Expected arrival of Dubai police in Dublin shows bad PR of Kinahans in UAE capital is starting to bite

Police due in Dublin to thrash out shared plan to shut down crime cartel

Today at 01:30

The recent interest Dubai police have shown in a family of Dubliners running their international drug-trafficking operations from the criminal haven means the Kinahans’ time in the criminal playground may be almost up.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris met with Dubai chief of police Abdullah Khalifa Al Marr less than a fortnight ago, spending two days in the United Arab Emirates’ capital.

Just 24 hours after he and Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly arrived back in Dublin, a letter dropped into their inbox from the police chief of Dubai with the offer of closer co-operation, including dispatching a team of detectives to Dublin.

The Garda Commissioner has already written back and accepted. Once the legal mechanisms underpinning the visit are thrashed out, the Dubai police team are expected to arrive.

This will not be an operational trip, said senior garda sources. The most valuable resource that Dubai police can offer An Garda Síochána is intelligence. And vice-versa.

The exercise — if it happens — will be the first time operational detectives working for the Dubai police force and An Garda Síochána will have sat down together to share information about one of the biggest drug-trafficking operations in the world, with a view to shutting them down.

According to one source familiar with the diplomatic manoeuvres that led to this point, there is no greater sign that the reputational damage caused by the Kinahans’ presence in Dubai is biting.

Their presence in the criminal-friendly capital of the UAE may be coming to an end.

“They have extensive criminal intelligence networks in Dubai. They have intelligence we would like them to share with us. And we have intelligence,” said the source.

The gardaí’s number-one target in Dubai is Seán McGovern, who gardaí want to extradite from his bolthole to face murder and organised crime charges in Ireland. A European arrest warrant was issued against him last year, but he remains at large and at liberty in Dubai.

What comes of the cooperation remains to be seen, but what it demonstrates, said the source, is that the Kinahans are bad PR for Dubai. Senior investigators say that despite reports to the contrary, the Kinahan clan are now stuck in Dubai, with their wings further clipped by US sanctions criminalising anyone who does business with them.

“I am not convinced they are doing as much travel as is portrayed in the media,” said another source close to the investigation.

​“The reality is that it is difficult for them to travel, with the US sanctions in place. Any of the false identities they would have used have been exposed, particularly those relevant to Ireland and the UK.”

Christopher Kinahan, the ‘dapper don’ and patriarch of the criminal family, had been planning a retreat in Harari, Zimbabwe.

However, gardaí believe that since sanctions were imposed, he is still on the move — but in Dubai, rather than in the African continent, where he had been investing in air ambulances and aviation.

“He owns property in Harare in Zimbabwe, where he was trying to set up a retirement home,” said the investigator.

However, that dream has moved farther out of reach since sanctions.

“In Dubai, Christopher Snr has a lot of leases, and pays rent through company structures. What the gang members do a lot of the time is take out long-term leases in apartment blocks in exclusive areas of Dubai. They move from one to the other, and they also stay in hotels,” said the investigator.

As for his sons Daniel and Christopher Jnr, investigators say they both have partners and children who are embedded in Dubai.

Gardaí say they have no reason to believe that Daniel Kinahan, his wife and five children are not still living at the exclusive Palm Jumeirah resort.

​Daniel Kinahan was on his way to becoming “the largest boxing promoter on the planet” but his boxing interests collapsed one week after sanctions were introduced, and were exposed as a money-laundering scheme funded by the cartel.

Daniel Kinahan has not put himself in the public eye since the day sanctions were announced, the investigator said. “That is of huge significance.”

And they have no reason to believe Christopher Jnr is not still living in a waterfront apartment in the Iris Blue building close to his brother. The US government accused Christopher Jnr of running the day-to-day funding of the rank-and-file criminal troops, as well as moving drugs and carrying out Daniel’s instructions.

Christopher Jnr used to travel regularly to Spain to visit family there — his ex-wife still lives there with his child.

“He would have taken a lot of different routes. He would have gone to Dubai, to Germany and maybe to France and headed down to Spain,” said the source.

Those jaunts have now been curtailed.

“We have absolutely no reason to believe they are not there in Dubai,” said the source.

Sanctions are never the endgame, he said.

“It ties their finances, their travel and any legitimate business ventures they have. Associates travel to Dubai to meet the Kinahans, rather than the Kinahans travelling to meet them.”

Gardaí hope the cooperation with Dubai authorities will develop beyond the Kinahans.

“There will be cooperation at a wider level as well. All sorts of financial crime is routed through Dubai. But in the immediate term, the focus is on the Kinahans,” said the well-placed source.

“When you become as high profile as they are, it’s bad for business and it causes all sorts of problems. Not least for Dubai.”