The Kinahan Gang Word on the Week 23rd April 2022.
Growing up, being a member of a gang was a way of life! At the end of our street was the mart with its network of cattle pens. These had an alternative use for small boys engaged in an elaborate version of hide and seek.
Later we graduated to the ‘sand-holers’. They occupied a spent sand pit which had become an unofficial rubbish dump – what more could a young boy ask for! There our skills for constructing little shacks, which boasted a fireplace and chimney, were honed in. Unfortunately, the fire was more smoke than flame so they would rapidly become uninhabitable!
We moved house when I was age 10 to a coastal village. This introduced me to the delights of sea fishing. At the same time, it put paid to my future as a gang leader for there were only six boys of varying ages in the place!
The Kinahan’s do not seem to have had such recruiting problems! I expect the addiction element in peddling drugs ensured a plentiful supply of recruits. In the early days defending one’s turf became critical. The enemy, the Hutch gang of drug pushers, had to be prevented from encroaching onto your patch.
Back in 2016, in a daring attack in the Regency Hotel in Dublin the Kinahan and their rival the Hutch gang came head to head. There was a fatal shooting which resulted in heightened Garda activities. The leaders then moved to Spain. At that time the father of the Kinahan’s was living in Dubai where he had gone into the food import/export business.
It was not long before his sons Daniel and Chris joined him. Some of the commodities they dealt in were dairy, beef and sugar. They didn’t mention the heroin and hard drugs which were concealed in the shipments!
Their business has a wide spread dealing with such countries as Australia, New Zealand, China, Brazil and the US among others. The volumes of cash they handle is substantial so the US sanctions imposed last week would make trading difficult. The body blow however was when on Tuesday the United Arab Emirates announced the freezing of the gang’s assets.
In a move reminiscent of their ‘Wild West’ past the US have offered a €5,000,000 reward for information leading to the financial disruption or the arrest and successful conviction of each of the three Kinahan’s.
Barabbas was a gang leader in the Bible who led an insurrection and was sentenced to death at the time the same sentence had fallen on Jesus (St Luke Chapter 23 verse 25). The name Barabbas means son of the father i.e. everyone. Jesus’s death bought his freedom. And not only his but ours (Galatians Chapter 3 verse 13). St Paul writes He died “for us”. Believe it and live not as a gang member but a disciple!