Drugs, bullets and blood in Dublin

There’s a vicious drug war under way — and so far it has claimed a dozen lives

It’s a plot that would be an instant Hollywood hit, with drugs, huge profits, gang wars and a cast of colourful characters with street nicknames like The Monk’; ‘Fat’ Freddie; ‘Kingsize’; the ‘Dapper Don’. In reality, it is a vicious feud between two rival drug cartels, seeking control of Dublin’s lucrative street drugs and more.

The story stretches from the jungles of Colombia to Mexican drug mules, the Russian mafia, Spain’s Costa del Sol and Canary Islands champion boxers and low-level cigarette smugglers. At stake is who controls the supply of narcotics flowing from South America into the United Kingdom and Europe; the drug war has claimed 12 lives in the past two years in Dublin alone.

Behind the war are two competing gangs, the Kinahan and the Hutch cartels. The Kinahans are believed by Irish police to have ties with the Russian mafia and the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. Police believe the gang controls those cartels’ shipments into both the UK and Western Europe, worth €400 million. The gang is led by Christy ‘The Dapper Don’ Kinahan. A career criminal, the 60-year old spent a decade in jail in the 1980s for heroin offence.

The Hutch gang have amassed an illegal fortune from bank robberies, jewel heists and controlling the inner city and north Dublin drug trade. They are led by Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch. Christened ‘The Monk’ for his disciplined lifestyle that has kept him alive, he has been in trouble with the law since he was 10. He has not been seen in Dublin since February 2016, and police believe there’s a €1 million bounty on his head. FULL STORY ON WEEKEND REVIEW PAGES 4-5