Half a million euro in suspected Kinahan cartel cash seized

Man (60) arrested during intelligence-led searches in north Dublin

Gardai have seized more than €500,000 in cash suspected of being owned by the Kinahan cartel during an operation in Dublin.

The money was found during the course of intelligence-led searches in north Dublin carried out by the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.

A 60-year-old man was arrested during the course of searches and he was being held at Finglas garda station on Friday night.

He was detained under the Criminal Justice Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act. The suspect was being detained under Section 4 of Criminal Justice Act which allows for his questioning for up to 24 hours without charge.

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The suspect, who works in the transport sector, is from Dublin’s north inner city.

The seizure of the money from the Kinahan cartel has followed a lull in the Kinahan-Hutch feud due to a major policing operation and the jailing for some of the key figures in the Kinahan cartel based in Dublin.

Dubliner Freddie Thompson (39) is serving life for the murder of David Douglas in 2016. He was regarded as one of the key instigators in the gun violence on the Kinahan side of the feud and is suspected of involved in a number of the feud murders.

Liam Byrne (39) has been the leader of the Byrne organised crime group in Dublin, which is effectively the Irish unit of the international Kinahan cartel. However, he has had his assets seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau and has now left Ireland for the UK.

In the last number of years gardai have made a number of large seizures of cash from the Kinahan gang including one of €350,000 in 2017 and another of almost €2 million last year, in a number of tranches during a coordinated series of raids.

Conor Lally

Conor Lally

Conor Lally is Security and Crime Editor of The Irish Times