Alleged drug kingpin Daniel Kinahan is back on home soil in Ireland after being extradited from Dubai, marking “the end of a global game of cat and mouse with European, US and Gulf authorities”, said The Guardian.
Ten years after “escaping assassination and fleeing into exile”, the alleged head of Ireland’s biggest organised crime syndicate landed in Dublin on Sunday. “But it is not the homecoming he wanted.”
Met at the airport by a massive security operation, the 49-year-old was immediately taken to the Criminal Courts of Justice to face a charge of directing organised crime, then whisked away to the high-security Portlaoise Prison.
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Who is Daniel Kinahan?
The son of Christy “the Dapper Don” Kinahan, a convicted drug trafficker, he allegedly took over from his father as leader of the Kinahan Cartel, a crime ring that is said to control about a third of Europe’s cocaine supply. He has been charged with directing the activities of a criminal organisation from 18 October 2015 to 6 April 2017, which he has denied.
The married father of five is also the founder of the boxing management company MTK Global, although the organisation, which ceased operation in 2022, has insisted it had cut ties with Kinahan.
He is said to have fled to Spain and then Dubai after an attempt on his life at the Regency Hotel in Dublin in 2016. “Six men, some disguised as police and one wearing a dress and a wig, entered the hotel” and opened fire at a boxing weigh-in, said The Washington Post. Kinahan escaped, but his associate, David Byrne, was shot dead, sparking a feud between the Kinahans and the rival Hutch gang.
How did he end up back in Ireland?
In April 2022, following pressure from the Irish authorities, the Kinahan Organised Crime Group was sanctioned by the US, which compared the group to “Mexico’s Los Zetas, Japan’s yakuza and Russia’s ‘Thieves In Law’”. A $5 million (£3.7 million) reward was also offered for tips leading to the arrest of Kinahan, his father or brother.
From then on, “it was always a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ the man labelled by Europol as one of the bosses of Europe’s ‘super cartel’ would be getting a one-way ticket home”, said Paul Williams in the Irish Independent.
Kinahan’s presence in the UAE over the past decade had “become a source of international embarrassment” for the Gulf state, especially when his 2017 wedding at the luxury Burj Al Arab was tweeted by heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury.
The breakthrough came in 2024, when Ireland managed to negotiate an extradition treaty with the UAE. Kinahan was arrested in April this year, and has remained in custody, clearing the way for his forced return to Ireland over the weekend on an Irish government jet.
When will he face trial?
In his brief court appearance on Sunday, Kinahan “cut a dejected but polite figure” as he addressed the three judges from the dock, said The Irish Independent. He will remain on remand in Portlaoise Prison until his trial, in a block cleared especially for him, spending up to 20 hours a day in his cell.
How long Kinahan stays there “has not been decided”, said The Irish Times. If he chooses to fight the case and wins at trial next year, “he would be released immediately”. If convicted, he faces “somewhere between 20 and 30 years in prison”. However, “nothing is proven against him at this point”, so “he is an innocent man in the eyes of the law.”
