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GARDAÍ BELIEVE THAT the Kinahan cartel in its current form is coming to an end following yet another high-level arrest of an Irishman in Amsterdam.
The man was arrested last month when he produced false documentation at a police checkpoint.
The man is alleged to be a serious player within the cartel. He had been arrested in Amsterdam before and had served time in a Dutch prison for weapons offences.
The arrest of the man, which was first reported by the Irish Sun earlier this week, is more evidence that the Kinahan cartel is crumbling, according to well-placed sources.
Gardaí have been working with Dutch police, Interpol, Europol and US agencies in relation to the movements of the Dublin-based cartel.
The Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, based out of Dublin Castle, has received a significant amount of new intelligence in recent months which has aided it in the pursuit of key figures within the drug gang.
Dutch police confirmed to TheJournal.ie that the detained man will remain in custody until a court appearance. He has not yet been charged.
Informed sources told this publication that it is “only a matter of time” before the cartel in its current form is dismantled.
For the last 18 months, informers have seen high-level cartel members either flee the country or be arrested on serious offences.
The first of a number of significant international arrests within the Kinahan cartel occurred late last year and as officers continued to receive significant and in-depth intelligence, more were made.
In November, a member of the cartel was arrested in Spain in relation to the seizure of 1.2 tonnes of cocaine. The man was detained during follow-up investigations in the days after national police uncovered more than €35 million worth of cocaine on 10 November.
The seizure, which is being referred to as one of the biggest on Spanish soil, was made after undercover national police followed a British lorry driver to an area near San Sebastien in the north-west of the country.
Police then brought in a digger to move the earth which led them to large water containers buried underground. The drugs were hidden within them.
More recently than that, two Irish men were arrested in the Amstelveen area of north Amsterdam last month. It has since emerged that the arrests were made as a result of information extracted from phones used by a Chilean drug lord who is now in custody.
The two were detained in an Amsterdam suburb in connection with a €220,000 cash seizure.
The pair are relatively low-level players in the Irish drug trade, but have links to a higher-profile criminal who is currently in prison.
The news of the arrests and the cash seizure was first reported by the Herald newspaper last month.
The intelligence gathered by the US’s Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) from phones belonging to Chilean drug lord El Rico allowed police to make the arrests. Pertinent information extracted from the phones is being relayed to police forces all over the world – including gardaí.
The Dutch police said the Irish authorities tipped them off to the whereabouts of the two men.
Any arrest arising from the cooperation between a number of international police agencies is considered important as it shows that the intelligence received by the groups is proving accurate.
Last year, a number of European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) were issued for senior members of the Kinahan cartel’s leadership.
At least two men, who have been running the cartel’s drug and gun enterprise, have been named on the legal documents and are wanted here for questioning in relation to seven murders and significant drug seizures.
UK police are also helping gardaí track down a number of other senior figures who have fled Ireland in recent months.
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I’ve seen the movies. It doesn’t end well. Only John Connor can save us.
@R: We are watching the origins of skynet.
@Jaymes Moynihan: are you an AI? Is that why you have no sense of humour??
Even working in the software industry, it makes me very wary, although the genie ain’t going back in the bottle.
We had a presentation recently about how AI is going to “help” Developers with the presenter quickly saying “not replace Developers of course just assisting them” but it rang kind of hollow.
I joked with a colleague, who doesn’t see the risk about how “First they can for the Product Managers…..”
But it’s more then that. Our data is making us very predictable, and more easily manipulated to those with the know how. Allowing us to be targeted. Don’t be naive and think you’re immune.
@Tricia G ☘️:
Learn other languages and you’ll be fine.
@Tricia G ☘️: We need it. Badly. We’re pretty useless. traffic lights were invented in the late 1800′s etc.
@zephyrum: Yeah. Chinese.
AI won’t replace you, the people using AI will.
If anyone should be worried, it should be journalists.
@Garret Fawl: Not if CNET’s experience is anything to go by.
Because of my upbringing AI to me meana Artificial Insemination. Or, to an older generation, ‘The Bull Man’.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Don’t be giving the bots ideas!
They should have called it Skynet for the craic.
But on a more serious note, I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
@Handsome McWonderful: Biggle, Biggle, Right on Buck.
Imagine it! We could get a journal article summarised.
Can’t stop modern tech. from enhancing the world. The possibilities are endless. Imagine what our fore father’s thought of tech advances. Were they worried? Did it stop progression? Imagine a world where modern techs hadn’t helped medical advances for example…
@Thomas Meaney: Kinda ruins graphic design when AI seems to come up with all the possibilities you could ever want.
@Paul Cunningham: Does Graphic Design in general contemporary terms need to be ruined? Yes it does.
We still haven’t figured out how to deal with the massive problems from Facebook etc generally and high speed internet more generally
Misinformation, polarisation, social isolation, sexual impotence, espionage etc
Is this like Hal the computer in Kubrick’s film ’2001: a Space Odyssey’ deciding to take over from those malleable humans? I’ll be wary. We should all aim to do our own thinking and cultivate our own feelings.
I’ve been using plenty of these AI tools in recent months, ChatGPT, DeepStory, Stable Diffusion, Play.ht ,etc, they are all incredible tools, but people don’t wanna bother learning about how useful they are, they’d rather just reference terminator, which only proves to show how ignorant and uninformed they are.
@Jaymes Moynihan: Such a pity none of the AI software that you’ve been using for months taught you that name calling is childish and the lowest form of intelligence.
@Ann Reddin: He used ChatGPT to make that comment. Didn’t spot that, did you. :)
Great, super, wonderful. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.
No-one should interact with any AI technology as our interactions will only increase its power as it is just learning more and more about us.
The option ‘Nothing at all’ sums it up. Not that I feel nothing at all, but that AI will feel nothing at all, bar it’s algorithms. But same could be said about many humans. But yes, excited, but hopefully apprehensive. Hurry up with the robots so.
The idea of a job will change. Could AI middle manage the HSE? Almost definitely, can AI drive better? yup, but what do we all the do? Maybe do what you’re interested in but then most people aren’t interested in anything. There’s a few theories smashing about, I like Fully Automated Luxury Communism :) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/
@thesaltyurchin: You don’t need “AI” to implement logic.
We’re all doomed, I tell ye…..
New AI is all showy algorithms and snazzy coding. Not like the old days, that was real AI.
@Davis Payne: Right on.
Intelligence, noun.
1. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
2. the collection of information of military or political value.
Artificial, adjective:
1. made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.
2. insincere or affected.
One would be forgiven for considering the secondary definition as the primary, these days. But do not fear, even the inimitable John Carmack calls BS on the whole thing, apart from the (above) secondary definitions.
Anything that replaces humans in Jobs, is a no no. A step to far. While these make billions it leaves people vulnerable, just look at last few months in tech sector.
@Colette Byrne: The popular notion that anything artificial could ever conceivably replace something natural, demonstrates the abject materialism and conceitedness of modern thinking.
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