The Fall of the Kinahans

Daniel Kinahan - the alleged head of the Kinahan drugs cartel - was arrested in Dubai on 17 April. But why has it taken nearly a decade to arrest a man who had been hiding in plain sight in Dubai for a decade and had put his head above the parapet in 2020 to facilitate a world title fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua? In this episode I go into detail about Kinahan's activities - starting with his being mentioned at a race-fixing trial I covered in 2007 - and the infamous feud with Gerry "The Monk" Hutch and bring the story right up to date.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Total Crime Podcast. I'm Chris Summers and this is episode twelve. Today I'm talking about the arrest of the notorious Irish gangster Daniel Kennahan in Dubai and whether it means that Dubai's time as the sanctuary of the international criminal elite is over. For a decade or more, Dubai has been the default destination for wealthy gangsters operating in the criminal Premier League. When it comes to British gangsters, they used to prefer Spain. Between 1978 and 1985, there was no extradition treaty with Madrid. And in that period, southern Spain became the Costa del Crime. By 2001, Spain was fast tracking extraditions to Britain and Spain lost its allure. For a while, the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus became a popular bolt hole for villains like Brian Wright, who was nicknamed the Milkman because he always delivered. But as the Turkish Cypriots tried to improve their image abroad, they became less hospitable to criminals on the run from Britain. So in the last decade, Dubai has become the most popular sanctuary for crooks, both from Britain and the rest of the world. I'll come back to Daniel Kinnahan in a minute, but I want to mention some other gangsters who have used the United Arab Emirates as their base. Last year I covered the fascinating trial of a guy called James Harding, a British born drugs kingping who was based in Dubai. After being caught in Switzerland and extradited to England, Harding spent the entire trial trying to persuade the jury he was not the man who used the Encarchat phone with the handle the Tops King. The Tops King was at the heart of a conspiracy to kill another Dubai-based British drug kingpin referred to only as Crip. The hit never happened, and Crip is presumably still in Dubai, while Harding was jailed for life and is now serving a minimum of thirty two years behind bars. Another Dubai based drugs kingpin, who's been named in a British court recently, is Ryan Kennedy. Kennedy, who is apparently known in the underworld as Frost, was allegedly behind a plot to murder a Plymouth drug dealer called Danny Cahalan, who died in february 2025 after sulfuric acid was thrown at him. Several men who worked for Frost, or allegedly worked for Frost, went on trial recently at Winchester Crown Crown Court over Cahalan's murder. But let's get back to Daniel Kinnihan and the Kinnihan cartel. On Friday the seventeenth of April, the Dubai Media Office produced a fairly bland and anonymous statement, which it put up on X, or as I call it, Twitter. It said in English, which I suspect was translated from Arabic, Dubai police, in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior, arrest an Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an organized criminal group involved in international crimes in his home country. The suspect is apprehended within just forty eight hours of the arrest warrant being issued on the fifteenth of April, following intensive search, investigation, and close surveillance operations. Dubai police reaffirm their commitment to supporting international efforts to combat cross border crime and pursue internationally wanted individuals. One of the first people to respond to the tweet hit the nail on the head. Apprehended because he wasn't on the run. He was whining and dining at the finest establishments with the Emirati elite. What a show to appease Ireland for a bit. That was Rada Stirling, CEO of the pressure group Detained in Dubai. Detained in Dubai describes itself as the leading international authority on the law of the United Arab Emirates and has made itself a bit of a name in recent years defending tourists who have got into trouble for crimes such as kissing in public or more recently, photographing apartment buildings and hotels damaged by Iranian missiles. I spoke to Ms. Sterling, but I will come back to what she told me later. But let me tell you about Daniel Kinnan. I first came across the name in 2007 when I covered a race fixing trial at the Old Bailey, featuring champion jockey Kiran Fallon, betting syndicate boss Miles Rogers, and several others. Fallon, Rogers and the others were all acquitted, I should point out. In october two thousand seven, prosecutor Jonathan Kaplan QC told an old Bailey jury that Fallon angered the betting syndicate when he won that race. Undercover police who were monitoring Rogers took covert surveillance pictures of him meeting Daniel Kinnehan, who he described as a businessman, one night in may two thousand four. Mr Kaplan said that Kinnahan had flown in from Spain and was seen driving towards Kieran Fallon's home near Newmarket. But then they spotted an unmarked police car following them and promptly turned around. The inference to the jury was that Kinnahan was there to intimidate the jockey and warn him against crossing the syndicate again. But Kinnahan was never charged over the race fixing case and he soon had bigger fish to fry. By the early 2010s, the Kinahan Cartel was one of the biggest drug trafficking organizations in Ireland, if not Europe. Around twenty sixteen, Kinahan moved from Spain to Dubai. Shortly afterwards, he apparently formed a European super cartel with three major players. They were the Dino and Tito Cartel from Bosnia Herzegovina, the Mokro Mafia from Holland, and a wing of the Naples based Kamora led by Rafaele Imperiali. But Kinnehan still hankered after fame and fortune in the sporting arena. He set up a company called MTK Global and began signing up boxes. Things were going well for Kinnahan until a violent feud broke out with a gang led by another notorious Irish gangster, Jerry the Monk Hutch. It all started in the summer of twenty fourteen when Hutch's nephew Gary Hutch, who worked for the Kinnahans, fell out with Daniel over some drugs. In august twenty fourteen, Jamie Moore, who was working as a trainer for Matthew Macklin, one of Kinnahan's fighters, was shot twice in Marbella. He survived and Gary Hutch was blamed for the attack. His uncle, the Monk, later appeared on the Crime World podcast hosted by Nicola Tallant, one of Ireland's finest crime reporters. In this clip, the monk, in his fantastic Dublin accent, explains how Kinnehan came to him and asked him to mediate with his nephew.

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So Daniel gonna touch at me onto that. Organizing me. Oh we did, I got to get it. Thanks to Daniel, and they organized the meeting about the meet. And they can't do around. It's quite in detail of the I don't know, but they gave each other the war. And it was hard to meet, and it's a coming to a conclusion, shook hands, and were moving forward, but going our own way. And that was fine.

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But a couple of months later, on the twenty fourth of september twenty fifteen, Gary Hutch was shot dead by a masked assassin beside the swimming pool at the Angel Di Miraflores apartments in Malaga, Spain. The monk said Kinnehan would later tell people Gary had been killed by the Russians or someone from Manchester, but nobody believed it. A blind man could see who'd done it, the monk told that same Crimeworld podcast. What happened next though was like something out of a movie and would shock Ireland to its core. On the fifth of february twenty sixteen, six gunmen, one in drag and several in police uniforms, stormed the Regency Hotel in Dublin during a press conference being hosted by Kinnehan's MTK organization during a weigh-in for a boxing promotion in the city. The gunman's target was no doubt Daniel Kinnehan, who was present, but he somehow got away. The gunman did, however, kill David Byrne, who was one of Kinnehan's closest associates. The attack was initially claimed by the Continuity IRA, but this was obviously a smoke screen, and the Hutch gang were soon the prime suspects. An enraged Kinnahan allegedly vowed payback, and over the next two years there were twenty more murders in Dublin. Most of the victims were individuals linked to Jerry Hutch. An example was the december twenty sixteen killing of Noel Kerwin, known as Duckegg, who was shot six times as he sat in his car in the Cromlin District of Dublin. Kerwin had been a friend of Jerry Hutch's all his life, but he was specifically killed by the Kinnehans because in a newspaper photograph he was seen standing next to Hutch at the funeral of Hutch's brother Eddie, who had been murdered just three days after the Regency Hotel shooting. The feud eventually petered out after Kinahan failed to have the monk killed on the Spanish island of Lanzarote. And the Kinehan cartel went back to what it did best, selling drugs. In 2020, Kinahan foolishly put his name back in the headlines when he tried to set up a world heavyweight title fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. After media backlash, M Fury backed away from Kinahan, who licked his wounds in Dubai. But things were about to get worse for Kinahan and his European super cartel buddies. In twenty twenty one, Rafaeli Imperiali was arrested in Dubai and extradited to Italy the following year. Then in November 2022, Operation Desert Light was launched and Edin Gachanin, leader of the Dino and Tito Cartel, was arrested in Dubai. In twenty twenty four, Ridoan Taki, one of the leaders of the Mokro Mafia, was jailed for life after the Marengo megatrial in Holland. Meanwhile, Kinhan's close associates were also falling. A European arrest warrant was issued in April 2022 for Sean McGovern, and in 2025 he became the first person to be extradited to the Republic of Ireland from the United Arab Emirates. Last month, McGovern pleaded guilty to a charge of directing an organized crime group. McGovern's extradition could should have been the final wake up call for Daniel Kinnahan, but he ignored it, like he'd ignored several other warnings. In April 2022, the US Treasury announced sanctions against the Kinnahan Organized Crime Group and offered rewards of five million dollars each for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Daniel Kinhan, his father Christy Sr. and brother Christy Jr. Ten days later, the United Arab Emirates froze Kinnahan's assets. On the twentieth of April 2022, MTK Global tweeted As a business, we have faced unprecedented levels of unfair scrutiny and criticism since the sanctioning by the US government of Daniel Joseph Kinnahan. They claimed Kinahan had ceased to be involved in MTK in twenty seventeen, but added Since leading promoters have now informed us that they will be severing all ties with MTK and will no longer work with our fighters, we have taken the difficult decision to cease operations at the end of this month. Kinnahan was out of the boxing game and living on borrowed time. There were underworld rumors in twenty twenty four suggesting he and his father were considering moving to Russia, but nothing came of it. The Sunday Times and the open source investigative group Bellingkat published an article recently suggesting the Kinahan cartel had been involved in an operation along with a former Tunisian cage fighter to ship crude oil from Iran to China. It was probably very lucrative, but it also became the final straw for the United Arab Emirates when Iran started firing missiles at Dubai and Abu Dhabi as part of the recent war with the United States. So let's go back to Rada Sterling from Detained in Dubai. When I spoke to her recently, she told me we are definitely seeing the United Arab Emirates has made a policy decision to surrender more wanted persons. Fugitives who would have once been afforded safe haven are being traded for diplomatic favours. She said Daniel Kinnihan has been living the high life in Dubai for years, knowing that his protective status would eventually expire, but there were very place few places he could go. He wasn't a persecuted journalist like Julian Assange. He couldn't call on Russia for protective status, and Iran didn't suit his lifestyle. It was the end of the line for Kinnahan and he knew it. Kinnahan is now facing extradition to the Republic of Ireland. He will likely go on trial at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. Ironically the same court where Jerry the Monk Hutch was put on trial and acquitted of the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel shooting. I will leave the last word to Bob Arram, the ninety-four year old boxing promoter who briefly teamed up with Kinnahan and Tyson Fury. Aram last week told the Irish version of the Sun newspaper I really regret that I was involved, even though not in his activity, with somebody who was violating the law constantly by dealing drugs. Asked about Kinnehan's eventual trial, Aram said If you did the crime, you've got to do the time.