The stepfather of the Kinahan cartel’s top man in Ireland drove a bus in US President Joe Biden’s cavalcade on his four-day visit here, the Irish Mirror can reveal.
Gardai are now examining a potential security breach after ex-detective David O’Brien, who is married to the mother of gangster Ross Browning and who was mentioned in a recent CAB High Court case, passed vetting for the job.
We understand that O’Brien drove dignitaries around in a bus for some of the time Biden was in the country earlier this month.
O’Brien, nicknamed “Rocky”, was working for a private bus company. He was previously a detective garda, attached to the Serious Crime Review team for a time. He wed Browning’s mother Julie Conway in 2020.
Due to his family links to career criminal Browning, sources raised concerns as to how he was vetted to drive a vehicle in Biden’s cavalcade.
There were strict security measures in place, with each civilian vetted by authorities ahead of Biden’s arrival.
A source said: “It is a matter of concern. The fact is this individual was not properly vetted. This man is married to the mother of a man who is a major criminal and a senior ranking member of one of the world’s largest drugs and arms cartels. So the gardai will have to examine how this was allowed to happen.”
Another source said: “He just slipped through the net. But there’s no way he should have been approved.”
In 2016, O’Brien was found guilty by Dublin District Court of lying to GSOC officers investigating the posting of a Valentine’s Day card containing a bullet, a thong and “raunchy” poem to a superior officer.
O’Brien, 52, was fined €500 for making a false statement to the garda watchdog. However, he successfully appealed the conviction and does not have any criminal convictions.
At that stage, he had left the force. O’Brien was one of the few detectives who was appointed to the Serious Crime Review Team in 2009.
He had previously served as a detective for around 15 years, working in Dublin city centre.
His stepson is a major criminal and a high ranking member of the Kinahan mob. He is close to both Daniel Kinahan and Christy Jnr, both of whom have a €5m bounty on their heads by the US Government.
Browning was this year successfully targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau as the High Court ordered €1.5m worth of his assets were to be seized.
Browning, originally from the Hardwicke Street flats area of Dublin, was described as “close and trusted lieutenant of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group” in the High Court judgement.
The case heard how O’Brien and Browning’s mother Julie Conway lived in one of the properties CAB said was owned by Browning, called Chestnut Lodge.
The High Court was told Chestnut Lodge was extensively renovated, which Ms Conway said had been funded by her and O’Brien with a €40,000 loan from St Raphael’s Garda Credit Union.
However, a senior detective said in an affidavit to the court that the property featured an ‘escape hatch’ concealed with a hanging carpet leading from the house to the shed behind it, where a motorbike “was clearly there for Browning’s use.”
The judge in the case eventually ruled Chestnut Lodge had been purchased and renovated “with money supplied by Ross Browning which represented proceeds of crime.”
Browning has been pals with members of the Kinahan gang since the early 2000s. In 2007, Browning attended the wedding of Christy Jr, highlighting how he rose through the ranks by then. He later attended Daniel Kinahan’s wedding in Dubai in 2017.
CAB case also revealed how Browning had a close and long association with Stephen Fowler, who is serving a prison sentence for feud-related activity.
In his judgement, Mr Justice Owens said: “The evidence tendered on behalf of the Bureau establishes as a matter of probability that Ross Browning has had an ongoing significant involvement in organised crime for a number of years and is a senior member of the Kinahan organised crime gang.
“This transnational gang is involved in importation and distribution of drugs and firearms in Ireland. Ross Browning has associations with Daniel Kinahan and other senior members of the Kinahan organised crime gang and of the Byrne gang. The Byrne gang is a subset of the Kinahan gang.”
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