Taoiseach ‘open to offering cash reward for Kinahan gang information’

14th April 2022

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he is open to offering a cash reward for any information that will lead to arrest of the Kinahan organised crime group.

Speaking after the US announced a reward of $5m for information which would lead to the arrest of the international crime gang’s most senior figures, Mr Martin said he will also consider offering a reward.

“We want to do everything we possibly can to deal with anything to do with criminality in our country and increasingly we know that it’s done through international collaboration, states working together because crime crosses borders and therefore I will discuss that with my government colleagues and certainly we would keep an issue like that under review,” he said.

Also speaking today, the Tánaiste said Ireland laid the groundwork for the US sanctions against the Kinahan crime empire.

And they are “evidence of the net getting tighter” around the family-controlled underworld organisation, Leo Varadkar said.

The Fine Gael leader commented: “My understanding is that it only arose, or it’s only really happening, largely because of work done by the Gardaí — and cooperation between the Gardaí and the FBI, along with the US authorities.”

The sanctions were a positive development, he said. “Hopefully we’ll see them produce results because that particular organisation has escaped justice for far too long. Perhaps. This is evidence of the net getting tighter.”

The Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner were involved in the moves, and knew more than he did about it, he said.

But Mr Varadkar also suggested that Ireland should consider the US-style offer of headline reward amounts for information that led to drug trafficking convictions..

Such schemes would have to be considered and assessed in an Irish context, Mr Varadkar said. There are already small-scale payments disbursed on an operational level, but Ireland has never offered crime-busting rewards running into the millions.