It’s both fitting and sad that the arrest of Daniel Kinahan comes almost exactly four years from the day when sanctions were announced against the cartel.
Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll, who oversaw Garda investigations into Daniel Kinahan, his brother Christy Jr and father Christy Sr stood proudly as US authorities announced sanctions against them in a major press conference in Dublin on April 12, 2022.
Now just over four years on, the hero Garda who pushed for Kinahan’s arrest, is sadly not here to see the moment the mob leader is finally cuffed in Dubai. The highly respected senior Garda, who led the fight against Kinahan, sadly died in September 2024.
But his death came not before Gardai had continued success after success against the Kinahan cartel – putting away many of their key lieutenants and those who waged war on our streets for years.
Innocent men were gunned down in broad daylight while anyone who was willing was paid to kill anyone even tangentially associated with the name Hutch.
Those orders came from Daniel Kinahan and his lieutenants who had fled to what they thought was a safe haven in the far off UAE.
But it is thanks to John O’Driscoll’s pursuit of Kinahan, and the tireless work of the National Drugs and Organised Crime Unit, that the long running probe into the cartel has finally come to this dramatic culmination.
It was easy for many to criticise Gardai and to say that this day would never come.
Kinahan seemed to be living the life in Dubai – pictured as recently as last year sitting front row at a major UFC event in the Coca Cola arena. There were theories that he was being sheltered by Dubai’s elite, and that even though his closest lieutenant Sean McGovern had been successfully extradited, he was simply a pawn – a sacrificial lamb sent home to prevent Kinahan’s arrest.
Those detractors couldn’t have been more wrong. But the wait for those that cared was incredibly frustrating, and it came amid a backdrop of arguably one of the most complicated and important files sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in decades.
A file that was said to be so large that it could hit the roof, was sent by gardai to the DPP sometime two years ago. It ultimately recommended that Daniel Kinahan – a man whose face had rarely been out of the papers since 2016, be charged with murder, and directing a crime gang.
Gardai don’t level such charges easily. It requires meticulous work and evidence. But amid the constant pressure to perform and a bloody feud that saw people targeted virtually every day, they managed to put in the days, weeks, months, years even to finally bring Kinahan to justice.
It was an event in June 2020 that particularly moved things along. A brazen Kinahan, who despite being named in this country as the leader of a cocaine peddling international cartel, had been trying to cement himself as one of the biggest names in boxing.
He had been silently building his reputation for funding boxers and boxing events all over the world for years – but it was his attempt to step into the limelight that started to see the dominoes fall.
Tyson Fury, the biggest name in the sport, announced to the world that he was “just after getting off the phone with Daniel Kinahan” who had informed him “that the biggest fight in British boxing history has just been agreed” – a bout with Anthony Joshua.
“Go on there my boy. Big shout out there to Dan, he got this done,” he proudly declared.
Two years on it emerged that the fight would not be going ahead – while Kinahan’s role as Tyson Fury’s advisor was severed after the US department of Treasury and the Drugs Enforcement Association (DEA) stood with gardai in city hall and announced the sanctions against the Kinahan cartel.
Kinahan’s reputation was seemingly in tatters – but despite it all, he somehow managed to claw his way back into the favour of major names in the world of UFC.
In recent months it emerged that Kinahan now seemed to be ringside with Mounir Lazzez, who had arranged a major fighting event in the heart of Dubai.
Once again, despite the heat, the man who emerged from the Oliver Bond flats all those years ago was still trying to beat the odds.
One could speculate that the continued publicity in recent years of the Kinahan’s seeming high life in the UAE was becoming more than a bad image for the country’s government.
But having deported numerous international criminals in recent years, the message was clear – Dubai was no longer a safe haven for organised criminals.
But for whatever reason Kinahan still believed he was safe. He was said to still be freely moving around the city, engaging in business and raising a family, all while facing what finally occurred this week.
Perhaps he never believed it would happen, or he’s long since decided that he will one day have to face it. Whatever the truth, the Dublin born criminal and son of the ‘Dapper Don’ will now finally have to face the music.
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