They're widely considered to be the most deadly gang operating in the UK and Ireland. Their fearsome reputation puts them on a par with the Italian mafia and the Mexican cartels.
The Kinahan Irish crime family are rumoured to have made around £850m from drugs, firearms and extortion rackets. They're thought to have murdered at least 20 people around Europe.
And now a new documentary The Celtic Cartel – released on Amazon Prime this week – explores how the Kinahan clan rose to the top of the global drug trade.
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Led by Daniel Kinahan and his father, convicted drug dealer Christy Snr Kinahan, the gang emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the most powerful in Ireland. They've been under investigation by the UK's National Crime Agency since 2006.
But the cartel came to wider notoriety a decade later when gunmen armed with AK-47s and disguised as gardaí stormed a boxing weigh-in at a Dublin hotel. During the brazen attack Kinahan gang member David Byrne was gunned down and another high-ranking member was shot.
It's thought Daniel Kinahan was the main target of the assault, but he had slipped away moments earlier and later fled to Dubai. Rival Dublin-based outfit the Hutch gang was responsible for the shooting, thought to have been retaliation for a cold-blooded hit on Gary Hutch in Spain the year before
Daniel Kinahan swore revenge and in the gang war that followed 18 people have been killed, most of them by the Kinahan cartel. Kinahan was later named in the Irish High Court as 'having sanctioned a number of murders' as part of the feud.
Last year 45-year-old Kinahan, said to be Ireland's richest gangster, his father Christy, 66, and brother Christopher Jnr, 43, were sanctioned by the US government and had a $5m bounty placed on their heads. The men's bank accounts were frozen by authorities in America as well as in their Dubai bolthole and they were all placed on no-fly lists.
"The Kinahan Organised Crime Group (KOCG) smuggles deadly narcotics, including cocaine, to Europe, and is a threat to the entire licit economy through its role in international money laundering," Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E Nelson said at the time.
"The KOCG emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the most powerful organized crime group operating in Ireland. Since then, Irish courts have concluded that the KOCG is a murderous organization involved in the international trafficking of drugs and firearms.
"Criminal groups like the KOCG prey on the most vulnerable in society and bring drug-related crime and violence, including murder, to the countries in which they operate."
The investigation also uncovered how the Kinahans use Dubai as a 'facilitation hub' for their activities. It also describes how the gang was designated as a 'significant transnational criminal organisation'.
Daniel Kinahan also has close ties to the boxing world, having acted as an adviser to Tyson Fury and Billy Joe Saunders. The crime boss founded promotional MTK Global in 2012, a promotional company which managed top boxers such as Josh Taylor and Michael Conlan.
The company cut ties with Kinahan and later folded. It was thought Kinahan had since abandoned his involvement in boxing.
But a podcast released earlier this month heard claims he is back in the business. Renowned Guardian journalist Donald McCrae told the podcast Untouchable that Kinahan has become involved again in the sport in recent months.
He said: "The name of Daniel Kinahan keeps coming up more and more over the last few months. I have been told that he is still involved in boxing and it's business as usual.
"I don't know whether that is the case or not. It has made me pause and think that the situation is again darker and murkier than we would like."
But despite the international sanctions the Kinahans have so far managed to evade capture. The Celtic Cartel features interviews with senior law enforcement officers both in Ireland and in Spain who have taken on the family and put gang members behind bars.
Wearing a balaclava to maintain his undercover profile, one Spanish officer tells the documentary: "We began to take the Kinahan family more seriously when murders started happening on the Costa del Sol.
"I remember the first one in 2008 – the murder of Paddy Doyle. From that moment our interest in them is no longer just about their drug dealing. When deaths start happening – it just doesn't just stop with one.
"When there started to be more trouble between the gangs and more deaths is when Daniel Kinahan takes control of the organisation. I think he is more visceral and even more dangerous than his father."
The investigator also speaks about the murder of Gerard 'Hatchet' Kavanagh in September 2014. He said: "Kavanagh was a drug debt enforcer who was in the business of collecting debt from people who didn’t pay.
"We had information he went to Ireland to collect a debt and it wasn't paid. It was the first time someone had stood up to the Kinahan family and, shortly after, his murder happened.
"It may be related to that or that he wanted to set out on his own without the Kinahans."
Journalist Owen Conlon, who co-wrote the 2017 bestseller The Cartel, is among those who contribute to the documentary. Other contributions include a prisoner who spent time with Christy Kinahan in jail, a Dublin resident who was threatened by the Kinahan cartel, a mother who lost her son to drug addiction and a moving interview with the sister of cartel murder victim Michael Barr.
There will also be contributions from Det Chief Supt Seamus Boland from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and former Assistant Commissioners Michael O’Sullivan and Pat Leahy. Former Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will also outline his views and local councillor Nial Ring speaks on the devastation experienced by the inner-city areas of north Dublin.
The Celtic Cartel is available now on Amazon Prime
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