‘Whole bloodline’ of Kinahan gang could have been ‘wiped out’

A ‘senior lieutenant’ of the Kinahan cartel shared fears that an infamous gun attack on a Dublin hotel could have ‘wiped out a whole bloodline’, a court heard. 

Sean McGovern’s conversation with a senior gang member, ‘Cap’, took place within two days of the strike on the Regency Hotel, in which he was shot but managed to escape with his life.

McGovern, 40, who was extradited from Dubai last year, is now facing a life behind bars, having pleaded guilty to two counts of directing the activities of a criminal organisation on dates between 2015 and 2017.

One count relates to the murder of Christopher, also known as Noel, Kirwan, a 62-year-old grandfather who was not involved in any criminal activity but had been a family friend of the Hutches, and was photographed at the funeral of senior gang leader Gary Hutch.

The second relates to the surveillance of rival Hutch gang member James ‘Mago’ Gately, whom the Kinahans believed had been part of the Regency kill squad. The Kinahan gang had hired a foreign hitman to kill Gately, but were foiled by gardaí.

At McGovern’s sentencing hearing yesterday, Detective Superintendent David Gallagher said the Kinahan gang were feuding with the Hutch group at the same time as being involved in drugs, money laundering and trafficking at an international level.

He said the Regency Hotel shooting on February 5, 2016, had been a ‘watershed moment’.

Sean McGovern’s conversation with a senior gang member, ‘Cap’, took place within two days of the strike on the Regency Hotel, in which he was shot but managed to escape with his life 

He outlined an exchange of messages between McGovern and Cap, recovered by gardaí, which took place two days after the event.

Cap said the Regency had been the Hutch gang’s ‘big stand’.

McGovern, who went under the pseudonym ‘Knife’, replied that he was ‘sick’ over the death of Kinahan gang member David Byrne.

‘It could have been the six of us and they could have wiped out the whole bloodline,’ he said.

He continued: ‘They wanted you. They targeted us, this is personal, on my baby’s life I’m not stopping now.’

Cap replied: ‘I am not stopping until they are all gone. We will get every single one… they are all scum.’

In a later exchange when the Kinahans were targeting James Gately, McGovern described Gately as a weasel and added: ‘All weasels get caught out in the end.’

Gately has survived two attempts on his life, including one attempted hit in which he was shot five times as he sat in his car at a petrol station in May of 2017.

Det Supt Gallagher, from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, told the court that the Kinahan organised crime group (OCG) and the Hutch OCG worked together as one criminal network, and would have been ‘quite friendly’ prior to 2014.

However, he said there was a ‘falling out’ and a ‘number of acts of violence’ in Ireland and Spain – including the shooting of an innocent man in a case of mistaken identity.

Det Supt Gallagher said this was followed by the shooting of Gary Hutch in Spain in 2015, as he was believed by the Kinahan gang to have been involved in the earlier shooting.

Gately was among those who carried Hutch’s coffin at his funeral and had been an ‘active target for assassination’ by the Kinahan OCG since 2015, the court heard.

The feud escalated further with the Regency Hotel shooting perpetrated by the Hutch gang in Dublin in February 2016, he said.

‘After the attack the violence escalated and became more personalised,’ he said.

He said the Garda investigation was based on ‘extremely strong’ circumstantial evidence against McGovern, based on Garda surveillance and searches, CCTV analysis and data seized from phones and satellite navigation systems in a van, as well as tracking devices used by the organised crime group itself, which were later seized.

The Kinahan gang had used Blackberry phones reconfigured to use Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) email encryption software to communicate surveillance of Gately in Dublin and Belfast, he said.

McGovern was shot at the Regency Hotel (pictured) in Dublin in 2016 

Det Supt Gallagher also provided evidence of GPS tracking devices being attached to Gately’s car, as well as to vehicles used by his partner and sister.

He also told the court that gardaí became aware that Imre Arakas, an Estonian hitman for hire, was coming to Ireland in April 2017.

Arakas was arrested when he flew into Dublin Airport. He was found with one of the Blackberry phones with the PGP software and a piece of paper containing information on Gately and some PGP account information of Kinahan gang members.

After Arakas’s arrest, McGovern agreed in messages with another gang member that it was ‘time to get the f*** out of here before we’re all in cuffs’.

Detective Sergeant Dolan Daly said Noel Kirwan had been targeted solely because of perceived links to the Hutch OCG – as he had been photographed by the media at the funeral of a member of the Hutch family.

‘There is no evidence that Noel Kirwan was involved in any form of criminality,’ he confirmed.

He agreed with the prosecution that Mr Kirwan was ‘an easy target’ as he did not believe he was in any danger, and had no security in place – even the CCTV on his house in Clondalkin was not working.

He said Mr Kirwan was murdered on December 22, 2016, seconds after parking his car outside his home after returning with his partner, Bernadette Roe, from a family meal in a restaurant.

Det Sgt Daly said: ‘At least seven shots were fired through the driver’s window of the vehicle, hitting Noel Kirwan on five occasions.’

He gave evidence linking McGovern to a ‘burner’ phone used in planning the attack, as well as a tracking device that had been placed underneath Kirwan’s car. He also said there was a fingerprint matching McGovern on an instruction document for the device and an adapter plug for its charger.

Defence barrister Michael Bowman said it was apparent that there were three tiers of the Kinahan OCG above McGovern, and that his client was receiving instructions from leaders outside the jurisdiction.

He said these leaders hid ‘behind a corporate veil of pseudonyms’.

Mr Bowman said it was the ‘expendable’ people who were caught on CCTV, and ended up ‘answering in court’. McGovern was a ‘senior lieutenant operating on the ground in Ireland’, he said.

Det Supt Gallagher replied: ‘There were a number of significant people above him, but he was a significant individual himself.’

He confirmed that McGovern has 11 minor road traffic matters from 2009 to 2011, but no criminal convictions.

The three judges of the Special Criminal Court were handed a victim impact statement from Bernadette Roe, but it was not read into the record as the prosecution said it contained ‘highly private family matters’.

The sentencing hearing will continue on Friday.