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RTÉ News reported that the new government jet left Baldonnel the previous morning before arriving in Dubai that evening to collect Kinahan for the return leg of the journey. According to BBC News and flight tracking data the aircraft departed Dubai at 13:19 local time on Sunday with an expected landing in Dublin before 19:00. The large-scale security operation involves armed officers from the Garda Defence Forces personnel and the Irish Prison Service throughout the transfer. Officials prepared extensively for the high-risk prisoner movement including acquisition of specialised vehicles.
The Irish Times described the arrangements as one of the biggest security operations in years with sources indicating that a convoy of armed gardaí and military personnel will escort Kinahan from the airport to the Special Criminal Court and then to Portlaoise Prison. A bulletproof and bombproof van recently purchased by the Prison Service will form a central part of the escort while facilities at the maximum-security jail have undergone upgrades in advance. Sources familiar with the plan told the newspaper that Kinahan ranks as the highest-risk prisoner to be transferred in the Republic since senior figures during the Troubles with contingency measures including possible helicopter support incorporated to counter any rescue attempts by associates.
Upon landing Kinahan will face immediate charging by Garda officers before appearing at the non-jury three-judge Special Criminal Court on Sunday evening according to multiple reports. The charge relates to directing the activities of a criminal organisation linked to the long-running Kinahan-Hutch feud. He is expected to be remanded in custody at Portlaoise where a former associate Sean McGovern is already serving a 24-year sentence for similar offences following his own extradition from the UAE.
A National Crime Agency assessment found that the Kinahan cartel has imported tonnes of drugs and firearms around the world over more than two decades while maintaining links to more than a dozen gangland murders. Former Garda Commissioner Drew Harris estimated the group’s global earnings above €1bn. The cartel was estimated to control about a third of the cocaine supply into Europe according to the Irish Times while the US Treasury Department has compared the organisation to groups such as Italy’s Camorra and Mexico’s Los Zetas.
Kinahan escaped a murder attempt at a boxing event in Dublin’s Regency Hotel in 2016 that triggered the deadly feud claiming at least 18 lives according to law enforcement accounts. He left Ireland thereafter residing in Spain and then Dubai for a decade where he lived openly until his arrest in April on foot of an Irish warrant. His appeals against extradition proved unsuccessful in the UAE courts over recent months.
The US Treasury Department sanctioned Kinahan and several family members in April 2022 identifying them as leaders of the transnational criminal organisation. A reward of up to $5m has been offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Daniel Kinahan his father Christopher senior and brother Christopher junior the department announced in a statement. The department noted that Kinahan runs the day-to-day operations of the group which sources cocaine from South America for distribution in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
