Gardaí face huge wait to get Kinahan back from Dubai
It could take at least three months to extradite gangster Daniel Kinahan from Dubai to Ireland, a former senior Garda officer has warned.
Authorities in Dubai are waiting to see if the organised crime figure from Dublin will challenge his extradition to face justice in the Special Criminal Court.
Yesterday, Extra.ie revealed the mob boss was ‘blindsided’ by his arrest last week, believing money he ‘splashed’ around the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would mean he would be tipped off before any moves against him.
Daniel Kinahan. Pic: Collins Dublin
But it didn’t go to plan and senior sources yesterday said the crime boss and boxing promoter’s ‘arrogance’ resulted in him being in ‘total shock’ when Dubai police moved in to make their dramatic arrest last week.
Pat Leahy, former assistant Garda commissioner for the Dublin Metropolitan Region, said: ‘If he agrees to it [the extradition], he’ll be back in weeks, that’s the reality of it, but I think that’s highly unlikely and everybody expects that he’s going to challenge it.
‘You’re talking three months upwards if he challenges it and there’s no final figure on that, but we are talking months if there’s a challenge put forward and we expect that’s what’s going to happen.’
Dubai. Pic: Getty Images
Mr Leahy said it was difficult to properly describe how big the arrest operation was.
‘It’s not a big global gang, it’s a network of networks,’ he said. ‘It’s probably six to 12 key figures and they’d be Kinahan family members with a hierarchy of lieutenants, but as an actual organisation, it’s made up of regional cells, affiliates, associated gangs and contractors, money launderers, logistics specialists and facilitators; it’s not a single gang, there’s not a single figure on it.’
Daniel Kinahan, 48, and his father, Christy Kinahan Sr, have been living in Dubai since 2016. Ireland and the UAE established a bilateral extradition treaty in 2024, negotiated by then-Justice Minister Helen McEntee, and it came into affect in May last year.
Daniel Kinahan
Sean McGovern, the first person to be extradited to Ireland from the UAE, pleaded guilty last month at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to directing a criminal organisation. He is expected to be sentenced next month.
There is a sense of relief in the boxing world at Kinahan’s arrest, with the Boxing Social website reporting: ‘Daniel Kinahan used fear and bullying tactics to reach the top of boxing long before he was arrested in relation to allegations he ran a drugs and weapons cartel that generated $1billion.’
Editor Alan Dawson wrote: ‘In one of my investigations… first published on Business Insider in 2020, I revealed how two separate boxing industry sources detailed phone calls in which Kinahan bullied the person on the other end of the line and convinced that person to do what Kinahan wanted.’
Boxing promoter Bob Arum said his relationship with Kinahan soured when the latter started using ‘bully tactics’.
A senior security source said Kinahan invested ‘big money’ into UAE contacts and believed this would lead to him being tipped off.
The source told Extra.ie: ‘Because they had so much money splashed around the place, they thought they were important and would be tipped off. But that is totally not true, so they were blindsided.’
Kinahan was under surveillance for two days from the time the warrant was secured in Ireland, and prior to Dubai police securing their warrant for his arrest.
‘They [the Kinahans] didn’t know it was coming at all,’ a source familiar with the operation said. ‘They were under surveillance for a few days prior to them [Dubai police] getting their own warrant to arrest him. It is unbelievable, phenomenal.
‘The charge is for directing an organised crime gang and that will put him behind bars for a long time, but they may get a murder charge yet. It’s probably one of the biggest criminal justice outcomes with organised and serious crime in the State’s history. It’s unprecedented. I’d say they [the Kinahans] are in complete shock.’
Extra.ie revealed on Saturday that a shopping mall and an Indian restaurant not far from the Burj Khalifa skyscraper served as the main hubs for surveillance on the Kinahans.
The government of Dubai confirmed in a statement on Friday it had arrested an ‘Irish fugitive tied to a transnational organised crime network’.
Kinahan has been named by the Irish High Court as ‘a senior figure in organised crime on a global scale’, while the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) identified him as the controller of the Kinahan cartel, which allegedly smuggles guns and drugs into Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe.
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly and Detective Chief Superintendent Séamus Boland, of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB), played key roles in the probe leading to the arrest of Ireland’s most-wanted man.
And the ‘instrumental’ work of late Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll in securing the involvement of the US government is ‘not forgotten’.
A senior source noted: ‘Justin, when he was the assistant commissioner in organised and serious crime, was out in Dubai at least once a month and Séamus Boland, too. There was a lot of work done.’
Comments (0)