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Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch all smiles as he rings in the New Year a free man

Monk’ enjoys life as net closes on Kinahan cartel

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Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch smiles for the camera as he celebrates the New Year as a free man.

The veteran criminal, who beat a murder rap in 2023, has much to be thankful for as he tasted freedom with family and friends as one year closed and another began.

Hutch has been spending time between Lanzarote and his native Dublin since being acquitted by a jury at the Special Criminal Court last April following a mammoth trial for the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016.

Despite evidence from his former co-accused Jonathan Dowdall, who turned State witness in the weeks before the trial began, Hutch was found not guilty of the charge.

His acquittal came after the State accused him of being the gunman who murdered Byrne at the boxing weigh-in — an attack that pitted the Kinahan cartel against the Hutch Organised Crime Gang and members of the Hutch family.

Hutch has returned to Lanzarote despite surviving a planned hit there himself on New Years Eve in 2015 — months before an attempt to murder Daniel Kinahan backfired spectacularly.

He had been drinking in a pub on the island when he noticed two Kinahan associates scouting the venue and managed to slip out a back entrance to safety.

Sources say Hutch feels safe on the island which he calls ‘The Rock’ and in Dublin, where he has been carrying on a normal life despite an ongoing threat to his life.

While he was able to enjoy ringing in 2024, his rivals in the Kinahan organisation face a very different year.

A file with the Director of Public Prosecutions is expected to be returned this spring and officers are confident there will be directions to charge Christy Kinahan Snr and his son Daniel for running a murderous mob and ordering the killing of a number of feud victims as well as wholesale drug and weapons trafficking into Ireland.

They remain in Dubai as the Irish Government continues in its efforts to broker an extradition agreement with the United Arab Emirates.

It is expected that Ireland will first request the return of senior Kinahan associate Sean McGovern.

A warrant was issued for McGovern’s arrest for the murder of Hutch’s long-term friend Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan in 2017.

Despite years passing since the announcement of the warrant, Irish authorities have not pushed for his return, allowing him ample time to formulate an escape plan should Dubai police move against him.

Senior sources say Ireland has been too slow in its efforts to return McGovern while the ongoing investigation into the Kinahan top command continued.

McGovern has been openly living and socialising in Dubai despite the existence of the warrant and his partner Anita Freeman has remained by his side.

He was once the right-hand man of embattled Liam Byrne, currently in custody in the UK awaiting trial for weapons offences. Byrne was arrested in Majorca during the summer when he travelled there for a holiday with family.

McGovern and Byrne were once business partners, and ran LS Active Car Sales as a money laundering entity of the Kinahan cartel.

They were inseparable, but after the murder of Kirwan, McGovern packed up with his family and moved full-time to Dubai where he has remained as a right-hand man of Daniel Kinahan before and after sanctions were levelled against them by the US Treasury.

The return of McGovern from Dubai is expected to be requested within months and will be seen as a path towards requests for Kinahan senior and son, both actively working with Russian and Iranian regimes in an effort to secure a safe haven when the time comes.

The incredible story that has entangled the Hutch and Kinahan gangs has played out over years.

Daniel Kinahan and Gary Hutch, The Monk’s nephew, lived together in Spain where they ran drugs into Ireland. But the pair fell out in a mixture of jealousy, allegations of double crosses and rows over money.

Hutch was murdered in Spain despite his family being assured that his safety was paid for in a deal brokered by his uncle Gerry.

James Quinn, a childhood friend of Daniel Kinahan, is in prison in Spain serving a lengthy sentence for the murder.

The image of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch clowning around for the camera is sure to infuriate the Kinahan grouping who believe they can achieve the impossible and beat the law.

They have reached deep into the Gulf and beyond to continue running cocaine across the world and managing their billion dollar business which has placed them at the very top of the global cocaine market.

Sources believe that while their fate is in the dock of the Special Criminal Court, Irish authorities have been very slow to move against them.

Earlier this year Garda Commissioner Drew Harris visited Dubai and appeared in a propaganda video for police there.