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Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh gave up guns stash location in bid for reduced sentence, court told

Criminal gave UK police location of 11 guns, court is told

Yesterday at 07:30

Kinahan cartel gangster Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh is alleged to have concocted a bizarre strategy to get a reduced prison sentence by informing police where they could find a stash of guns.

Yesterday the 55-year-old appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court with co-accused Shaun Kent and Daniel McLoughlin.

Kavanagh faces charges of conspiracy to possess firearms without a certificate, possessing ammunition without a certificate, possession of a ‘fire bull’ firearm – a weapon which can fire repeatedly without any pressure being added to the trigger – and possession of a ‘dumdum bullet’, which explodes prior to impact.

He is already serving a 21-year sentence for overseeing shipments of cocaine and cannabis into the UK worth €36m.

The Dubliner could facing more jail time after prosecutors outlined at the court hearing that he gave information to police from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) on the location of 11 firearms in a bid to get a reduced sentence. These guns were found in Northern Ireland two years ago.

Kavanagh, who is also facing charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, and his co-accused are next due to appear at the Old Bailey in London on September 5. All three remain in prison in England.

In a statement on Monday, the NCA said the investigation under Operation Venetic led to the arrests in Spain of Jack Kavanagh (23), from Tamworth, near Birmingham, and Liam Byrne (42), from Dublin. Extradition proceedings are under way.

Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh jailed for 21 years for orchestrating multi-million pound drug shipments

Jack is Bomber’s son. Crumlin man Byrne has long been one of the Kinahan cartel’s senior operatives. Both are suspected of being involved in the plot to procure weapons, for the UK police, on behalf of ‘Bomber’.

But information gleaned from the EncroChat encrypted communications network allegedly involving all the charged men led specialist police to uncover the plot.

“NCA officers believe Liam Byrne, Jack Kavanagh and Shaun Kent conspired to pervert the course of justice by planning to reveal the location of weapons in an attempt to get Thomas Kavanagh a reduced prison sentence,” the NCA said in a statement after the brief court hearing.

The NCA’s regional head of investigations, Craig Turner, said: “These charges are a major milestone in what has been a long and complex international investigation.

“We will continue to work with our partners to target criminals who we suspect are operating at the highest levels of organised crime impacting on the UK.”

The NCA has been investigating Byrne alongside an ongoing criminal assets investigation into his close associate, jailed drugs trafficker Thomas Kavanagh.

Yesterday it was revealed for the first time the charges that Byrne and Jack Kavanagh are facing.

These are: conspiring to possess a firearm without a certificate; conspiring to possess ammunition for a firearm without a certificate; conspiring to possess a prohibited weapon; conspiring to possess prohibited ammunition; and conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

A decision on their extradition from Spain to the UK is expected to be made in the coming months.

Byrne, whose brother David Byrne was murdered in Dublin’s Regency Hotel in February 2016, was believed to have been in Dubai since December 2021 after he learned of the investigation in the UK.

But two months ago he was arrested by armed police on the Spanish island of Mallorca and he now faces extradition to England and the prospect of a lengthy jail sentence.

Classed as the leader of the Byrne Organised Crime Group (BOCG), career criminal Byrne was heavily involved in drug trafficking and violent crime, the High Court in Dublin has previously been told.

A senior judge described the evidence of this as “extensive, detailed and largely uncontroverted”.