Kinahan Organised Crime Group

• 1. Introduction

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  By August 2021, eighteen deaths had been tied to a feud between the Kinahan Organised Crime Group and a Dublin rival known as the Hutch Gang. That quarrel began in 2015. The Kinahan group, also called the Kinahan Cartel, is alleged to be the most powerful criminal organisation in Ireland and one of the largest in the world. It is also established in the UK, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. Reports have credited its members with wealth of up to €1 billion. How did a street gang of inner-city Dublin drug dealers grow into a transnational syndicate? Who are the men the authorities say run it, and what are they accused of? And why did Dubai matter so much to the family, and what happened when governments began closing in?

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• 2. Celtic Tiger Beginnings

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  Christy Kinahan's criminal record begins in the late 1970s. His first convictions covered house breaking, car theft, burglary, handling stolen goods and forgery. A native Dubliner, he went on to found the organisation in the late 1990s and early 2000s, during Ireland's Celtic Tiger period of rapid economic growth. Reports say it began as a street gang of inner-city drug dealers in Dublin. It soon grew to a global scale and became the multi-million dollar network of today.

  Kinahan's own time behind bars came in several countries. He has served sentences in Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium. They include six years for dealing heroin and four years for money laundering. The press gave him the nickname "the Dapper Don".

  Irish courts have since ruled on the character of the organisation itself. They concluded that it is murderous and involved in the international trafficking of drugs and firearms. Christy led it directly until the position passed to his eldest son, Daniel.

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• 3. A Family Firm

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  Daniel Kinahan is suspected of managing the family's criminal empire from day to day. He is also a boxing promoter, and he has worked as an advisor for Tyson Fury.

  Christopher Kinahan, known as Christy Jnr, is the younger son. The United States Department of State wants him over alleged participation in transnational organised crime, namely narcotics trafficking and money laundering. In 2023 the United States named Daniel, his father Christy Snr and Christy Jnr as the three key players of the gang.

  The family's main business, according to the source of these allegations, is the drug trade. Close to Daniel stands a childhood friend, Bernard Clancy, who was previously jailed for drugs offences on the Costa del Sol in Spain.

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• 4. Enforcers and Lieutenants

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  Imre Arakas, an Estonian nicknamed "The Butcher", is known as a hitman who committed murders in Estonia, Lithuania, Spain and Ireland. He is also said to have killed dozens of members of the Russian Mafia.

  Declan Brady, nicknamed "Mr Nobody", is one of Daniel Kinahan's closest associates. He is the gang's main logistics man and quartermaster. That makes him responsible for its weapons depot and, as a result, for its safety.

  Ross Browning, a Dubliner, is considered Daniel's right-hand man. He has run the syndicate's operations in Ireland for more than two decades. That closeness to Daniel has made him a priority target for the Gardaí and the Criminal Assets Bureau.

  Thomas "Bomber" Kavanagh is the second-in-command and head of the UK branch. Many consider him Ireland's most feared mobster, and he is said to be responsible for at least seven murders. In 2022 an English court sentenced him to 21 years in prison.

  Freddie Thompson led the Dublin branch from 1997 to 2008. He left Ireland that year because of a feud with the Irish National Liberation Army.

  Lower down the ranks, violence defines many of the names. Leon Griffin, a friend of Thompson, is described as one of the most brutal and volatile criminals in Dublin. After a high speed chase through Dublin in 2019 he received three years. On the 20th of June 2022 he was given a further eight years for armed robbery of a security van, plus a concurrent seven years for weapons possession.

  Gerard Mackin, reportedly an enforcer, was convicted in 2017 over a "depraved and barbaric" assault in which a man was nailed to a kitchen floor with a nail-gun. He had earlier been tried twice for the 2007 murder of a Belfast taxi driver, Edward Burns. He was convicted at the first trial, and the retrial collapsed when witnesses refused to testify. Extradited from Spain in 2022, he pleaded guilty to money laundering.

  Gerard "Hatchet" Kavanagh was believed to work as a debt collector and enforcer. He was shot dead aged 44 on the 5th of September 2014 in Marbella, Spain, after more than 20 years in the drug trade.

  The network stretches beyond its core. Glen Ward, nicknamed "Mr Flashy" by the media, is believed to lead an offshoot in Finglas. In Glasgow, the Lyons crime family, now led by Steven Lyons, son of founder Eddie Lyons Snr, is believed to have connections with the group.

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• 5. The Hutch Feud

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  In 2015 Gary Hutch was murdered on the Costa del Sol. Ian Dixon was arrested over the killing but never charged. That same year marks the start of the feud with the Hutch Gang.

  On the 5th of February 2016, David Byrne was murdered at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall, Dublin. He was an associate of the Kinahan family. His older brother, Liam Byrne, is a high-ranking member from a criminal family led by their father James, once an associate of the gangster Martin "The General" Cahill.

  Eddie Hutch was also killed. Trevor Byrne, sentenced in 2021 to 17.5 years for firearms offences and robbery, is suspected of being a gunman in that murder.

  Gareth Hutch died too. In November 2018 Jonathan Keogh, his sister Regina Keogh and Thomas Fox were convicted of his murder. All three received life sentences.

  David Douglas was killed in 2016. Lee Canavan and Freddie Thompson were convicted of the murder and given mandatory life sentences. Canavan's half-brother Gareth Brophy and Nathan Foley were convicted of involvement, and received 9.5 years and 6 years.

  Not every plan succeeded. Douglas Glynn was jailed for 6.5 years in 2022 over a foiled plot to murder James "Mago" Gately.

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• 6. Life in Dubai

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  For years the Kinahan cartel lived openly in Dubai and ran its operations from there, enjoying the immunity the city offers to organised crime groups. It maintains ties with the regime, along with financial links to powerful Dubai families.

  The group set up multiple companies in Dubai offering business services and trading textiles, clothing and food. An investigation found the businesses were being used to supply drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and to launder dirty money. Despite keeping a low profile, the family ran business as usual and held a number of meetings there with criminal associates. Elsewhere, money was laundered through the Smart and TGR networks.

  In October 2024, Sean Gerard McGovern was arrested in Dubai on an Interpol notice. He is Daniel Kinahan's advisor and closest confidant. He has managed communications on Daniel's behalf and sells multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine.

  Fearing McGovern's extradition to Ireland, the cartel drew up a detailed plan to move out of Dubai to Russia. On the 21st of October, Ireland signed an extradition treaty with the UAE. On the 29th of May 2025, McGovern was extradited to Ireland, arrested and charged with murder.

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• 7. Rewards and Arrests

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  On the 12th of April 2022, the United States Department of State announced rewards of up to US$5 million under its Narcotics Rewards Program. The money was offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Kinahan family members. The Garda Síochána, the National Crime Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration joined the offer.

  Seven key members were named. They were Daniel Kinahan, Christopher Kinahan, Christopher Kinahan Jnr, Bernard Clancy, Sean McGovern, John "Johnny Cash" Morrissey and Ian Dixon. Dixon has arranged multiple payments for Daniel and moved bulk currency in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

  Sanctions did not stop the shipments. In August 2022, reports said Spanish-based associates were still running multi-million-euro drug shipments.

  On the 13th of September 2022, a combined force of six enforcement agencies, led by the Spanish Civil Guard's elite Central Operative Unit, arrested Morrissey at his villa in Marbella. He was the first of the seven men named in April to be arrested. Morrissey is a Manchester-born former Cork restaurateur who worked as an enforcer. He fled Ireland in the early 2000s after reportedly being involved in a bid to harm a Criminal Assets Bureau officer. Allegedly, he became the group's drugs shipping organiser and money launderer.

  His wife Nicola was arrested at the same time. She ran the Scottish-based Nero Drinks Company Ltd, which was thought to be part of a €200 million annual money-laundering operation.

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• 8. Global Reach

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  In February 2023, a raid on a business in the Long Mile Road area of Dublin led to eight arrests and the seizure of 40 kg of cocaine. Officers also took over 2,000 containers of nitric oxide, €78,000 in cash, a hydraulic drugs press, communications devices, mixing agent and a money counter. Two of those arrested were later released.

  That same year, Douglas Glynn was jailed for 8 years for managing a drugs warehouse containing €1.4m worth of drugs.

  Edin Gačanin, who is involved in organised crime in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was sanctioned by the United States in 2023. Washington cited his close links to Daniel Kinahan. Broken encrypted chats had shown how the cartel was involved in a €350m cocaine plot.

  In September 2023, authorities believe the Kinahan cartel coordinated with Hezbollah in an attempt to smuggle 2.2 tons of cocaine from Venezuela to Ireland. The attempt failed. The seizure was the largest in Irish history.

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