CARTEL THREAT 

Kinahan Cartel issue death threat to Mountjoy prisoner who spilled beans on drug op leading to huge seizure

• 20:02, 20 Jun 2022
• Updated: 20:03, 20 Jun 2022

A DEATH threat was issued against a prisoner who spilled the beans on a cartel’s drug and mobile phone smuggling operation in Mountjoy Prison.

The threat came from the Kinahan cartel after he emailed details of shipments of cocaine, cannabis, heroin and phones being brought into the jail to a senior figure in the Prison Service.

The information led to three seizures over two years, including one haul valued at €130,000.

The inmate was rumbled after another prisoner got onto his laptop and came across the email.

There are currently between 20 to 30 Kinahan gang members and associates being held in the B and C wings at Mountjoy.

These include gunman Trevor Byrne, quartermaster Graham Gardiner, hitmen Glen and Gary Thompson and bagman and money launderer Graham “the Wig” Whelan.

The prisoner is serving a significant jail term for smuggling drugs worth hundreds of thousands of euro into the country.

A prison source said: “The gang were furious when all the drugs and mobile phones were seized.

“Your man had all the details and passed it on to someone high up in the Irish Prison Service and the seizures were made by the IPS Operational Support Group, who relied totally on the intelligence he supplied.

“They were told exactly who was bringing the stuff in

“He was hoping to get some sort of a deal to be freed early but it doesn’t look like it is happening. The Prison Service doesn’t do deals.”

Separately, it comes as cartel boss Daniel Kinahan is set to be served papers by registered post after the Criminal Assets Bureau found his addresses on an official US press release.

CAB has been trying to slap the Dubai-based cartel chief with papers since April as it bids to seize a plush pad he and jailed gangster Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh were allegedly given.

Shelley Horan BL, for CAB, ­last week told the High Court that the US Treasury Department issued a press release in April stating that it had sanctioned the Kinahan Organised Crime Group.

And in the document, there is a residential and a business address associated with Kinahan in Dubai.

Ms Horan said cops were told it is “extremely difficult” to serve the papers personally as residences in Dubai tend to be gated communities with manned security desks.