‘They’re rattled’: Is this the beginning of the end for the Kinahans?

There’s nothing surer; they were watching it, says former senior garda Michael O’Sullivan. Within a couple of minutes, the Kinahans knew Sean McGovern got 24 years’ jail, nothing surer. They’re rattled. The former Garda assistant commissioner – the first garda to arrest family patriarch Christy Kinahan snr back in the 1980s – is certain that Christy and his sons Daniel and Christopher jnr were immediately aware of the lengthy jail term handed down this week to the man described in court as “a senior trusted lieutenant” in Kinahan crime cartel. With that sentence, he’s not doing his time and going back to the UAE, and thank you very much. This is over for him. And Daniel Kinahan is in custody and he’s looking at that thinking: ‘Sweet Jesus’. It was almost four decades ago when O’Sullivan arrested Christy Kinahan snr for dealing cocaine from an apartment in Clontarf, Dublin. O’Sullivan has decades of experience battling the drugs trade, from working as an undercover garda investigating street deals on the sink estates of Dublin to catching major shipments of drugs measured in the tens of millions of euro. Recent events had, he told The Irish Times, turned the Kinahans’ world upside down, including the jailing of McGovern (40) by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on Monday after he pleaded guilty to two charges of directing the activities of a criminal organisation in the bloody Kinahan-Hutch feud. Who would have thought six months ago McGovern would be doing 24 years and Daniel would be in custody, says O’Sullivan, referring to Daniel Kinahan who was arrested in Dubai on April 17th and is facing extradition back to Ireland. The beginning of the end has definitely started. This is it: the top of this [cartel] is crumbling. An alternative way of looking at the events of the past week is that yet another one of the men around the Kinahans has been jailed for crimes in the Kinahan-Hutch feud. It spiralled into a spate of killings following the Hutch gang’s February 2016 attempt on Daniel Kinahan’s life and the murder of one of his associates, David Byrne, in the Regency Hotel shooting. They thought they’d never be extradited from Dubai – that’s one of the main reasons they went there. But that’s all changed – a big change of attitude [by the UAE]. Yet, despite the successful conviction of their lieutenant, the three Kinahans – Christy snr, Daniel and Christopher jnr – have still not been convicted. Daniel Kinahan remains in custody in Dubai, but the Irish authorities have a mountain to climb before they can get him back to the Republic to stand trial and secure a conviction. And with the best lawyers money can buy, the gang leader may sink the case against him on a legal flaw. What evidence does the Garda’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau have on Daniel? And what will become of his father and brother – and the drugs cartel that bears their name – now that leader Daniel is in custody? Christy Kinahan snr in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2019. Christy snr and Christopher jnr. McGovern (40), a father of two with a former address at Kildare Road, Crumlin on the southside of Dublin, was Daniel Kinahan’s closest confidant in Dubai – in effect, his consigliere. He was in the second tier of the cartel, with only the Kinahans more senior. He was arrested in Dubai in October 2024, extradited in May 2025 and jailed this week. But the arrest of Daniel Kinahan, also on foot of an extradition warrant from Ireland, was a development of a different order, sources say. The international policing community believes cartel founder Christy Kinahan snr stood down from the top of the cartel some time ago, with his sons taking his place. Of his two sons, Daniel is seen as the dominant force, the outright leader. However, gardaí say now that he has been arrested and is in custody, his father and brother are more than capable of representing the family’s interests. They’ve already made their money, they made their money years ago, said O’Sullivan, a former head of the Garda’s drug squad. But you also have to bear in mind that cartels are not cast in stone. A number of groups will get together at different times to import a big consignment [of drugs], for example. And they still have all the contacts they had before. Daniel not being around takes a huge amount of the power and the strength out of it for the Kinahans. But they’ll want to keep their heads down for the foreseeable future anyway, says O’Sullivan, who is also a former director the Maritime Analysis Operations Centre (Narcotics), an EU body that combats international drug smuggling by sea. There is consensus in policing circles on that point; that the biggest priority for Christy snr and Christopher jnr at present is not getting arrested, for extradition or deportation. A number of Garda sources believe deportation from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – rather than being extradited to Ireland to face charges – is their biggest immediate problem, not least because no charges are approved against them in Ireland or anywhere else. Since the US sanctions, the three Kinahans haven’t left UAE, said one Garda source of the sanctions brought against the father and his sons in 2022. They fear, the source said, that they would be arrested, under American pressure, in another country or would not be allowed back into Dubai. They stay put and then McGovern is arrested and extradited and then Daniel is arrested for extradition, said the source. They thought they’d never be extradited from Dubai – that’s one of the main reasons they went there. But that’s all changed – a big change of attitude [by the UAE]. Another source agrees, saying that change of attitude now greatly increases the chances of Christy snr and Christopher jnr being suddenly arrested for deportation. They are more concerned with having a fallback plan [rather than keeping the cartel going], said O’Sullivan. Can they wake up somewhere one day in another country, with another identity? For now, they’ll be waiting in fear, anxiously, for that knock on the door. The ability of Christy and Christopher to run from Dubai suddenly is complicated by the fact they are being closely watched by the authorities there. They also both have partners and young children. Christy snr, now aged 69, has three young children with his wife, a Dutch national. That threat from the Americans is akin to global law enforcement pursuing them. The US government and law enforcement, especially the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has such good contacts and leverage globally that O’Sullivan believes there is almost nowhere the Kinahans could go and feel certain to be out of reach. They are absolutely everywhere, he said. If you want someone arrested on some little island in southeast Asia, for example, the DEA has a man for that. Daniel Kinahan: If convicted in Ireland, he faces 30 years or more. Daniel Kinahan. Daniel Kinahan (48), a married father of five who grew up in the Oliver Bond Flats in Dublin’s south inner city, will remain in custody until a decision is made in his extradition case before the courts in Dubai. If extradited, as is widely expected, he will likely be returned to Ireland within the next six to eight months. He will be the first person extradited under the new extradition treaty put in place between Ireland and UAE. You never know what holes his lawyers might find in the agreement, said one source. So the gardaí, the Department of Justice, will be nervous. But the fact McGovern was brought back [under a special once-off extradition] will settle those nerves a bit. If extradited, Kinahan will be remanded in custody in Portlaoise Prison, the State’s only maximum security jail, pending trial. Given that McGovern was jailed for 24 years, gardaí believe that, if convicted, Kinahan faces 30 years or more, perhaps even life. But the Special Criminal Court won’t just convict him; it’ll have to be proven and we saw that with the Gerry Hutch case; the evidence wasn’t there and the court cleared him, said one Garda source. The Irish Times has established the Garda’s and DPP’s plan is for him to face a single charge of directing organised crime. Much of the evidence will be similar to that produced against McGovern. It will be based on the claim that Kinahan was the author of a set of messages sent between senior cartel figures between 2015 and 2017 covering the early stages of the Kinahan-Hutch feud. Those messages were sent via modified Blackberry devices, on an encrypted system and via a private server. The cartel believed the messages could never be hacked by law enforcement and never retrieved from any Blackberry handset that was seized. But gardaí seized two such handsets, including one from McGovern, in Dublin a decade ago. Advances in technology since then resulted in the messages being accessed. In the supposedly secret messaging threads, McGovern is being directed by a more senior figure. The State plans to produce evidence it says proves Kinahan is that person. Prosecutors will seek to link him to some of the violence that played out during the feud. This includes an effort to shoot Gerry Hutch, described by gardaí in court as the figurehead of the Hutch crime gang, in a Lanzarote pub on New Year’s Eve 2015, and the murder of his brother, Eddie Hutch, in Dublin in February 2016. The case against Kinahan will also centre on the cartel’s core drug-dealing business, with evidence related to drug trafficking and money laundering set to feature. Gardaí are braced for a tough trial. But they are also encouraged by the length of the jail term imposed on McGovern. They see no other outcome than Kinahan’s sentence being even longer, assuming he is extradited and convicted. I think he’s looking at something [a jail term] that ends his involvement in crime, said another Garda source of Kinahan. You can’t see him getting 10 years, being out in six or seven, and then getting back to business. But he has to be convicted first. And I wouldn’t be making any assumptions about that. The hardest part of this is still to come. The Garda’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau will have to go into court and win a case against him, said the source. He will be confident; he’s that kind of character – and he’ll be slippery.