CAREER CRIMINAL STARTED OUT AS CAR THIEF

FREDDIE Thompson, a member of the Kinahan cartel, has had many run-ins with the law.

Nicknamed ‘Fat’ Freddie, he was the cousin of David Byrne, pictured, a member of the Kinahan gang who was shot dead during an attack orchestrated by the Hutch gang at the Dublin’s Regency Hotel in February 2016.

Thompson, now 37, first appeared before the Children’s Court in the late 1990s for car theft and motoring offences. Graduating to the District Court in the subsequent years, he has appeared on assault charges, damaging a garda car, and abusive behaviour.

He came to the attention by the gardaí in the early 2000s for a bloody gangland dispute which became known as the Crumlin/ Drimnagh feud.

Over the years he racked up numerous convictions as a member of the Kinahan drugs gang.

He moved to Spain, along with many other members of the gang, and had been travelling back to Ireland often. The Kinahan gang, named after ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan, pictured below right, had operations in numerous countries including Spain, Britain and Ireland and would eventually expand to South America, other parts of Europe, and Dubai.

During his time in Spain he had been investigated by Spanish police for dealing drugs and money laundering.

In 2010, close to 30 members of the Kinahan gang were arrested in Spain but Thompson was not in the country at the time.

The next year, Spanish authorities sought to extradite Freddie from Ireland. They claimed he was a member of an international criminal gang who were involved in the trafficking of drugs and weapons.

Gardaí arrested him shortly afterwards and sent him to Spain. He was allowed to return to Ireland in 2013. Shortly after he came back here, he was involved in a pub brawl in Dublin after a funeral. Thompson threw a beer bottle which struck a women. He was identified by gardaí through CCTV.

However, while gardaí were investigating the crime he moved to Amsterdam. He was eventually arrested by Dutch police for possession of false identity documents and was later extradited to Ireland.

In 2015, he pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the violent assault on the woman and was handed a 20-month sentence.

During his time in prison he lost a significant amount of weight as well as the nickname ‘Fat Freddie’, with many tabloid newspapers dubbing him ‘Fit Freddie’ on his release.

After he was released he kept a low profile until his involvement in the murder of David Douglas in July last year, for which he was convicted yesterday.