallant notes, “Daniel Kinahan was running the show as a personal adviser to the fighters”.
From these humble beginnings, MGM grew from a gym to a heavy hitter in the world of boxing. Poaching young boxers from other promoters (including former World Champion Barry McGuigan) and signing scores of talents – including nine newcomers in one week – MGM was soon rubbing shoulders with giant players and signing multi-match deals with broadcasters such as ESPN.
Kinahan – in the capacity of “personal adviser” – is credited as the man behind Tyson Fury’s comeback. Kinahan was forced to publicly step back from MGM, which then renamed itself as MTK (Mack The Knife).
Asked if they are aware of the Kinahan’s family reputation, most of the heavy hitters within the boxing business remain circumspect. Many of them, the experts reckon, are simply “telling lies” about their knowledge of Kinahan’s infamy.
It has been stated time and time again that Kinahan has “stepped away” from boxing, but McIntyre believes he is still very much involved in a “personal” capacity. Either way, the powers that be within the boxing world don’t appear inclined to investigate these allegations further.
Unorthodox business model
The plot thickens considerably when, in a court case between McGuigan and a former charge who defected to MTK, Carl Frampton, the fighter doesn’t pay MTK “a single penny” to manage them. It brings into sharp focus just how unorthodox MTK’s business model is.
“One explanation has been raised in the US courts,” McIntyre notes. “MTK receives funds directly or indirectly from Daniel Kinahan [in funds] derived from racketeering and money laundering.”
Promoter Bob Arum, alleged to have worked with Kinahan, notes: “I’m not naive about Daniel and his past. As long as I understand, that dealing in this area of sport, they’re honourable, they’re smart and they’re not doing anything that’s in any way that’s devious or wrong. Why wouldn’t I deal with them?”
All the while, Kinahan has an eye on breaking America as a promoter on the Tyson Fury ticket. “He was trying to launder his name the way they launder money, simple as that,” one investigator notes.
The curious case of Kinahan’s career as a boxing promoter is every bit as murky and shadowy as one might expect, with McIntyre hitting as many dead ends as journalistic shards of light. MTK’s solicitors are adamant that Kinahan, now based in Dubai, has ‘never provided funding and… never been director, shareholder or consultant.’
A standout moment comes from Barry McGuigan; one of the few figureheads in boxing prepared to go on camera to discuss Kinahan’s involvement in the sport.
Asked why he is willing to talk on camera, McGuigan notes: “I think it’s right. I’m not threatened. I’m not worried by these guys threatening me. I’ve been involved in terrifying situations my whole life. It doesn’t bother me. Yet there’s a need to look at this situation very carefully … it’s bloody dangerous.”
An exemplar of the sport talking about boxing’s shredded reputation, knowing of the potential blowback, certainly adds gravitas to the documentary.
Yet it’s McIntyre’s concise and unadorned presentation of the violence, death and desperation wreaked by the Kinahan and Hutch feud, on Dublin’s criminal underworld and beyond, that is likely to linger in the viewer’s memory.
