After a years-long manhunt, an international fugitive was arrested in Dubai this week.
Daniel Kinahan, the alleged leader of one of Ireland’s largest criminal gangs, the Kinahan Cartel, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of organized crime in a sting operation involving the authorities of Ireland and the United Arab Emirates.
The 48-year-old alleged crime boss is expected to be charged in Ireland in connection with a gangland feud between the Kinahan cartel and the Hutch gang that has left 18 people dead since 2015.
Dubai police did not mention Kinahan by name but said they had “arrested an Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an organized criminal group involved in international crimes in his home country.”
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Split of Daniel Kinahan and Dubai (U.S. Department of the Treasury; Fadel SENNA/AFP via Getty Images)
He was identified by Irish media on Friday.
Ireland’s national police force, the Garda Síochána, said an Irish man in his 40s was arrested on an Irish court warrant.
“An Garda Síochána has been steadfast in our determination that we would pursue those allegedly involved in serious organized criminal activity wherever they went,” police said in a statement, according to The Irish Star. “Today’s arrest is yet another critically important demonstration of the need for international law enforcement cooperation in tackling transnational organized crime.”
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Members of An Garda Síochána in Dublin in February. (Natalia Campos/Getty Images)
Kinahan fled Ireland to Spain and then the UAE after being the suspected target of an assassination attempt that killed a Kinahan cartel associate, David Byrne, at a boxing weigh-in at Dublin’s Regency Hotel.
The US Treasury Department offered a $5 million reward in 2022 for information leading to the arrest of the Kinahan cartel’s leaders or the “financial destruction” of the organization.
Spanish police officers raided 11 locations in Spain and England in 2022 and arrested four people linked to the largest known money laundering organization in Spain, suspected of laundering more than €200 million in 18 months. The main target is considered a high-value individual by Europol and is linked to the Irish Kinahan cartel. (Spanish Civil Guard/Anadolu Agency)
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The cartel is considered a juggernaut in the European drug trade and, along with other European crime organizations, has created a ‘super cartel’ that controls about a third of Europe’s cocaine trade.
Kinahan is also connected to the boxing world and was the founder of boxing management company MTK Global.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
