Drug kingpin Daniel Kinahan has told how a hit team got within six metres of killing him during the infamous Regency Hotel attack.
In his first interview as part of his latest sports washing drive, he recalls the moment when he had to run for his life from Hutch gang gunmen.
A clip from the chat was released online yesterday as it was confirmed the Criminal Assets Bureau has been pursuing Kinahan for more than a year.
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Mob boss Kinahan, 44, was the main target of the attack at the boxing weigh-in on February 5, 2016, which claimed the life of his close pal and mob enforcer David Byrne.
Thug Kinahan told the podcast: “I’m going to tell you, I never told anyone this story.”
Out of his seat, and re-enacting the gunman pulling his firearm from his waistband, he added: “I see him there, maybe six metres from me.
“Then I see like this, then I see the gun at the back.
“And then I go. Then I hear boom-boom, boom-boom, and shots getting let go behind me.”
Byrne, 34, was shot dead in the lobby of the North Dublin hotel by one of three men who were armed with rifles and were disguised as Garda Emergency Response officers.
Investigators believe the brazen attack was in response to the Kinahan cartel killing Gary Hutch – once a close ally of the gang boss – in the Costa del Sol in September 2015.
Kinahan also took aim at the media in the podcast with Kerry Katona’s ex-boyfriend James English, which is due to be released on St Patrick’s Day.
Egomaniac Kinahan said: “For me the media manipulates everything.
“They create the reality for people for the future, for what they want to think.What they eat. What they buy.
“If I’m this bad person, look at the things they wrote about me.
“Newspapers wrote about me that I supplied these guns to these rebel kids in Africa. I had a billion dollars worth of cocaine that went through America.”
Kinahan, who cannot enter the US because he is banned after being officially placed on a list of narco terrorists along with 27 associates, added: “Come on. If this really happened in America, I’d be in America now.”
Kinahan advises numerous boxers including Tyson Fury, none of whom have any involvement in crime.
He also running a global drugs and arms cartel worth an estimated €1billion.
The Dubliner, who grew up in the Oliver Bond flats, said: “I grew up the way I grew up. And like I say I’m not going to say I was an angel, but I’m proud of where I was brought up.
“And I’m proud of how I was brought up and what I have turned things into now.
“I want to just turn everything into a positive and I want to help people.”
Yesterday, it emerged the CAB is pursuing Kinahan e along with Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh and another man. The case is aiming to strip assets and is set to be heard for the first time next month in the High Court.
Kavanagh, who was Byrne’s brother-in-law, was formerly the cartel’s top man in Britain. He will be sentenced later this month in the UK after pleading guilty for importing class A and B drugs.
He is currently serving a three-year jail term for being caught with a stun gun disguised as a torch at his luxury home. As part of CAB’s successful case against Byrne in 2018, the High Court found Kinahan was running the day-to-day operations of the organised crime group.
In 2020, the Special Criminal Court further established that gang carries out “execution-style” murders and trafficks drugs and arms on a global scale.
Following the Regency attack, the Kinahan gang went on an onslaught in a feud which has claimed 18 lives so far.
Patrick Hutch Jnr was tried in the Special Criminal Court over the hotel gun attack but the case collapsed in 2019.
Gerry “The Monk” Hutch was extradited from Spain last year and has been charged with Byrne’s murder.
He will stand trial at the non-jury Special Criminal Court along with former Sinn Fein councillor Jonathan Dowdall who is also accused of the murder.
Read more: Daniel Kinahan opens up on Regency assassination attempt in rare public interview
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