The alleged head of the Kinahan organised crime cartel may face life in jail after being arrested in Dubai for extradition to Ireland.
Daniel Kinahan, who has lived in the city for 10 years, ran a now-defunct sports management company that set up some of boxing’s most lucrative bouts and represented boxers such as Tyson Fury.
At the same time, he and members of his family were accused of running an organised crime group linked to gunrunning, cocaine trafficking and money-laundering operations worth more than a billion pounds, as well as links to several bloody murders.
Kinahan was arrested last week after an extradition treaty was agreed between the Republic of Ireland and the United Arab Emirates last year.
He was believed to have moved to Dubai following an attempt on his life in 2016 at the Regency Hotel in Dublin. He was married at the Burj Khalifa the following year in a ceremony estimated to have cost more than a million pounds and rumoured to have been attended by a “who’s who” of global crime lords.
In 2022, the high court in Ireland issued an arrest warrant and an order to seize a mansion in West Dublin that was “effectively owned” by Kinahan.
The court heard from a senior detective that Kinahan was in a “senior leadership role” in the organised crime group. A detective’s affidavit alleged Kinahan had “sanctioned a number of murders” as part of a feud with a rival Irish gang known as the Hutch clan.
Jim O’Callaghan, the Irish department of justice, home affairs and migration minister said he welcomed the arrest.
“The arrest follows my request to the UAE for extradition of this individual to face charges in Ireland,” he said. “I would like to commend all involved in today’s development, which is the result of tireless work.”
Fury ended his relationship with Kinahan in 2020.
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Photograph by Alex Livesey/Getty Images for Netflix