Car dealer led secret life as international criminal
Midland ‘businessman’ who was underworld kingpin linked to Irish drugs cartel
TO those who lived close to his £800,000 gated home in the shadow of tourist attraction Drayton Manor Park, car salesman Thomas Kavanagh dripped entrepreneurial wealth.
Yet the devil in the blueprint details of his Mile Oak, Tamworth, home hinted at the sinister roots of his success.
The windows were reinforced and bulletproof. In fact, such was the security that police initially struggled to gain access.
The contents were equally intriguing. Officers uncovered a veritable arsenal of weapons, admittedly legally owned.
Three stun guns were found in a teenager’s bedroom. Others included a samurai sword, shillelagh, knives, nunchucks, machetes, an axe and an extended baton.
The security is understandable. Kavanagh’s near neighbours, who include top footballers, will be stunned to learn he was a marked man.
He was living under the shadow of a death threat. In 2018, police warned they had received intelligence there was a “real and immediate” risk to the Irishman’s life.
Now, following an in-depth National Crime Agency investigation, the 52-year-old can be linked to underworld money and the infamous Dublin drugs cartel, the Kinahan Gang.
Last week at Ipswich Crown Court, Kavanagh, a father of six, admitted conspiracy to import drugs and money laundering.
Gary Vickery, 37, from Tamworth, and Daniel Canning, 41, from Walkinstown, Dublin, admitted the same offences.
All three men will be sentenced following a hearing relating to Kavanagh’s involvement in the conspiracy, which will take place at the same court on October 26.
For the NCA, the convictions are the culmination of a four-year probe, also involving the gardai, into Kavanagh and his associates.
Deputy director of investigations Matt Horne said: “Today’s guilty pleas are the culmination of a fouryear investigation into Thomas Kavanagh and his co-conspirators, who were part of a significant international crime network, capable of organising multi-million pound shipments of drugs.
“We have worked throughout with our colleagues at An Garda Síochána, and I hope these convictions send out a strong message to others who may think themselves to be untouchable. We will be relentless in our pursuit of those involved in organised criminality.”
Leading Irish politician Neale Richmond hailed the guilty pleas as “further evidence that the Kinahan cartel is a major international criminal organisation involved at the highest levels”.
Kavanagh was, in fact, a serving prisoner while the court case played out. He was jailed for three years last September after a 10,000-volt stun gun was discovered during the 13-hour search of his home.
That search took place following his arrest at Birmingham Airport after stepping off a flight from Mexico.
Back then, the NCA stated that the arrest was part of a probe into the “supply of drugs and firearms”.
The 20cm pink stun gun, disguised as a Maglite-type torch, had the word “POLICE” written on its side. It was discovered on a kitchen shelf during the January 12 search.
Kavanagh accepted “simple possession” of the banned stun gun, but maintained he had taken it “off one of the kids when they were messing about with it, and had thrown it on top of the kitchen units”.
A family member had bought the gun during a holiday to “China, Spain or France” he claimed. The two other stun guns had been bought the same way.
It now transpires that the offence was relatively small beer for a man described in court as having “significant criminal history”.
That history involves 16 convictions in his native Ireland, including threatening to kill a garda, burglary, receiving stolen goods, unlawfully possessing firearms and being drunk and disorderly.
Since locating to the UK in 2008, Kavanagh appeared to have kept his nose clean and has picked up only one conviction – a suspended sentence for avoiding £83,000 in tax. He had previously been described by Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau as having “a direct role in the directing” of the Kinahan cartel.
Kavanagh has consistently denied any involvement in organised crime, but cannot deny his family links to brother-in-law David Byrne, murdered in a meticulously planned hit at a Dublin boxing show weigh-in.
Byrne, described as an associate of the Kinahan gang, was shot dead and two others injured in the 2016 Regency Hotel attack.
It is believed six men were involved in the attack – one of them disguised as a woman in auburn wig and grey dress. Two were wearing police SWAT-type uniforms and brandishing AK-47 rifles. The finger has been pointed at members of the rival Hutch firm, involved at the time in a bloody feud with the Kinahans. The murderers have never been caught.