Ireland’s notorious Kinahan drugs cartel has introduced a fast-food-style franchise system in its efforts to continue dominating the cocaine trade. The drugs syndicate has muscled its way back to being the dominant force in the Irish cocaine scene in recent months, reasserting itself as the main supplier to almost all major criminal organisations across the country again.
Such is their stranglehold on the trade, that many of the gangs who filled some of the holes left by the mobsters when they fled to Dubai in the mid-2010s to exploit the lack of extradition agreement between the UAE and the EU, are also now back on board. Representatives from narcotics networks in Dublin and beyond are believed to have travelled to Dubai to meet high-ranking members of the Kinahan cartel to arrange future shipments directly from them.
Those said to have travelled to the Middle East are a Clondalkin gang known as ‘The Family’ as well as another group who operate from Cabra, who have long been involved in major drug trafficking operations, according to The Times.
Franchise Operation
It is reported that this power play by the Kinahans will now see them operate like a franchise, flooding cocaine to gangs through the streets of Ireland akin to how fast-food suppliers deliver produce to stores in an attempt to eliminate competition. The move may explain the recent decrease in gangland feuds and murders across Ireland, with the street price of the Class A drug also remaining at a stable level after a sharp increase last year. The Kinahan’s new network structure is believed to be a repeat – or is at least similar – to how the cartel bulked itself up during its original network before a series of global law enforcement operations targeted its leadership.
Contingency Plan
Drugs kingpin Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, who ran the UK arm of the Kinahan cartel, is one of the major players to be brought down in recent times. He was jailed for 21 years at Ipswich Crown Court in March 2022 after pleading guilty to conspiring to import class A and B drugs and money laundering offences in July 2020.
Fearing the same fate, the cartel’s leader Christy ‘Dapper Don’ Kinahan, 68, and his two sons Daniel, 48, and Christopher Jr, 44, have already devised a contingency plan should the gardai attempt to extradite them from their base in Dubai. The Irish government signed two treaties with UAE representatives which allowed them to extradite suspected organised crime accomplices last October – a move which now has the Kinahans on red alert. Security sources also told The Times that ‘Dapper Don’ now travels with a bodyguard when in public, such is his paranoia about being snared.
Expert Insights
Author Mark Galeotti, an expert on multi-country crime, told the publication that the cartel’s move to seemingly become a drugs conglomerate made sense – for them. He said: ‘If you’ve got all the architecture, the pipeline, the infrastructure in order to move the drugs and you know where the markets are, why would you abandon that? Isn’t it better to trade that out to others who are going to be your proxies in effect?’
The Kinahan’s global clients are said to include Mexican cartels, Hezbollah and Iran’s intelligence services. It is believed that the gang have assets worth around $1.5 billion hidden in offshore accounts and in hidden international investments.
The cartel was previously headed-up by Liam Byrne, who relocated to Dubai when Garda drug teams began closing in. He was arrested in June 2023 while holidaying in Mallorca and was later extradited to the UK. Byrne, a close friend of ‘Dapper Don’, was convicted of firearms offences by Britain’s National Crime Agency and was released on licence in January.
Conclusion
In April 2022, the US Department of State placed up to $5 million in rewards for information that leads to each of the arrests and prosecution of ‘Dapper Don’ and his two sons, branding them the heads of a major international drugs cartel.