GANGSTER ASLEEP AS POLICE STORM ROOM

DRAMATIC new details have emerged of the arrest of a senior member of the international Kinahan crime cartel as he slept in his hotel bedroom on the Costa Dorada in Spain, writes Gerard Couzens.

Armed officers stormed the man’s bedroom through a front door and a terrace while the Irishman was fast asleep beside an unidentified woman, with the television still on.

Footage released by Spanish police showed an elite team armed with semi-automatic weapons and carrying flashlights, running into the room after getting radio orders to strike. They can be heard shouting, ‘‘Las manos, las manos’’ — Spanish for ‘‘Hands up, hands up’’ before yelling in English, ‘‘Don’t move’’.

The 34-year-old Irishman was driven to Madrid after his arrest for a behindclosed-doors extradition hearing. He is wanted on weapons and drugs charges and was arrested in connection with the 2010 murder of gang boss Eamon ‘The Don’ Dunne.

A Spanish police spokesman said the man left Ireland for Spain in May 2016 using a false passport. “Efforts to locate him centred on the province of Malaga due to his alleged links to the Kinahan organised Irish crime family,” the spokesman said.