Daniel Kinahan ‘to plead responsible’ as cartel has £168m of property seized in Dubai

The suspected cartel boss was arrested earlier this month when specialist officers from the Dubai Police nabbed the 48-year-old in the desert city following a covert operation

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Suspected crime boss Daniel Kinahan will ‘plead guilty’ in an Irish court when he is extradited from Dubai, sources claim.

The alleged mob chief continues to languish in a tough prison in the United Arab Emirates a week after his arrest on suspicion of directing the activities of the crime gang that bares his name. A source said: “The belief is he will take a plea.”

It comes as authorities in Dubai froze around £168 million of assets linked to the Kinahan cartel, which is said to have dominated Europe’s cocaine trade and global arms smuggling for over a decade.

The move has cranked up the pressure on key members of the cartel, who are said to be terrified to touch bank accounts for fear of revealing their location to cops.

Kinahan, 48, faces a life sentence if convicted and cops in Ireland believe the scale of the offences he is alleged to have committed are so serious that the only way to ensure he serves less jail time is if he pleads guilty.

Sources told the Irish Mirror that investigators believe the evidence against him -which allegedly includes messages extracted from supposedly secure phones by Garda experts – will damn him.

It is understood the case against Kinahan, who was arrested by cops in Dubai last Friday week after an extradition request by the Republic, includes phone messages.

Prosecutors will claim they link him to four serious crimes committed by the cartel during its bloody war on the Hutch Organised Crime Group that left up to 18 men dead.

They include the murders in Dublin of Eddie ‘Neddie’ Hutch, 58, in February 2016 and 62-year-old Noel Kirwan in December of the same year.

The crimes will also allegedly include the bid by the cartel to murder Neddie’s brother Gerry “The Monk” Hutch, 63, in a bar in Lanzarote on New Year’s Eve in 2015. And a plot to kill Hutch associate James ‘Mago’ Gately in Belfast in April 2017.

Sources say much of the evidence is contained in phones seized by gardai, one belonging to key Kinahan ally Sean McGovern and another connected to suspected Estonian hitman Imre Arakas.

The phone of McGovern – who has pleaded guilty to two serious Kinahan offences and whose sentence hearing in the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin takes place tomorrow – was seized after his arrest in the city in mid 2017.

A phone owned by Arakas, 66 , was seized when detectives from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau as well as the Emergency Response Unit stormed a house in west Dublin and arrested him as he prepared to move north to kill Gately.

Both phones were encrypted and locked which meant detectives were not able to access their contents, but cyber experts have now managed to get into them and have uncovered a treasure trove of messages that the State will say connect Kinahan to the crimes.

And that haul means detectives believe they have more than enough evidence to convict Kinahan, sources say. An insider said: “The messages are damning for Daniel.

“The case is really strong. If and when he is extradited from Dubai and charged before the Special, there are only two options for him.

“He can be smart and plead guilty in the hope of getting a reduced sentence. The [three] judges will take that into account when coming to a sentence. Or he can be silly and fight it and get an even bigger sentence.

“He leads a gang worth at least €1.5billion and it has been responsible for 20 murders here and abroad. He will be looking at decades behind bars if he is convicted. The only question will be how many decades.”

Kinahan was arrested on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah where he and wife Caoimhe, 44, own a seven-bed home. He is being held in the Dubai Central Prison ahead of a hearing in the Emirate, which is expected to happen within days.

He is being held in the Al Awir jail, known as the ‘Desert Alcatraz’ because of its extreme cold and violence, on charges relating to organised crime.

The Kinahans have a range of investments there, from property to shipping, entertainment, crypto and sports management. But the UAE has clamped down on the cartel following reports it was involved with Iranian intelligence services.

He has the right to fight his extradition, but sources in Dublin say they expect him to lose and to be put on an Air Corps plane for the 3,700mile flight to Ireland within weeks.

There is likely to be a massive security operation for that extraditions and his subsequent appearance at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin.

He is likely to be locked up in the top security Portlaoise Prison when he is sent back to Ireland, the same prison where his close pal McGovern is being held after his extradition from Dubai last May.

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