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THE KINAHAN CARTEL has lost at least €42 million in the last 12 months as gardaí have cracked down on the gang’s activities.
The gang, led by a number of men from Dublin’s inner city, has been on the back foot for a number of months as senior members of the drug gang count the cost of pursuing the Hutch gang to avenge the Regency Hotel murder of David Byrne.
Where once they were behind the bloodiest year in Irish gangland history, they are now running for cover, attempting to squirrel assets away before the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) is able to seize their wealth.
The estimated baseline figure of the Kinahan cartel’s losses in the last 12 months stands at €42 million. This figure is arrived at by calculating drug and weapon seizures conducted under Operation Thistle while also taking into account significant seizures by CAB and Revenue and Customs.
Operation Thistle is being led by Detective Inspector Paul Cleary and Detective Superintendent Peter O’Boyle from Kevin Street garda station.
At the start of the year, gardaí, along with Revenue and Customs seized €37.5 million worth of cannabis. Investigations into the haul have led officers to believe that it was to be distributed by the Kinahan cartel both here and in the UK.
Since the murder rate in the capital soared and the presence of armed garda units increased, doing business in Dublin and the continent has become more difficult. This is true not just for the low-level players but now the trusted lieutenants and gang leaders. More attention, both garda and public, since the infamous Regency Hotel murder last year, has led to a considerable dent in their profits.
The cartel’s base on the Costa Del Sol in Spain is also under constant surveillance, leading its former leader, Christy Kinahan Snr, to hand the empire to trusted allies while he operates his property empire from a hideout in Dubai. Liam Byrne, brother of Regency victim David, was seen by gardaí travelling to the Emirati nation last year where it is believed orders were still being given at that time by Kinahan Snr on how to proceed with the feud. They are also being pursued in the Netherlands, Portugal, Morocco as well as the UAE, where they have vested interests.
And it was Byrne who was mentioned in court this week as CAB attempts to sell of €500,000 worth of assets it seized from him last year.
Earlier this year, gardaí raided a premises in west Dublin where they seized nine revolvers, four semi-automatic pistols, a submachine gun and an assault rifle. Nearly 1,500 rounds of ammunition was also discovered. In follow-up searches, another €300k in cash was found. Much of the cash was stuffed in bags and hidden in innocent people’s homes.
Various garda investigations and continuous work by elite and uniformed officers have severely restricted how the cartel can operate. Serious charges now face a number of people suspected of being members of the gang.
There are also rumours that there is a senior member of the cartel who has been giving information to gardaí. In one case, one of them was giving information to officers over the murder of Gary Hutch, who was killed in the south of Spain as members of the cartel thought he was an informer.
Not only has there been a high number of seizures in Dublin and abroad, the increased surveillance is making it extremely difficult for the cartel to conduct business in the way it used to.
While it is difficult to estimate the losses this increased activity has had on business, well-placed sources say that multiples of millions of euro have been lost. Many of the Kinahan’s long-term business partners, especially on the continent, are now sourcing drugs from other gangs.
Twelve men, including a number of innocent people, have lost their lives since the bloodshed began.
But it has now been the second quietest period since the feud began. It has been over 10 weeks since Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan was murdered outside his home in west Dublin shortly before Christmas.
The longest this gang war has gone without a murder is 18 weeks. This was the length of time between the deaths of innocent council worker Trevor O’Neill in Spain and the abovementioned killing of Noel Kirwan.
Officers believe they stopped seven separate murders attempts over the Christmas period. Loaded guns and ammo had been found in a number of cars. Guns, cash and drugs are now being hidden in their partner or mistresses’ homes such is the level of the high-ranking member’s desperation.
For gardaí, this is a war they have been fighting for decades but the feeling is that there is serious potential to dismantle this cartel’s influence in Ireland. As one security source put it, there will always be a demand for drugs. The only thing that changes is the people who are bringing them in.
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Well done .. keep piling the pressure on ..
All that cannabis could have gone to good use for people who need it.
Shouldn’t take a “gang feud” to have focus like this from the state Policing services on a known bunch of criminals. Not to take credit from the gardai on the ground putting in the work. More focused at government and judges appetite to aggressively tackle these issues.
Well done Gardai. It makes me so happy to read this.
@Darren Cooney: You mean grass banks add the sythe o’ the road!!
The last paragraph says it all really. As long as they kept their heads down, got on with business and accepted the odd seizure as acceptable losses then the cops would probably have been happy with the status quo. The moment they started shooting up the place it focused attention on them. Notice how in Cork you don’t hear of armed cops visible on the streets with major hauls coming in? That’s because the dealers are smart enough not to stir up too much trouble.
The real capital.
No its simply because the dealers in Cork havent got such easy access to dozens of hitmen and with the drugs market being a lot smaller and easier to control in Cork it makes for less feuding, where as in Dublin you have countless drug gangs stepping on each others toes to control the trade, more territory equals more feuding.
@Brian Ward: That’s why it’s called organised crime, if the criminal keeps it tidy, with no guns on the street. Than the police generally turn a blinds eye. But if it looks like a tourist might be killed by a stray bullet. Then they crack down, usually until the leader of the gang is replaced and a cooler head takes over
Surely, naming the senior Garda involved is a foolish thing to do considering the reach of these gangs !?
@Randal McNally: Naming the garda makes news. Why should they care about the garda’s families they will not make the news unlwss something hapens to them Sad really when you think of the garda’s family
More than likely they already knew. I’d imagine these kind of gangs don’t rely on The Journal for all their important information.
@Alan Farrell: It’s on the Garda website FFS!
I would be curious to know how much money this feud has cost The State. We are effectively funding 24 hour armed Garda protection for Dublin Criminals. Huge resources are consistently deployed in and around Sheriff Street and The North Inner City at massive ongoing cost to The Taxpayer whilst the regularly drug dealing and muggings continue unabated in the same area that is being so heavily guarded.
@David Mac Shite: Just goes to show though, that the Gardai could have stopped them all along if they had the interest and resources. Considering they now seemingly have this gang under pressure, why haven’t they done it in the last 10 years?l Is it simply resources and political will? It’s clear the cops have the ability and expertise when they put their minds to it, and that’s a big positive for the future and present.
I’m guessing it’s better the devil you know then the one you didn’t.
@David Mac Shite:
It isn’t just a question of spending million of euro protecting criminals. Many of the potential targets of this cartel are innocent people, who through no fault of their own are related to a few that are related to crime. If constant surveillance is the only way to stop these people wiping out an innocent family, then I for one am all for it. It can’t go on indefinitely though so let’s hope the success against this group continues and eventually we get something to stick on some of the higher up members.
I’ll get the violin out for them.
The figures are all wrong… over inflated Garda figures for seizures are not a good way to calculate the effect it has had on them
@Tommy Byrne:
You preparing the end of quarter report for Dubai Tommy?
That figure is not what they lost. While fight against organized crime is commendable and require all support it can get putting this kind of figure out there is just PR stunt.
That figure is based on what they could gain if seized drugs sold on street but fact is that they lost much more as they bought it wholesale for just a fraction of what is mentioned. Secondly the more seizures gardai manage to pull the more deliveries will be made so more seizures does not mean less drugs on the street. Yes maybe it will be harder to get it for a few days and drug will be cut up more than usual but in this market there is no shortage of supply and what one outfit may lose another will gain. No country ever won war on drugs, not even with Duerte style where they simply shoot dealers on sight.
Evidence yet again show that the only countries which managed to get drug problems and violence associated with it under some sort of control are those which decriminalized and regulated it.
@Pat Patovic: I bet you wrote that whilst smoking a big reefer
@Scundered: Nope. I do not smoke. I never used marijuana or any other drug. Do you seriously think that everyone say in netherlands do use it? I seriously doubt it.
Why were these guys able to drive around in 160k mercedes g wagons and build massive houses in the middle of crumlin for years on end without any state intervention it took a massive feud/murders to break out and public intrest before cab and the garda acted absolute joke this was the reason for cab been set up after veronica guerin bk in 96/97 to try mess up these guys livin it up and it failed in the end.
So the Gardai are doing there duty suppressing activities of illegal drug gang .… finally !
That’s their obviously
Only in certain counties,In Kerry, Killarney to be exact the same dirt bag pusher has being getting away with murder for years and barely gets his wrist slapped when caught , then anytime he is in jail doing time all his neighbours houses start getting robbed by gangs from Cork & Dublin obviously getting their info from Brian on the inside sickening
Some good work done, I suppose. Still, there’s nowhere near 42€m in losses, and the fact that 37.5€m of that is from cannabis show how ridiculous it is keeping it illegal.
I think it is rather stupid of the Journal to name the Gardaí who are leading this investigation. It shows scant regard for their safety. As well as that such information should not be in the public arena because it might be of use to the criminals. Why name Gardaí when it could undermine the investigation?
Michael these guys would know exactly who’s in charge from the get go without the Journal naming them. For example in Mexico there was a case if a police chief who was promoted in secret in Jureaz and 15 minutes later he was shot dead. Criminals here know who is on the drugs squad, where they operate from, where they are based and in some cases know the reg numbers of every unmarked squad car in the area. The big boys know this as the need to know who they are up against and as they rise through the ranks they bring this intelligence with them. Their dealers act as their eyes and ears on the ground. That’s why it’s difficult to catch most of these lads before they hit their average life expectancy of 42 years.
42 million, the guards know that much about, what the Fock are they not in prison already
Our judges leave murders off. We have guys with 400+ convictions being given bail…..
Lots of basic spelling and grammar errors
I hope I didn’t make any
How about a full stop for starters?
I still can’t believe they murdered the lad from Talking Heads in that Hotel. Terrible loss of talent
There he was, letting the days go by, when some Psycho Killer came in burning down the house.
I wish the media would stop using the word cartel. Kind of gives them credibility. They are murdering drug dealing sc@m
Should we not be reading this without the loss of innocent lives
42 million is pocket change to these criminals. The state turned a blind eye for years so the cash these guys have today is unreal
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