{"id":20936,"date":"2026-05-04T17:10:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=20936"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:10:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:10:42","slug":"sun-sets-on-middle-easts-costa-del-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2026\/05\/sun-sets-on-middle-easts-costa-del-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun sets on Middle East\u2019s Costa del Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Submitted by Maggie Petito on behalf of DrugWatch International – 01 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Article published in London Telegraph- by\u00a0 Max Stephens – International Crime Correspondent\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Concerns over damage to its international reputation prompt United Arab Emirates to finally take action against gangsters<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dubai was the perfect command post for the\u00a0Kinahan crime family.<\/span><\/p>\n

For 10 years, Christy Kinahan Sr, \u201cThe Dapper Don\u201d, and his two sons, Daniel and Christy Jr, ran their \u00a31bn cocaine empire from lavish flats on Palm Jumeirah, a man-made 1,380-acre archipelago built in the shape of a palm tree.<\/span><\/p>\n

A network of corrupt officials allowed the cartel to wash dirty money with impunity through\u00a0the city\u2019s\u00a0frenetic real estate market.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite a $5m (\u00a33.8m) reward for his arrest offered by US authorities in 2022, Daniel Kinahan, the clan\u2019s de facto leader, freely mingled with Europe\u2019s most powerful drug lords at boxing tournaments and in Michelin-starred restaurants.<\/span><\/p>\n

But on Oct 10 2024, things changed. Sean McGovern, Daniel Kinahan\u2019s closest confidant and family consigliere, was arrested by Dubai Police.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this month,\u00a0Daniel Kinahan himself was arrested, and is awaiting extradition to Ireland, where he faces organised crime-related offences. He is being detained in Al Awir Central Prison, nicknamed Dubai\u2019s Alcatraz by former inmates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Police and security sources revealed that the decision by the\u00a0United Arab Emirates\u00a0(UAE) to tackle Dubai\u2019s \u201cCosta del Crime\u201d only came about in the past two years because the reputational embarrassment was so acute that they could no longer strike trade deals with other countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The enclave of gangsters became an issue of \u201cnational interest\u201d for the UAE, according to a former high-ranking British diplomat. Senior figures in the Abu Dhabi government held frequent meetings about the \u201creputational hits\u201d they were suffering on the world stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were someone [a trade official or diplomat] and went to somewhere like Albania or Ireland, it wasn\u2019t great because all they wanted to talk about was that their worst criminals were going to bars in your city,\u201d the former diplomat said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit more than just getting over a few bad headlines. The UAE can get over a few bad headlines; it was becoming a significant bilateral irritant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt had become an issue of national interest to change their approach. They were finding it hard to do business in lots of places.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The diplomat added: \u201cIf you were an organised crime boss or a rich, successful criminal of some kind, until 2024, Dubai was the best place you could go to because they weren\u2019t arresting people, unless there was a political motive to it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Analysts also pointed to the reputational fallout of the UAE being added to the \u201cgrey list\u201d of the Financial Action Task Force, a global anti-money laundering watchdog, in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

The grey list is a group of countries that have been judged as not doing enough to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. It took two years before investigators removed the UAE from the list.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gangsters\u2019 paradise<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dubai\u2019s plethora of designer shops, lavish hotels, its status as a hub for gold trading and low cost of living had turned the emirate into a playground for gangsters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminals flaunted their lifestyles on social media, posing in front of supercars and skyline penthouses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The emirate\u2019s ancestral\u00a0\u201cHawala\u201d banking system\u00a0meant vast volumes of cash could be transferred without a trace. Authorities asked no questions about where the Kinahans\u2019 funds came from.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only proviso was that they kept their transatlantic drug and arms trafficking operations outside the UAE. The city was especially attractive for Balkan crime leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

An estimated two-thirds of Albania\u2019s drug traffickers are believed to have fled to Dubai over the past decade, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Kinahan\u2019s guest list for his wedding in 2017 at the\u00a0\u201cseven-star\u201d Jumeirah Burj Al Arab hotel\u00a0was almost a who\u2019s who of Interpol\u2019s most wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

The group included Edin Ga\u010danin, a Bosnian drug lord known as \u201cEurope\u2019s Escobar\u201d, Raffaele Imperiale, a high-ranking member of Italy\u2019s Camorra linked to stolen Van Gogh paintings; Faissal Taghi, the son of a dual Dutch-Moroccan murderer; and Alejandro Salgado Vega, Spain\u2019s biggest cocaine trafficker. An undercover informant who infiltrated and recorded the wedding on behalf of the US Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed law enforcement\u2019s suspicions that the Kinahans and the group had banded together to form a \u201csuper cartel\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Living the life of Riley<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Police estimated that together the group controlled a third of all of Europe\u2019s annual \u00a314.8bn cocaine supply from South America. By 2026, all the kingpins had been either extradited from the UAE or arrested.<\/span><\/p>\n

The turning point was the arrest of McGovern, who was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, on Oct 10 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n

A police source with intimate knowledge of McGovern\u2019s arrest said: \u201cWhat they [Dubai] started with is targeting those who were living \u2018the life of Riley\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThose going to boxing matches, posting things on social media while having a Red Notice on them or being wanted, they felt it was disrespectful to Dubai.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe arrest of McGovern opened the floodgates. They [the police] did it slowly, carefully, they didn\u2019t communicate very much, it was all very sensitive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Assassination attempt<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

McGovern, 39, was extradited in May 2025 and is awaiting sentencing at Dublin\u2019s Special Criminal Court, having pleaded guilty last month to two charges of directing the activities of a criminal organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kinahans had relocated from their headquarters in Spain\u2019s Marbella to Dubai following an assassination attempt on Daniel Kinahan on Feb 5 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

A group of gunmen disguised as Irish police opened fire on Kinahan and his retinue during the weigh-in of a world boxing match at the Regency Hotel in Dublin.<\/span><\/p>\n

The attack was carried out by the rival Hutch Gang during a gangland war for control of Ireland\u2019s underworld.<\/span><\/p>\n

The gang\u2019s alleged leader, 63-year-old\u00a0Gerry Hutch, or \u201cThe Monk\u201d, as he has been named by the Irish press for his ascetic lifestyle, is now running to be an independent candidate in the Dublin Central by-election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch has denied being an organised crime boss and has not been convicted as an adult. He had minor convictions for robbery as a child.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gerry Hutch is hoping to win the Dublin Central by-election next month. In the aftermath of the shooting, 19 people were killed on the streets of Dublin, including two civilians in a case of mistaken identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

While in Dubai, Mr Kinahan sought to rebrand himself as a boxing promoter and was\u00a0credited by Tyson Fury, the former heavyweight world champion, for helping broker a match between him and Anthony Joshua.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the fight never materialised, Mr Kinahan was repeatedly lauded by the roster of world champion fighters signed to his company, MTK Global, for securing deals unmatched by competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bob Arum, a 94-year-old Las Vegas boxing tycoon whose promotional company Top Rank included Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Floyd Mayweather Jr in its stable, described Mr Kinahan as his \u201ccaptain\u201d and said he had always been \u201chonourable\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

MTK Global shut down in 2022, the same year that the US government imposed a $5m (\u00a33.7m) bounty for information leading to Mr Kinahan\u2019s arrest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Arum has since publicly distanced himself from Mr Kinahan and said that, if he were aware of his criminal activities, \u201che wouldn\u2019t have touched him with a 10-foot pole\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The family\u2019s whereabouts in Dubai were well known by authorities, according to a police source.<\/span><\/p>\n

He dismissed suggestions that a joint investigation from Bellingcat, the Dutch journalism website, and\u00a0The Sunday Times, which exposed Christy Kinahan Sr\u2019s whereabouts via his Google Reviews of restaurants under an alias, had assisted law enforcement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Kinahan, 48, was arrested on foot by a squad of Dubai Police officers on April 15.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hamid Alzaabi, the secretary-general of the UAE\u2019s national anti-money laundering committee, in a rare public announcement, declared afterwards on social media: \u201cThere is no safe haven for criminals in the UAE.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dubai \u2018under pressure to behave\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Haberly, a senior lecturer from the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, said: \u201cDubai has a serious bid to become one of the real apex global financial centres in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is international pressure for them to behave; they have the same architecture of Western security, it\u2019s not a rogue state. They have to play along.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Kinahan is being held in Al Awir Central Prison, a sprawling complex in the middle of a desert. The jail is a far cry from the splendour of his old residence, a 45-minute drive away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inmates have their heads shaved on arrival, something that Mr Kinahan, who is rumoured to have recently undergone a hair transplant, would feel particularly aggrieved about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dubai authorities also announced on Sunday that \u00a3168m of the family\u2019s assets had been frozen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Kinahan\u2019s wife, Caoimhe Robinson, a property magnate reportedly living in a \u00a35m mansion in the gated community of Hacienda with her four children, is said to be carrying out a fire sale of up to \u00a31bn in assets.<\/span><\/p>\n

She is not accused of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Irish police are keeping close tabs on his younger brother Christy Kinahan Jr, 45, who supposedly runs the money-laundering side of operations and is reluctant to \u201cget his hands dirty\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The family\u2019s patriarch, Christy Sr, who has been subject to the same US bounty as his two sons, has stepped back from the cartel\u2019s day-to-day operations but remains in police crosshairs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where Europe\u2019s criminal elite will now set up shop is unclear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Security sources have pointed to Sudan or Moscow as potential havens, given their governments\u2019 links to corruption and harbouring of fugitives, but said neither could hope to match the splendour of Dubai.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: www.drugwatch.org<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Submitted by Maggie Petito on behalf of DrugWatch International – 01 May 2026 Article published in London Telegraph- by\u00a0 Max Stephens – International Crime Correspondent\u00a0 \u00a0 Concerns over damage to its international reputation prompt United Arab Emirates to finally take action against gangsters \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Dubai was the perfect command post for the\u00a0Kinahan crime family. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,129,142,128,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-violence-prison","category-culture","category-latest-news","category-uk","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20938,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20936\/revisions\/20938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}