Seven men from the notorious Kinahan gang appeared in Dublin court this week
Exuberant gardai recorded their greatest gang-busting operation when seven men, all thugs in the international murder and drugs operation headed by members of the Kinahan family, appeared in court in Dublin on the same day.
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Two were jailed, a phony businessman known as “Mr. Nobody” who ran the gang’s deadly arsenal, and a gunman caught with a loaded revolver he intended to deliver to a hit team.
The other five, including members of the hit-team and a Dublin-based former British Army soldier, were remanded in custody for sentence in two weeks after they admitted a number of offenses.
An eighth member of the gang faces a minimum five-year jail sentence in September after he was convicted of possession of a stun-gun in his bullet-proofed fortified mansion near Birmingham in England last week.
All are members of a billion-euro cartel which operates across Europe and is led by Dubliners Christy “Dapper Don” Kinahan and his sons Christopher Jr. and Daniel who are on the run and based in Dubai.
Their gang has been involved since 2015 in a feud with a mob headed by associates of on-the-run Gerry “The Monk” Hutch. The feud has claimed 18 lives.
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The two jailed in Dublin on Monday included 51-year-old Declan Brady, known as “Mr. Nobody” because he wasn’t on any police records. He was sentenced to 11 and a half years for running an arsenal of firearms and ammunition for the gang in a loft above his fake business premises at Rathcoole, Co. Dublin.
The no-jury Special Criminal court – originally established to deal with IRA terrorist offenses – was told detectives found nine revolvers, four semi-automatic pistols a sub-machine gun, an assault rifle, 1,355 rounds of ammunition, two silencers and two electronic tracking devices in the cache.
Also jailed was 32-year-old Paul Beatty, described as “an important and trusted member” of the organized crime gang with 71 previous convictions. He received seven and a half years for possession of a loaded .38 special caliber Smith and Wesson revolver.
The five to be sentenced later this month include two brothers and a former British soldier found in possession of guns when they admitted plotting to kill a member of the Hutch family.
Sources told the Irish Independent they were to be paid €60,000 ($67,000) for their involvement in the plot but didn’t receive a cent after their plan was foiled by gardai.
Also to be sentenced later this month are two men who admitted to plotting to kill a Hutch associate.
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International police forces are examining the gangland armory uncovered by gardai for lessons in how organized crime gangs operate in their own countries.
The garda force is now sharing information on the operation with its European colleagues who are keen to establish if arms caches of a similar scale are being operated by crime gangs.
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