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Ireland’s organised crime gangs kept police and courts abroad busy in 2023

Some of Ireland’s most feared mobsters ended up behind bars abroad this year

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IRELAND’s organised crime gangs are adept at operating in almost any country, forcing international police forces to co-operate with gardai more than ever.

Top of the list are the Kinahan Cartel with their no1 man in the UK, Thomas Kavanagh, facing more jail time after being charged with a plot to lead police to a weapons cache in a return for a lighter sentence.

‘Bomber’ Kavanagh is already serving a 21-year-sentence and his son Jack has also been accused by the UK’s National Crime agency of taking part in the scheme.

He was arrested in Spain this year as he transited through the country en route from Dubai to Turkey.

Liam Byrne who made an ill-advised trip form Dubai to Spain to meet family was also arrested and was extradited to the UK just two weeks ago over the same weapons plot.

He’s not the only Irish mob figure to end up behind bars outside of Ireland this year with gangster Ger Dundon getting a 15-year sentence in the UK in May.

Dundon was jailed after being convicted over a kidnap and ransom plot in which two men were stripped naked and threatened.

The Limerick thug was the only one of six defendants found guilty after a lengthy trial in which it was heard how two victims were threatened and humiliated in a seven-day ordeal.

Gangster Cornelius Price who had also been charged over the same plot died in hospital in Wales in February after developing a rare brain disease.

He had gone to the UK and became involved in crime there after being released from prison in Ireland where he had also been involved in the deadly gangland feud in Drogheda.

An Irish man who supplied Christy Kinahan Snr with a false passport was among a group jailed this year for selling the bogus documents for between st£5,000 and st£15,000.

Christopher Zietek also known as Chris McCormack, who was a key link to different crime gangs, was jailed for eight years.

With the focus still on the Kinahan Cartel it is easy to forget that George ‘The Penguin’ Mitchell is still operating from the Netherlands and Germany.

In February the Sunday World revealed how he has been designated a suspect in a German police investigation into an encrypted phone network used by criminal gangs.

Separately, in a bizarre twist a convicted Irish drug-dealer previously linked to the Penguin’s network became embroiled in a controversy in the UK in which a 206-year-old pub was demolished without permission.

The Crooked House burned down and was then flattened by machinery hired by Morgan McGrath’s firm in the UK which has seen six people arrested and questioned by police.

McGrath previously featured in the Sunday World almost 20 years ago when he was jailed for 12 years for his part in a conspiracy to import €22.5 million worth of drugs into Ireland.

Another Irish drugs importer Anthony Terry got a second lengthy sentence in the UK for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine in the UK following the 18 years he got over a €1.8 million cocaine stash seized in Belfast.

The on-the-run Limerick who escaped from Irish custody in 2006 was described by the NCA as the kingpin of the underworld transport network.

The professional burglary gangs from Ireland also operate in other jurisdictions where, in some cases, police have successfully prosecuted them.

Burglary gang leader Darren ‘Joey’ O’Halloran was jailed in the UK for 12 years for a spate of robberies in which st£350,000 worth of jewellery was stolen.

O’Halloran and three other men hit 54 homes in the space of just three months across the West Midlands, between last November and January this year.

The court had heard how O’Halloran, Jason MacDonaugh (32), Barney Casey and Daniel Harty were part of the “sophisticated” group, which robbed £350,000 worth of jewellery, cash and other belongings.

Prosecutor Sarah Slater said: “This was a sophisticated operation. They were forensically aware and there were attempts to disguise their involvement.

Meanwhile, the Irish tarmac crews continue to generate headlines from north America to continental Europe as one gang featured on TV news in Toronto, Canada.

They had pressurised residents into getting driveways paved and started work before the householder had even made a decision in some cases.

Other tarmac crews have fallen foul of police in up-state New York and Massachusetts while others have been deported by Homeland Security from the US.