The Kinahan network: from Dublin to Dubai

An Irish crime organisation that outgrew its city — sanctioned by the US, hunted by the DEA, and at the centre of one of the biggest international manhunts in recent memory.

The Kinahan organisation began as a Dublin drug network in the 1990s, built around Christy Kinahan, an Irish-born man who built international connections while serving time in British prisons. On release he relocated to the Costa del Sol and began building a distribution network that stretched across Europe.

His sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr, expanded the business into a transatlantic operation, importing and distributing cocaine and cannabis on an industrial scale. The organisation's reach covered Ireland, Britain, Spain and, increasingly, the Middle East — where the family eventually settled in Dubai.

The network became internationally notorious in 2016, when Daniel Kinahan was named in the murder of David Byrne at a boxing weigh-in at Dublin's Regency Hotel. The attack, carried out by the rival Hutch gang, triggered a feud that claimed more than a dozen lives across Dublin over the following years.

Daniel Kinahan, who had also become a boxing promoter, tried to present himself as a legitimate businessman, appearing in photographs with famous fighters and executives. His arrest warrants, and the mounting evidence against the organisation, made that increasingly difficult.

In April 2022, the US government imposed sanctions on Christy Kinahan, his two sons and senior members of the organisation, freezing their assets and banning Americans from doing business with them. The same month, the DEA indicted senior members, and the US offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to their arrest.

The sanctions were the first time the US had targeted a European organised crime group in this way. Christy Kinahan and his sons remain at large, believed to be in the Middle East, while law enforcement agencies across Europe continue to pursue the organisation and its remaining networks.