The US Government has offered a $5 million reward for information that leads to the arrest or conviction of three senior members of the notorious Kinahan family.
The US Department of the Treasury named Christy snr, Daniel and Christopher jnr as members of an international crime organisation. The US authorities also announced a raft of financial sanctions against the Kinahans, who now live in Dubai.
The authorities said that Hoopoe Sports LLC, a Dubai boxing and mixed martial arts agency, was now subject to sanctions. Daniel Kinahan has been heavily associated with professional boxing over recent years.
READ MORE: Underworld plot to 'carve up' enemy criminal and 'kill his mum'
The ECHO has been aware for some time that the Kinahans, originally from Dublin, were very well known on Merseyside.
Today the National Crime Agency (NCA) said that the Kinahan crime group had been moving multi-tonne quantities of drugs around the world for the last 20 years. The NCA also said the Kinahans were linked to 'a dozen gangland murders.'
The NCA said that their officers had prevented 'eight threats to life - murders and punishment beatings' in relation to the Kinahans. The NCA had also seized dozens of firearms from the crime group, including machine guns and automatic rifles.
The US authorities have now offered a $5m reward for information that leads to the financial disruption, arrest or imprisonment of Christopher Kinahan Jr, Christopher Kinahan senior and Daniel Kinahan.
The High Court in Dublin released a European Arrest Warrant for Sean McGovern. Irish police said that McGovern was wanted in relation to murder and being a member of a criminal organisation.
Irish police described how the Kinahans evolved from being an inner city Dublin drug gang in the 1990s to a transnational crime group said to be worth around 1 billion Euros. They said the Kinahans had been responsible for a 'campaign of murder in Ireland and elsewhere'. Irish police said they had intervened in 46 'threat to life' situations where there was an 'intention to murder'.
The US authorities names Sean McGovern, Ian Thomas Dixon, Bernard Patrick Clancy, John Francis Morrissey as associates of the Kinahans. The US Department of the Treasury said that Daniel Kinahan received a share of UK based business Nero Drinks to compensate him for the seizure of a drug haul by police.
They said that Daniel Kinahan controlled Ducashew General Trading LLC, a UAE based consultancy. A raft of sanctions has now frozen the banks accounts of the Kinahans and their companies.
Drew Harris, the Commissioner of Ireland's Police force warned that the senior gang members couldn't "hide from justice forever".
NCA Deputy Director of Investigations, Matt Horne, said: “We target criminals who cause the most harm, are the most violent, those who exploit the vulnerable and dominate communities. The Kinahan crime group fall into all of those categories.
“They have transcended international boundaries – distributing multi-million pound shipments of drugs throughout Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe, and have been engaging in firearms trafficking and money laundering.
“They thought they were untouchable but the sanctions imposed today will be a huge blow to the Kinahans. It has cut them off from the global financial system, making them toxic to legitimate businesses and financial institutions, and will cause other criminals to think twice about doing business with them.
“Additionally, it shows that we will explore every opportunity available to disrupt their criminal activities and, rest assured, we will not stop here.
“It doesn’t matter how long it takes, we will ensure those who are responsible for flooding the streets with drugs and firearms, laundering the proceeds of crime, ordering murders and inflicting violence are held to account for their actions.”
