Suspected Irish crime gang boss Daniel Kinahan has been handed over to authorities from his home country after being extradited from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Kinahan, who was arrested in Dubai in April, was named as one of three leaders of the Kinahan organised crime group by the United States in 2022 when it offered a $5m reward for their arrest.
He was also identified in the High Court in Dublin as a senior figure who “controlled and managed” the operations of the organised crime group.
Reacting to news of his planned extradition, Kinahan said that he was “looking forward to getting back home”.
His extradition, reported by UAE state media on Sunday, comes after several months of preparations, in what is said to be one of the biggest security operations the Irish government has ever launched, following the arrest of the Dublin boxing promoter in April.
Kinahan, aged in his late 40s, was detained on foot in April after an arrest warrant was issued by the Irish courts in relation to alleged serious organised crime, including drug and firearms offences.
An Irish government jet took off from Casement aerodrome in Baldonnel on the outskirts of Dublin on Saturday morning. It departed for Ireland at 09.20 GMT on Sunday, flight tracking data showed.
Kinahan, who has lived openly in Dubai for 10 years, will be arrested on arrival in Ireland, following years of investigations by the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, the Irish Times reported.
He is expected to face a charge of directing organised crime when he appears before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on Sunday night, the newspaper added.
Snipers on roofs, bomb-proof vans for transportation, decoy vans and signal jammers in prison ceilings will be deployed to bring Kinahan to trial,The Times reports,
Kinahan spoke about the process on Saturday, leaving a voice message that was shared on Instagram by podcaster James English, in which he said that he was “looking forward to getting back home”.
He said: “The security is going to be crazy. I am sitting here reflecting a little.
“Then I’m thinking of what happened, how I got here, all the stuff that’s happened in my life, the whole lot, just reflecting. It’s like bittersweet. It’s going to be nice to get back.
“I was always proud to be Irish.I wanted to do good things and big things but obviously life didn’t go that way for me with all the stuff and all the media, what people think of me you know and the perception they have of me, but I am still so proud to be from Ireland.
“I’m looking forward to getting back home.”
In 2016, an attempt was made on Kinahan’s life at a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel in Dublin.
After that, he left Ireland, first to go to the Costa Del Sol in Spain and later settling in Dubai for the past decade.
The Kinahan cartel was involved in a feud with the rival Hutch crime gang in Ireland, which began in 2015 and resulted in 18 deaths.
A lawyer for Kinahan told the BBC in 2021 that he has no criminal record or convictions and allegations about being a crime boss were false.