The Kinahan cartel has “spread misery and death” in Ireland and around the world, and the arrest of its leader, Daniel Kinahan, in Dubai last week would not have been possible without the major policing coalition from across Europe and America, Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has said.
Kinahan (48) is in custody in Dubai and is unlikely to be granted bail as he awaits extradition to Ireland, where the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has said he should face trial on charges related to organised crime.
In Kelly’s first comments since the arrest, he also pointed to the work of the Garda’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, led by Det Chief Supt Seamus Boland, which led the investigation that resulted in the DPP decision and led to Kinahan’s arrest.
Though he did not name Kinahan, Kelly said “the arrest of an Irish national in Dubai last week” followed a significant Garda investigation to tackle serious and organised crime “over many years”.
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“This was built on gardaí, during that time and the present, undertaking painstaking and difficult investigative work that has saved lives, put serious criminals behind bars and hugely undermined the senior leadership of several organised crime gangs,” he said.
[ Bid to extradite Daniel Kinahan may be first real test of Ireland-UAE treaty ]
Former assistant commissioner John O’Driscoll, who retired in 2022 and has since died, had “helped build international law enforcement coalitions to tackle these transnational gangs”.
O’Driscoll’s work in effect culminated in the US authorities imposing financial sanctions on seven men at the apex of the Kinahan cartel, including founder Christy Kinahan and his sons, Daniel and Christopher jnr. The US also offered rewards of up to $5 million (€4.25 million) for information that would lead to any of the Kinahans being arrested and convicted.
Kelly said the work to build the international co-operation that helped the Garda secure a charge against Kinahan had included visits by Garda members to the US, Dubai and Colombia, whose police officers had also come to Ireland.
Kelly met senior police officers in Colombia and Dubai and he went to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with his predecessor, Drew Harris, to meet the chief of Dubai police, Lt Gen Abdullah Khalifa al-Marri.
“This work resulted in an international coalition including An Garda Síochána, the US Treasury Department, US Homeland Security, the DEA (Drugs Enforcement Agency), FBI, the UK’s National Crime Agency and Europol coming together four years ago to disrupt and dismantle the Kinahan organised crime gang,” he said.
Officials from the Department of Justice and from Department of Foreign Affairs had also been involved, with Garda liaison officers based abroad working to build relationships with law enforcement in US, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
“As An Garda Síochána said four years ago at the media briefing in Dublin, the Kinahan Organised Crime Gang have spread misery and death not only in Ireland, but in many other countries across the world. They engage in drug dealing, human trafficking and murder,” Kelly said.
Daniel Kinahan, a married father from Dublin, was arrested in Dubai last Friday, less than 48 hours after a warrant, issued by the High Court in Dublin, was sent to the authorities in the UAE. That warrant was executed by Dubai police, on behalf of Ireland, rather than the authorities there deciding to detain him.
Kinahan has never been under investigation in Dubai, faced no charges there and has never been arrested in the UAE before last Friday.
He has been at the centre of a Garda investigation into the cartel’s crimes in Ireland for years, with a file sent to the DPP in 2023.
Though a decision to charge him took almost three years, the DPP recently directed he be charged with organised crime offences related to the Kinahan-Hutch feud, commencing the chain of events leading to his arrest.
