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New details have emerged of the daring operation by Irish police to arrest crime boss Daniel Kinahan in the UAE.
In a swoop that stunned the world of organised crime, Kinahan is now on his way to face proceedings in Ireland after fleeing Europe in 2016.
The Mail understands that a local shopping mall and nearby Indian restaurant not far from the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, served as the main hubs for police surveillance on the 48-year-old gunrunning kingpin.
It was this covert operation that led to his arrest on Wednesday, which the UAE authorities had kept under wraps before Irish police confirmed the news on Friday night.
It was the first use of a fresh extradition treaty between Ireland and the UAE that made Kinahan’s arrest possible, with only a few officials in the know.
And it can be revealed that the work of a quick-witted gardai officer, who snatched pictures of encrypoted messages on an accomplice’s Blackberry device, may be used in the bid to build a case against the crime boss.
Now Kinahan is expected to be extradited back to Ireland after a court there issued his arrest warrant on Wednesday in relation to alleged serious organised crime offences.
And he could face spending the rest of his life behind bars for his alleged role in the gang after a 48-hour survelliance operation in Dubai led to his downfall.
A senior police source told the Irish Daily Mail Kinahan had been under close surveillance for two days by Dubai police before they moved in’.
Fascinating new details have now emerged of the mission to catch the crime lord.
After nearly ten years on the run in Dubai, Irish crime boss Daniel Kinahan’s world came crashing down on Friday after he was arrested for his alleged role in an organised crime network that smuggled firearms across Europe.
He had fled the continent in 2016 with his father, Christy Kinahan Sr, where they had been living in the Costa del Sol in Spain, following the murder of gang rival David Byrne at the Regency Hotel by the Kinahan cartel.
His killing ten years ago started a brutal and bloody gang war with fellow Irish crime syndicate the Hutch Gang, which claimed the lives of 18 people over the next three years and brought daylight shootings to the streets of Dublin.
The Irish authorities had been hunting the father-son due for years, and they were even wanted in the US, where the pair had $5million (£3.7million) bounties on their heads after the Kinahan family cartel, valued at around €1billion (£864million) allegedly smuggled ‘deadly narcotics, including cocaine, to Europe’, and was involved in money laundering and drug-related crime.
But the Kinahans’ reach goes much further: along with a vast property empire centred on their Dubai ‘hideaway’, they have even worked with the Iranian-backed terrorists Hezbollah, who helped them with money laundering and weapons.
Ed Caesar, a journalist who spent nearly a year investigating the alleged cartel boss, told BBC Radio 4 on Saturday: ‘He was arrested very easily. That wasn’t the difficult part. He was living openly so they just knocked on his door.
‘The prosecutor – or DPP – in Ireland had eventually delivered its files and there were charges awaiting him in Ireland and they simply asked for the Emirati police to arrest him and he’s now awaiting extradition.’
Sources cited by The Irish Sun said only small number number of police officers and officials were aware Kinahan had been brought down in Dubai, with the news having been kept ‘very tight’.
They told the newspaper that Irish police believe they can link the crime boss to encrypted messages connecting to him murders and plots to murder rivals in the deadly conflict with the Hutch Gang.
This includes messages from an Estonian hitman, Imre Arakas, who is known as The Butcher. Arakas had flown to Ireland to kill Hutch gangster James Gately in April 2017.
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But the assassin failed. Police had received intelligence he was due to arrive in the country and he was placed on surveillance.
It was Arakas’s arresting officer who seized the hitman’s Blackberry phone and took pictures of the incriminating messages before they disappeared from the device. He was later sentenced to six years in prison.
Police believe Kinahan was communicating with Arakas about the assassination attempt against Gately under the names of ‘Bon’ and ‘Bon new’ on the hitman’s phone.
But Kinahan’s downfall was only made possible due to an extradition agreement between Ireland and the UAE – and it was an arrest warrant issued by the High Court in Dublin that put the wheels in motion to bring him down in the covert operation. It was the first time the 2025 treaty had been used.
One senior official told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘This is a major, major coup. The warrants were obtained in the High Court.
‘The gardaí had gone to the High Court after a decision was made to charge Kinahan in connection with serious organised crime offences.
They said senior police bosses ‘never gave up the hunt for the Kinahans’, adding that he’s now ‘destined for’ Ireland.
In a previous statement, An Garda Síochána said it was ‘aware of the arrest of an Irish national in the United Arab Emirates’, adding that the operation was in accordance with a bilateral agreement.
‘The arrest of the Irish national in Dubai remains a matter for the authorities in the United Arab Emirates at this time,’ it continued.
‘Today’s arrest is another extremely important demonstration of the need for international law enforcement cooperation in tackling transnational organised crime.’
The Dubai government also said it had ‘arrested an Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an international organised crime network’.
Kinahan’s right-hand man Sean McGovern was extradited from the UAE in October last year, but his arrest came as a result of an Interpol red notice – a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action.
Kinahan is thought to have remained in hiding in Dubai despite the new agreement with his home country and despite McGovern’s arrest because of his own ‘arrogance’.
A senior source told The Irish Sun: ‘Daniel Kinahan is a complete and utter egomaniac who genuinely thought he would never see this day.’
But Ireland’s Assistant Garda Commissioner, Michael O’Sullivan, said the 48-year-old’s arrest this week means the sense of sanctuary felt by criminals who have fled Europe for the Middle East was ‘rapidly being eroded’.
He said: ‘A lot of groups stayed out there despite the fact that the Americans were looking for them, and they felt safe and they felt secure.’
According to O’Sullivan, however, increasing cross-border agreements between authorities are giving police forces a ‘greater reach’, ‘with the result that now they (criminals) have to be lucky all the time, and law enforcement only have to be lucky once’.
Kinahan had been spotted living freely in Dubai – having swapped the Dublin council estate where he grew up for a life of luxury – on June 14 last year when he was pictured with his former taxi driver father Christy Kinahan, 68, at a mixed martial arts event.
Both Christy, nicknamed the ‘Dapper Don’ thanks to accessories such as his trademark white Panama hat, and Daniel appeared in public and were photographed attending a UFC event at a crowded Dubai stadium.
The images, published in February by the Sunday Times and open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat, were taken in June last year.
They showed the father-son duo living openly in Dubai, seemingly impervious to their status as two of the world’s most wanted men.
Yet despite being one of the world’s most elusive fugitives, Christy Kinahan hid in plain sight in Dubai doing something astonishingly mundane… posting Google reviews and travel tidbits.
The 68-year-old rated restaurants, hotels and even government offices online while sauntering freely in the Gulf state.
Using the pseudonym Christopher Vincent, Kinahan brazenly posted hundreds of reviews and ratings, uploaded more than 1,000 photographs and built up a detailed digital footprint that offers an extraordinary glimpse into the life of one of the world’s most wanted men, as the Mail reported in March.
This newspaper also reported in January that their carefree existence enjoying the sunkissed highlife beloved of social media influencers could soon come to an end because of the war in Iran and the daily barrages of drones and missiles aimed at Dubai.
‘The missile and drone strikes have strengthened the view here that they need the US more than they need Iran,’ one expat security source told this newspaper, adding that the Kinahans’ reputation for violence, drugs and guns, despite the UAE’s strict drug laws, was becoming an ’embarrassment’ for the country.
The source said: ‘The Kinahans, given their links to Hezbollah and their pariah status with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency], are starting to become an embarrassment to the UAE – and this place is all about image. Their days are numbered, I’m convinced of it.’
Since moving to Dubai with his wife, Caoimhe Robinson, Kinahan had established a property portfolio – including a sprawling villa – in the UAE worth millions.
Alongside his brother he had also set up a number of companies in the food, clothing and textiles industries, while at the same time making millions as a boxing promoter. He was paid more than $4million working as a dealmaker for Tyson Fury.
It has been alleged in a California law suit that US boxing promotion company Top Rank ‘secretly’ paid Kinahan millions as a consultant.
Investigative journalist Ed Caesar said: ‘In one way it was sort of like an open prison because he had been sanctioned in 2022.
‘There was a $5million reward out for information leading to his arrest which the US and Ireland and the UK were all party to – but in the UAE he appeared to live openly. As long and as he didn’t leave the Emirates he seemed to be fine.
‘He was pictured at an MMA fight recently and a source of mine bumped into him out at the mall recently. He wasn’t hiding.’
Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan welcomed Kinahan’s arrest, which followed his ‘request to the UAE for extradition of this individual to face charges in Ireland’.
He said: ‘I would like to commend all involved in today’s development, which is the result of tireless work by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, officials in the Department of Justice with their UAE counterparts, the Department of Foreign Affairs and other agencies.’
