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Ireland has signed an extradition treaty with the UAE, tightening the net on the notorious Kinahan criminal gang just over a week after one of its top lieutenants was arrested in Dubai.
Ireland’s justice minister Helen McEntee on Monday signed two treaties in Abu Dhabi with her counterpart Abdullah bin Sultan bin Awad al Nuaimi, after more than two years of diplomatic efforts. Ireland said the agreements “represent a crucial step in intensifying the combined fight” against organised crime.
Led by Daniel Kinahan, the biggest European drug lord still at large, the Irish crime family is a key player in the Dubai-based “super cartel” estimated to have supplied a third of Europe’s cocaine.
Other “super cartel” kingpins, including the Netherlands’ Ridouan Taghi and Italy’s Raffaele Imperiale have been extradited and sentenced in their home countries. The lack of such a bilateral treaty with the UAE meant no such avenue was open to Ireland.
The Irish-UAE treaties were signed as senior Kinahan cartel members Liam Byrne and Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh — considered top bosses of the group’s UK and Irish operations — awaited sentencing at the Old Bailey in London on firearms charges. Both have pleaded guilty.
This month, Dubai authorities arrested Sean McGovern, believed to be the right-hand man of Daniel Kinahan, who has been holed up in the Gulf city-state for years. McGovern, described by Interpol as “one of Ireland’s most wanted fugitives”, is wanted in Ireland on murder charges.
Neither Ireland’s police nor the justice ministry could immediately comment on whether McGovern’s extradition would go ahead now an extradition treaty is in place. Experts believe his trial would put key information about the Kinahans’ operations in the public domain.
Ireland’s director of public prosecutions declined to comment on whether it would bring charges against Daniel Kinahan. It has been reviewing a Garda (police) file on him for more than a year.
Experts have speculated whether the Kinahans will now stay in Dubai or might seek to evade capture by relocating elsewhere. The UAE has already frozen the gang’s assets.
Expats have reported sightings of the Kinahans in Dubai but concrete details of whether they remained there were not known.
Garda commissioner Drew Harris has urged Kinahan associates to break with the gang and co-operate with authorities to capture their boss. “They should look about them, they should see what is happening here and they should remember that there is $15mn with US Federal Law Enforcement and the US Federal witness protection scheme open, and they should consider that . . . given the progress . . . we are making to the Kinahan organised crime gang.”
The US is offering rewards of $5mn each for information leading to the arrest of Daniel Kinahan and those of his father Christy Sr and brother Christopher.
People briefed on the UAE’s position said that if presented with an arrest warrant with detailed charges by Ireland, the UAE would likely start extradition proceedings through the local courts. Enhanced co-operation on law enforcement was one of the means through which the UAE demonstrated enhanced compliance with financial regulations that led to its removal earlier this year from a watch list of international money laundering destinations.
At their peak, the Kinahans appeared untouchable — with their illicit activities spawning “mind-boggling” wealth, according to a top detective.
Daniel Kinahan inherited the cartel from his father and cultivated ties to professional boxing alongside his drug operations.
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