CARTEL WEALTH SOARS TO €1.5BN
Evil Kinahan mob raking in cash despite international crackdown
THE Kinahan cartel is now worth a massive €1.5billion – despite an international crackdown on its leaders.
Authorities had previously said the drugs and organised crime network was worth €1billion.
But an investigation now says its value has jumped by a cool 50%.
The gang not only makes its riches from cocaine smuggling, but is heavily involved in money laundering, property speculation – and other legitimate businesses.
The investigation, by the Sunday Times Ireland, also claims the Kinahans are using family and friends to get around the crackdown launched two years ago.
Bosses Christy, 67, Daniel, 46, and Christopher Jnr, 43, were hit with $5million bounties on their heads.
The paper said the Dubai-based cartel was using front companies, offshore accounts and proxies to evade the sanctions campaign.
It even said it found evidence that on one occasion, a front company channelled €783,000 to Christy Kinahan via a company in New York linked to a close associate of his.
FRIEND
The investigation claimed that Kinahan got $1.25million from a series of international wire payments – after the sanctions were imposed at a high-profile press conference in Dublin in April 2022.
The investigation said sanctions have been imposed on the three Kinahan men and others – but their families and friends have not been touched. That means their associates are free to travel internationally, set up businesses and use the international banking system.
It said Christy’s wife, Turkish national Neslihan Yildirim, has registered with a commodities trading platform in India.
She said in a Google review of the platform: “We felt like we were working with our best friend rather than a network or platform agent.”
She is also alleged to have registered accounts with Israeli companies that manage luxury real estate.
Flight logs seen by The Sunday Times show she boarded a plane bound for Amsterdam three months after the sanctions were imposed, before returning to Dubai.
Just last week, the same paper called Christy Kinahan the Gastro Gangster – after revealing he wrote hundreds of food and other reviews that appeared online. He was rating and slating
JUSTICE
restaurants and bars from Dubai to South Africa despite a global manhunt for him.
The online reviews show he has posted from Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, Turkey, Egypt, Zimbabwe,
South Africa and Hong Kong. An investigation by the Sunday Times and Bellingcat, the Netherlands-based investigative group, has discovered that the Dapper Don certainly lives up to his name.
Using his first and middle name, Christopher Vincent, the painstaking research uncovered Kinahan’s reviews and pictures on Google Maps between
2019 and last year. Posting a review of Dubai’s City Walk he wrote: “Family (child) friendly, relaxed, chilled-out atmosphere. I unreservedly rate this area five-star but not cheap.”
In a review of Mitts and Trays Blue Water in Dubai he wrote: “Last visit, I walked out before food was delivered because of the length of wait, which is not so bad for adults, but when you
have children with you hassle.”
Gardai and government officials are still trying top get the three Kinahans and other cartel leaders extradited from Dubai to Ireland.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris says he believes they will be brought to justice.