The Kinahan cartel’s “main man” in the UK was caged for 21 years yesterday as cops dealt a crushing blow to the international crime gang.
Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh and his underlings oversaw 23 shipments of cocaine and cannabis into England worth €36million in a one-year period.
The 54-year-old career criminal now faces having his multi-million euro assets, including his fortified mansion, seized by investigators.
Known as “The Gaffer”, Kavanagh was Daniel Kinahan’s No2 and gardai have established he had a main role in directing activities.
He was the “figurehead” of a crime gang which based itself in England but whose operations also stretched to Spain, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Germany and Ireland.
The gang’s “highly sophisticated” operation saw them importing vast amounts of cocaine and cannabis, unloading it and then reloading cash to be sent back as payment.
NCA Deputy Director of Investigations Matt Horne said: “Kavanagh was a high-ranking member of the Kinahan cartel, an organised crime group synonymous with acts of violence. He was their main man in the UK.
“Through their criminal connections overseas, his organisation was able to organise, import and distribute drugs worth many millions of pounds.
“These men considered themselves to be untouchable. But we were able to systematically dismantle the group and prove that this was not the case.”
Below him was Gary Vickery, with whom he held multiple meetings in person, and the pair also went on a celebratory trip to New York.
The National Crime Agency’s probe found Vickery, 39, ran the day-to-day operations and passed orders on to his brother-in-law and 43-year-old Daniel Canning.
The trio’s sentencing hearing heard how cannabis wrapped in plastic was labelled with “Manchester United” and “Rolex” branding, while cocaine was branded “54”.
Kavanagh, Canning and Vickery all previously admitted conspiring to import class A and B drugs, and money laundering. Canning also admitted possessing a firearm and ammunition.
Yesterday at Ipswich Crown Court, while Kavanagh was handed the longest sentence, Vickery was jailed for 20 years while Canning was handed a 19-and-a-half year term.
The NCA’s investigation began in 2016 when the Kinahan’s feud with the Hutch crime gang escalated with the murder in February of that year of David Byrne – Kavanagh’s brother-in-law.
A major breakthrough came in January 2017 when gardai seized firearms and drugs as they targeted Declan “Mr Nobody” Brady – Kavanagh’s “right-hand man”.
They discovered documents relating to a UK Midlands-based freight and logistics firm linked to Canning, Vickery and a third Irishman – Martin Byrne.
After a surveillance operation, the NCA made its move in October 2017.
In Dover, it seized 15kg of cocaine and more than 220kg of cannabis, inside an industrial tarmac removal machine.
The machine had GPS tracking and was due to be delivered to a commercial unit in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.
Then industrial sites in Wolverhampton and Wednesbury were hit.
In Wednesbury, the shell of an industrial transformer, which still had traces of cocaine present, was found as well as a bag containing a Smith and Wesson 357 revolver and 85 rounds of ammunition.
Byrne’s DNA was found on the gun, and his fingerprints on the bag but his death from lung cancer prevented his prosecution.
Forensic evidence linked Canning to the firearm.
Here, investigators also found boxes full of tracking devices, identical to the one on the machine in Dover.
At Vickery’s rented home in Solihull, five 25 kilo barrels of boric acid powder – used as a cocaine cutting agent – a cash counting machine, £43,000 sterling and €200,000 cash as well as phones were seized.
Cash, phones and encrypted communications devices were found at Canning’s home.
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In these messages, Kavanagh was unveiled as the head of the gang.
He was known as “The Gaffer” or “Plasma”, while “Jelly” was Vickery’s moniker and “Smiley” for Canning.
Code words used included “Paper” for cash, “phones” were cocaine, “jackets” is the codeword used for packages of flowering head cannabis, “hot” for Spain and “the flat” for the Netherlands. The court also heard how Kavanagh was in direct contact with Nicholas Wall – currently in a German prison – who oversaw the operation from Europe.
A Polish man, known as Z, organised GPS trackers and also had payments sent to his business in Barcelona, Spain.
Pictures of Kavanagh’s arrest in Birmingham Airport in January 2019 were released by the NCA yesterday, having just returned home from a family holiday in Mexico.
His family home – a fortified mansion in Tamworth, Staffordshire, with reinforced doors and bulletproof glass, was also raided.
Knives were seized as was an illegal stun gun for which he was given a three-year jail sentence.
Officers also seized cash worth around €41,000 in sterling, euros and Emirati dirhams, which had been stuffed into drawers, designer bags and cushions.
Yesterday, as Judge Martyn Levett sentenced the men, he said the operation was of a “commercial scale” and that he had “no doubt that the successful importations would have continued” were it not for the seized shipment at Dover in 2017.
Each man will serve half of their sentences in jail before being released on licence, but if they commit a crime while out they will be sent back behind bars to serve the remainder of the sentence.
They had pleaded guilty in 2020, but there was a series of delays, including for Vickery who had absconded to Lanzarote from where he was eventually extradited.
In court, the defendants were ordered to declare their assets around the world. Mr Horne hailed the gardai’s work as part of the investigation but also said the NCA is now investigating the three men’s assets.
They have already obtained freezing orders on a number of high-value items, including watches, bikes and jewellery, seized as proceeds of crime from Kavanagh’s mansion, as well as the house itself.
Vickery’s property in Spain is also subject to a restraining order.
Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll, who heads its Organised and Serious Crime division, said: “The successful outcome today represents a positive development in efforts being made by law enforcement authorities, at an international level, to tackle criminality by organised crime groups and networks that have an international dimension and who, through the sale of drugs and other crimes have a negative impact on communities across the globe.
“We have forged a very powerful working relationship with the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, which is assisting in ensuring that communities in the UK and Ireland are better protected from organised crime.”
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