A MEATH aviation broker known as “The Boxer” has been sentenced to 12 years in prison with two suspended for conspiring to import €7 million worth of heroin and cocaine from Belgium, through Weston airport outside Dublin.
John Kinsella (38), a former Irish super-heavyweight boxing champion, Carne Wood, Johnstown, Navan, had pleaded guilty the day before his trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to conspiring with others to import the drugs between September 22nd and September 26th, 2006.
After the hearing evidence of the complex Garda investigations Judge Tony Hunt also called for legislation compelling registration for pay-as-you-go mobile phones which hindered Garda inquiries because criminals found it far too easy to buy them and throw them away.
Dutch authorities found 57kg of heroin and 21kg of cocaine, worth an estimated €7 million, in the luggage of a passenger trying to board the private jet. Kinsella had hired the jet for a round trip from Weston airport, Kildare, to Wevelgem, Belgium, on September 26th, 2006.
Judge Tony Hunt said he regarded the maximum penalty of 14 years for such an offence as “low” and felt “constrained” by the law, given Kinsella’s “scale of criminality”.
He accepted that Kinsella appeared not to have been “at the top of the Christmas tree” in this drugs enterprise and that there was at least one person above him, referred to as “the auld fella” in wire-tapped phone conversations between Kinsella and his co-accused, James Rankin.
Judge Hunt noted that Kinsella “knows well the identity of the major player” but chose to withhold this information.
Det Garda Gilligan told Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, that Dutch police had set up a wire-tap on the mobile phone of Scotsman James Rankin, a drug-trafficking suspect who was based in the Netherlands in September 2006.
Det Gilligan said a Garda colleague travelled to Amsterdam and brought back a CD containing wiretap recordings of phone conversations between Rankin and “The Boxer” (Kinsella) in the days leading up to the drugs bust.
Ms Walley, reading from the transcripts, pointed out that Kinsella mentioned arranging a “bird”, ie an aircraft, in a telephone call on September 25th and told Rankin to make sure his “lad” was “dressed the part” in another call the same day. Rankin assured Kinsella that his “lad” was “suited and booted” with a laptop.
Det Gilligan told Ms Walley that the man whom Dutch police arrested trying to board the private jet was dressed in a suit with a laptop bag and two wheelie suitcases full of drugs.
Ms Walley said Rankin indicated to Kinsella that there were 23 drug packages in each of the suitcases in a telephone call about 11.20am on September 26th, about the time the drugs courier was to board the jet at Wevelgem.
Kinsella responded: “It’s a lot . . . my name is on this”.
Det Gilligan said there were a series of missed calls from Rankin to Kinsella following one about 11.45am where Kinsella stated that his aircraft was still on Belgian soil and the pilots were not answering their telephones .
Kinsella, a businessman, claimed in interview he did not know Rankin or the drugs courier, who was jailed for three years.
Det Gilligan told Ms Walley that Kinsella had flown to Morocco with “Gerard Byrne”, known also as Rankin, on June 17th, 2006. Gardaí also found two text messages from Rankin’s telephone to a mobile discovered in a bedroom drawer at Kinsella’s house.
Martin O’Rourke, defending, submitted to Judge Hunt that his client had spared the taxpayer “considerable” expense by pleading guilty before a “long and complicated trial”.
Judge Hunt backdated Kinsella’s sentence to the date he entered custody in September 2006.