Organised crime suspect Daniel Kinahan arrested in Dubai
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Daniel Kinahan, the Irishman alleged to be one of Europe’s leading organised criminals and drug traffickers, has been arrested in Dubai on an Irish arrest warrant.
An Garda Síochána, the Irish police, on Friday said that an unnamed man in his 40s had been arrested for alleged serious organised crime offences in accordance with a bilateral extradition agreement between Ireland and the United Arab Emirates.
A spokesperson confirmed the man was Kinahan, adding: “Our expectation is that he will be extradited.”
The arrest of Kinahan, who was one of a number of suspected top European criminals who moved to Dubai to run their business from the emirate, comes four years after he and his organisation were sanctioned by the US Treasury.
The US alleged at the time that Kinahan was in day-to-day charge of a “murderous organisation involved in the international trafficking of drugs and firearms”. However, until now he has not been charged with a crime by the Irish or US authorities, and had remained free in the UAE.
In 2017 Kinahan held his wedding in the luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, in a ceremony that was attended by a number of leading European organised crime bosses. Some would go on to form what Europol called “a super cartel”, which at its peak allegedly controlled around one-third of the cocaine trade in Europe.
Kinahan, who built a public persona as a boxing promoter, came to represent a new breed of émigré criminal who cultivated an image as a legitimate international businessman.
His arrest in Dubai is a signal that the emirate has further clamped down on European criminal suspects who treat it like a safe haven.
Irish justice minister Jim O’Callaghan said the arrest followed his request to the UAE for Kinahan’s extradition.
“I have spoken today with my UAE counterpart minister of justice, His Excellency Abdullah Sultan bin Awad Al Nuaimi, to express my thanks and to acknowledge the strong judicial co-operation in criminal matters between Ireland and the UAE,” he said in a statement.
“This is huge,” said Michael O’Sullivan, a former head of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and assistant commissioner. “It means the UAE are starting to regularly extradite people.”
Sean McGovern, a top Kinahan family lieutenant, was arrested in Dubai in October 2024 in a move widely seen as a prelude to Kinahan’s arrest.
McGovern was extradited to Ireland, and in March pleaded guilty at Ireland’s Special Criminal Court to directing a criminal organisation. He is due to be sentenced on April 27.
The US said that the Kinahan Organised Crime Group (KOCG) emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the most powerful organised crime groups in Ireland. Its business lines allegedly include international drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and money laundering.
The founder of the KOCG is Daniel Kinahan’s father, Christopher Sr, known as Christy and nicknamed “The Dapper Don”, whom the US has alleged oversees the property portions of the family’s criminal enterprise.
Christopher Sr, who is also sanctioned by the US, began his career importing heroin in 1980s Dublin, and has served prison sentences in Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium.
