InvestigationOn the run in Dubai, this Irish boxing promoter is on the radar of international police services for drug trafficking and money laundering through the noble art. Up to 5 million dollars are promised to whoever will offer information leading to his capture or the freezing of his financial assets.
It looks like a holiday album. A succession of sunny postcards, sent from the Dubai waterfront, skyscrapers on the azure blue horizon. Same round, jovial face. Same relaxed attitude. For several months, Daniel Kinahan, a 44-year-old former Irish boxing promoter, has been posing on social networks, all smiles and thumbs up. Like this February 8, alongside the world heavyweight champion, the Briton Tyson Fury, known as “the Gypsy King”. A series of photos that reminds everyone that, despite his expatriation to the United Arab Emirates in 2016, Kinahan remains a figure in the boxing world. Like a snub, too, to the heavy accusations that target him.
This same smile and this same bearded face appeared on Tuesday, April 12, on another portrait, unveiled by the Garda – the Irish police – during a press conference at Dublin City Hall. A face overhung with mention “rewards” (“reward”), as in the days of the Wild West. Up to 5 million dollars are promised to who will offer information allowing the capture or the freezing of financial assets of Daniel Joseph Kinahan; but also of his father, Christopher, and his brother, Christopher Junior, presented as the three leaders of the cartel.
Because with these photos, it is indeed his escape that Daniel, the man from Dubai, and headliner of the trio documents. Since 2018, the Irish High Court of Justice has designated him as the number one of this international group, specializing in drug (cocaine, cannabis, heroin) and arms trafficking. A clan responsible for more than a dozen murders in recent years, and even more assassination attempts committed in Ireland, Spain or Turkey, according to the British National Crime Agency (NCA), which is also prosecuting him .
Tuesday’s announcement of the award was not the only news given by visibly moved Irish officers. Officials from the US Treasury, Customs and Drug Enforcement agencies came to announce the blocking of the clan’s assets and investments in the United States, as well as the establishment of a joint task force under the aegis of Europol to finally, after more than a decade of tracking, get their hands on the trio.
The loneliness of the “boss”
“From now on, the transnational criminal organization Kinahan joins the level of the Italian Camorra, the Mexicans of Los Zetas, the Japanese yakuza and the Thieves in Russian law », launched Gregory Gatjanis, associate director of the US Treasury. They also come to inscribe their name in the already provided mythology of Irish banditry, whose route married, in the XXand century, that of the diaspora, particularly in the United States. The figures revealed testify to the power of the clan: according to the boss of the Irish police, Drew Harris, it has already generated more than 1 billion dollars in profits. Since 2015, more than 7.5 million euros in cash, 20 million euros in drugs and 48 firearms have been seized, and 79 cartel members convicted. But the three heads are missing, including Daniel Kinahan.
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