HIGH LIFE | 

CAB found Kinahan pal living rent-free life of luxury in Dublin mansion

Anthony Fitzpatrick has now been caught up in two major police investigations, thanks to his close links to cartel boss Daniel Kinahan after being named in court this week.

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A boxing agent who has been living rent-free in a luxury mansion seized by CAB from Daniel Kinahan was previously arrested as part of Operation Shovel, the Sunday World can reveal.

Anthony Fitzpatrick has now been caught up in two major police investigations, thanks to his close links to cartel boss Daniel Kinahan after being named in court this week.

Named as being resident at the luxurious Citywest mansion when raided by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in 2019, Fitzpatrick was previously arrested by Spanish Police in a high-profile operation.

He had effectively been running MTK Global, Kinahan’s now-sanctioned boxingpromotion firm, while living rent-free at a the house in Saggart in Co. Dublin.

This week, in the High Court it was heard how Anthony Fitzpatrick was a founder of the MGM Marbella, later rebranded as MTK Global, in 2011 along with Daniel Kinahan, Matthew Macklin and Seamus Macklin.

Fitzpatrick was described in an affidavit opened in court as being a close friend and business associate of Daniel Kinahan.

When CAB searched the property at Coldwater Lakes on May 23, 2019, they discovered Fitzpatrick was living there at time.

Fitzpatrick was one of 34 people arrested in Spain, Ireland and the UK in 2010 as part of Operation Shovel and was photographed by the Sunday World being brought to court in Estepona by heavily armed police.

At the time, he was registered as the sole director of Greenland Securities, a property development firm in which Daniel Kinahan had previously been registered as a director.

Based in an office at a shopping centre on the Costa del Sol, it offered investors a chance to get into the Brazilian property market, where holiday resorts were in the early stages of development.

The Sunday World previously revealed how Greenland Securities was the holding firm for six Brazilian holiday resort complexes, purported to be worth millions.

The properties were among dozens which investigators believed at the time were being used by the Kinahans to launder hundreds of millions of drug money.

It was claimed the Kinahan Organised Crime Groupwas planning to build a huge holiday resort near the coastal city of Joao Pessoa in north-east Brazil.

Huge police resources were put into unravelling the financial web of Greenland Securities, only to lead investigators to a dead end.

The land was useless, and the mainly elderly investors had been left in a legal wrangle with Brazilian authorities to claim ownership over the plots to get back some of their savings.

Spanish police had led the charge against the Kinahan Cartel in May 2010 – following two years of surveillance – when Anthony Fitzpatrick was swept up on the Costa del Sol.

The arrests involved 750 police officers across Ireland, the UK and Spain, as well as follow-up raids in Belgium, Cyprus, Dubai, South Africa and Brazil.

It resulted in 78 searches, 34 arrests, the seizure of vehicles and cash, while 31 companies linked to the Kinahan organisation were identified.

Police believed the criminal network was involved in large-scale transactions in South America, Africa and the Far East. But the multi-national police operation turned out to bea failure and was officially closed in 2020.

This week, a court heard how Fitzpatrick was interviewed twice by CAB about a purported residential tenancy agreement dated August 11, 2017, between “A Mansfield” and Mr Fitzpatrick.

He had said he moved back to Ireland from Spain in summer 2017 and worked as a boxing agent for MTK Global.

A friend was looking for someone to move into the Coldwater Lakes house and look after it, that the lease was posted to him, he never met any of the Mansfields over the lease and never paid rent for the property. He said he and his wife were buying a house and he was moving out.

According to the affidavit from a senior garda, the landlord signature on the document was “illegible” and there was no tenant signature. His statement was seen as not credible by CAB and that the house was in the possession and control of the Kinahan/Kavanagh OCG.

The orders were made against Daniel Kinahan and Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh, both cited by CAB as leading members of the Kinahan/Kavanagh organised crime group.

CAB’s case was that Jimmy Mansfield Jnr gave Number 10 Coldwater Lakes, Saggart, plus various cash payments, to the Kinahan/Kavanagh group.

He made the payment following a failure to make property investments with about €4.5 million cash the gang gave him in two suitcases on the day after Good Friday in 2009.