The capture of cartel boss Daniel Kinahan might have occurred in Dubai – but it was orchestrated in Ireland. Cops have had the 48-year-old gangster in their crosshairs for nearly 20 years and now they are tantalisingly close to securing him.
The Dubliner, who is detained in a United Arab Emirates (UAE) prison awaiting a proposed extradition to his home city of Dublin to face organised crime charges, has long been Ireland’s most wanted man. He leads a notorious, and international, criminal cartel that carries his surname.
It is valued at no less than €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion), has been held responsible for 20 killings in Ireland, Spain and Europe – and is now facing unprecedented pressure.
That stems from a massive and relentless campaign against them by gardai that commenced late on the evening of February, 5, 2016. Several hours before, the Hutch Organised Crime Gang had attempted to assassinate Kinahan when it launched its brazen, daytime assault on the Regency Airport Hotel in north Dublin – narrowly missing him by moments, but slaying key ally David Byrne.
While gardai were pursuing the Hutch assassins, they were preparing for the Kinahans’ retaliation. They did not have to wait long, reports the Irish Mirror.
The cartel, commanded from the comparative security of Dubai. Kinahan, 48, embarked on a bloodthirsty spree following the Byrne slaying – and for several weeks it appeared as though they held the advantage.
There was a tangible dread in some Dublin neighbourhoods as Kinahan gunmen seemed to patrol, searching for victims. Within days it had slaughtered Eddie Hutch, 58, a brother of the Gerry Hutch in central Dublin. Over the next five months, cartel assassins killed another six people – and it seemed to all that they were wreaking havoc unchecked.
It also seemed that gardai were helpless to halt them. Yet, behind the scenes, circumstances were already shifting for gardai. Within days of the assault, the force received an additional €5 million (£4.4 million) in funding.
That cash proved a lifeline. The Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, the force’s primary anti-gangland division – secured a substantial portion of it. Days following the killing, the DOCB, led by then Detective Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan, launched a recruitment campaign – combing the city for the most capable officers from both plain clothes and uniformed divisions.
Funding was also allocated for a dedicated Armed Support Unit for Dublin. Until the Regency incident, regional support units from across Ireland dispatched personnel to the capital.
Having a permanent ASU in Dublin enabled gardai to flood trouble spots throughout the city with armed checkpoints – a tactic senior gardai employed to thwart Kinahan assassination squads. There was also an abundance of crucial overtime available, particularly for frontline policing and detectives working on the feud – alongside those investigating the rising number of murders connected to it.
Sources revealed to us at the time that deploying units such as the ASU and Emergency Response Unit on the streets was merely a temporary fix. They alone could not bring down the Kinahan cartel, valued at no less than €1 billion (£870 million) and purchasing allegiance from individuals across inner city Dublin while conducting their vicious conflict with the Hutch faction.
They insisted the cartel could only be dismantled through meticulous detective work – which might require years, possibly decades. However, looking back, gardai launched their initial counter-attack within mere weeks.
On March 9, the ERU supported the Criminal Assets Bureau during a wave of raids focusing on Liam Byrne, David’s brother, and his crew, considered a crucial element of the cartel. Nearly 30 vehicles were confiscated and multiple properties, including Liam Byrne’s residence and another belonging to associate Sean McGovern, were seized by CAB, who also grabbed substantial amounts of cash and valuables.
The CAB proceedings dragged on for several years. However, by the end of 2019 both properties had been surrendered to CAB – while the home where Byrne resided, which belonged to a family member, was subsequently sold alongside another property he owned in the city’s west for over €500,000 (£435,275).
The CAB raid forced both McGovern and Byrne to abandon Ireland – a development that considerably damaged the cartel’s operations here. Then, in November 2016, then Detective Inspector, and now acting Deputy Commissioner, Paul Cleary made a significant arrest in the toilets of a Dublin hotel. He apprehended Freddie Thompson, now 45, on suspicion of murder.
Thompson was implicated in the July 2016 killing of Daith Douglas, 54, in central Dublin and was a key figure in the cartel. His arrest and charge marked a major breakthrough.
Thompson was found guilty by the Special Criminal Court in August 2018 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Judge Hunt praised the meticulous Garda investigation as unparalleled.
The inquiry also led to Lee Canavan, 37, being imprisoned for life for murder. But there was even greater success for the gardai just months after Thompson’s arrest and charge.
In January 2017, the bolstered DOCB conducted a surveillance operation on a business premises at the Greenogue estate in Rathcoole, south Co Dublin. Moments later, they and ERU officers stormed in – revealing the cartel’s war arsenal.
This was a crushing blow to the gang, which had planned to use the weapons – nine pistols, four revolvers, a submachine gun and an assault rifle – around the time of the first anniversary of the attack. Former DOCB Detective Inspector Noel Browne, who led the operation, told us last year that he believed they were planning to assassinate several targets linked to the Hutch gang simultaneously.
Declan Brady, now 59 of The Park, Wolstan Abbey, Celbridge, Co Kildare, was detained in the operation, alongside two others. Brady earned the nickname Mr Nobody due to his extremely low profile – yet he held a crucial role in the Irish Kinahan operation.
He was subsequently imprisoned for 10 years. He was then handed another seven years in 2021 for money laundering for the Kinahans.
And in 2024 he was sentenced to a further nine years after he pleaded guilty to facilitating the Kinahan gang’s murder of Noel Kirwan, 62, in Clondalkin, west Dublin in December 2016. While local Garda units across various parts of Dublin were occupied investigating the steadily rising number of feud-related murders – 18 by early 2018 – other officers were working to prevent killings.
In 2020, then Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll revealed to us that officers from DOCB and the ERU had intervened to thwart 75 hits since the Regency, most linked to the feud. In April 2017, DOCB raided a property in Blanchardstown, west Dublin and arrested Estonian hitman Imre Arakas, who had arrived in Dublin the day before.
He was plotting to kill Hutch ally James “Maggo” Gately. Arakas, 66, was subsequently sentenced to six years after admitting conspiracy to murder.
In March 2018, armed detectives confronted a three-man Kinahan hit team as it was merely 250 metres from the Dublin home of Patsy Hutch, the Monk’s brother. Garda intelligence had the plan under surveillance and officers staged an ambush as the gang readied to execute the hit.
The team – Gary Thompson, 40, of Plunkett Green in Finglas, Dublin 11, his brother Glen Thompson, 31, of Plunkett Drive, also in Finglas, and Robert Browne, 41, of Phibsboro Road, Dublin 7 – were handed sentences totalling 36 and a half years between them for the plot. Four other men were also found guilty in relation to the conspiracy.
In November 2017, gardai thwarted a hit on another Hutch associate in north Dublin, who cannot be named due to legal reasons. Gardai had bugged the van the gang was using and overheard them discussing the planned hit.
Among those imprisoned was Liam Brannigan, now 43, of Bride Street, Dublin 8. He received an eight-year sentence in 2020, but the sentence was backdated to November 2017, when he was taken into custody.
He is now a free man. The Patsy Hutch plot and this case were among the first instances where Garda surveillance tapes were played in court.
Gardai have now seen more than 80 Kinahan criminals put behind bars – including 10 for murder. They have also confiscated millions of euros in cash and drugs – as well as dozens of weapons.
Gardai have also dealt significant blows to the cartel in collaboration with foreign police forces. In September 2016, they partnered with the Guardia Civil to arrest Dubliner James Quinn over the September 2015 murder by the cartel of Gary Hutch, 34, on the Costa Del Sol. Quinn, 43, was later convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
They also worked alongside UK police in the case against Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh, 57, who has now been slapped with a 28-year sentence for organised crime activities. His brother-in-law Liam Byrne, 45, was caged for five years over the same investigation, but has since been released.
The international cooperation peaked in April 2022 when the US Treasury imposed sanctions on seven Kinahan men. They also placed a $5 million bounty on Daniel, 48, Christy, 68, and Christopher, 44. That heaped enormous pressure on the cartel.
Gardai had been pressing Dubai authorities about the Kinahans for years – and that bore fruit in May 2025, when they expelled Sean McGovern, 39, from the desert state.
He was returned to Ireland, where he is currently awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to two major Kinahan crimes. He faces the prospect of being imprisoned for life in just over a week.
Everyone believed that sentencing would be the biggest Irish crime story of the year. But then, at around 5pm today, gardai released a brief press statement about an Irishman being arrested in Dubai.
And everything shifted. Sources told the Irish Mirror gardai are optimistic UAE authorities will approve Kinahan’s extradition and believe he could be back in Ireland within months – or perhaps even weeks. If that occurs, the stage will be set for a massive court case in Ireland that could see Kinahan imprisoned for life – if convicted.
It remains to be seen, however, whether such a conviction would signal the downfall of the Kinahan cartel. Daniel’s father Christy and brother Christopher remain at large – likely in Dubai.
They are expected to take over the entire operation. However, if the gardai manage to bring charges against them as well, it could spell the end for the cartel.
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