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Kinahan cartel chief Liam Byrne extradited from Spain to face serious firearms charges

The 43-year-old Crumlin crime lord was brought before court in London today

Today at 20:18

Notorious Kinahan cartel gangster Liam Byrne has been extradited from Spain to England where he is facing serious firearms charges.

The 43-year-old Crumlin crime lord was brought before court in London today where he was remanded in custody after being flown back yesterday.

This evening the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) released details of the extradition and photos of the criminal in the custody of their officers.

“Liam Byrne, who is thought to be one of the most trusted members of the Kinahan organised crime group, has been returned to the UK to stand trial for alleged firearms offences following a National Crime Agency investigation,” the NCA said in a statement.

“He was escorted back to the UK by a team of officers from the NCA’s Joint International Crime Centre yesterday (12th December) and appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court today, where he was remanded into custody.

“Byrne, from Dublin, was arrested in June whilst eating in a restaurant in the Alcudia area of Mallorca.

“He had flown into Palma Airport from Dubai, UAE on the 26 May.

“The NCA’s intelligence-led investigation was supported by the Spanish National Police and officers from An Garda Siochana in Ireland.

“The agency obtained arrest warrants after messages on encrypted messaging service Encrochat indicated that Byrne was potentially involved in the supply and acquisition of firearms.”

Craig Turner, Deputy Director of Investigations at the National Crime Agency said: “The arrest and extradition of Liam Byrne highlights the NCA’s ongoing work to target the alleged criminal activities of the Kinahan organised crime group.

“He will now be remanded in custody until his next court appearance, which is scheduled for the 8th January 2024.”

This appearance is due to happen at the Old Bailey.

The NCA said that another suspected member of the crime group, Jack Kavanagh, 23, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, who was arrested by officers from the Spanish National Police on 30 May at Malaga Airport, while transiting from Dubai to Turkey, remains in custody in Spain awaiting extradition.

Jack Kavanagh is the son of Liam Byrne’s brother-in-law Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh (55) who serving a 21-year sentence for overseeing multiple shipments of cocaine and cannabis into the UK worth €36million.

Both the Kavanaghs are also facing firearms charges linked to the same case that Byrne was extradited for this week.

Liam Byrne has long been one of the Kinahan cartel’s most senior operatives and he is suspected of being involved in the plot to procure weapons for the UK police on behalf of ‘Bomber’ who is also originally from Crumlin.

Liam, whose brother David was murdered in Dublin’s Regency Hotel in February 2016, was believed to have been holed up in Dubai since December, 2021, – after he got wind of the probe in the UK.

Classified as the leader of the Byrne Organised Crime Gang (BOCG), Dublin’s High Court previously heard that career criminal Byrne was heavily involved in drug trafficking and violent crime and a senior judge described the evidence of this as “extensive, detailed and largely uncontroverted.”

Two months ago Spanish judges approved Byrne’s extradition to the UK.

The court rejected Byrne’ s claim at a hearing in September that Britain’s request to hand him over should be refused because of the risk of inhumane and degrading treatment there.

But the judges rejected British law enforcement s charge for conspiracy to pervert the court of justice, which can carry a life sentence, because his alleged actions wouldn’t have constituted a crime in Spain.

The conspiracy accusation relates to Britain s claim Byrne was part of a plot allegedly orchestrated by Thomas Bomber Kavanagh in a bid to get a reduced sentence on drugs charges he was facing which involved planting weapons in Northern and directing authorities to find them.

Liam Byrne was present at the Regency Hotel bloodbath in with a number of cartel associates including his younger brother David who was shot dead.

Within weeks of the shooting Liam Byrne was the target of an operation by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) which saw several homes and properties searched across the capital.

The high profile raids, under Operation Lamp, were into what gardaí termed the Byrne Organised Crime Group which is led by Liam Byrne and effectively the Dublin branch of the cartel.

The Bureau managed to seize over €2m worth of assets from the gang after obtaining orders from the High Court.

A first cousin of convicted gangland murderer ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson, Byrne has been well known to gardai since his early teenage years.

Byrne was a major player in the Crumlin/Drimnagh feud which claimed over 15 lives in his gang’s warfare with the Brian Rattigan mob.

A typical example of his behaviour at the time was when a then 19-year-old Liam Byrne attacked another man with a baseball bat and struck him a number of times on the head, leaving him with permanent injuries at the Abrakebabra take-away in the Crumlin Shopping Centre on April 23rd, 2000.

Later the Court of Criminal Appeal was to hear that a witness in the case was forced to leave her home, was the subject of an assassination plot and was badly injured in an assault outside a courtroom after giving evidence in the case.