Gardaí, aided by Spain’s Guardia Civil, appear to have struck a significant blow against the drugs gang known as The Family. It has displaced the Kinahan cartel’s Irish operation as the biggest importer of drugs into the Republic. Recent operations resulted in the arrests of most of the leadership tier of the gang in their native Dublin and the discovery of a drugs distribution hub in Valencia.
Police in Spain said the Irish-run network also had hubs in Murcia and Málaga; industrial units where drugs were packed into hidden compartments in vehicles for smuggling to Ireland.
There are similarities with the early days of the Kinahan cartel some 25 years ago. Cartel founder, Christy Kinahan Snr, based himself in southern Spain and sourced large consignments of cocaine for smuggling back to Ireland.
In the early years, the Kinahans were a problem, but never the top priority, for law enforcement in Ireland and Spain. This was mainly because the Irish cartel did not initially engage in gun feuding and those gangs that did were the more immediate targets. However, last year Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the cartel now had wealth of more than ¤1 billion.
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Once a crime gang reaches that status, its leaders can invest significantly in counter security measures – and bribes – to insulate themselves. They can also outsource the risks that arise in international drug smuggling by offering greater rewards to underlings. The Family group is on the cusp of reaching that level. Spain’s Department of Treasury said the group had “enjoyed a high economic status, which facilitated the collaboration of other individuals and expanded its geographical sphere of influence”.
The Garda operations targeting domestic organised criminal groups in the period since the Kinahan-Hutch feud have been marked by a new relentlessness. The same gangs are being targeted again and again, with even minor figures pursued for peripheral crimes. As a result, so-called gangland murders have decreased to one or two per year, a record low in the modern era.
But that success has very much been on the island of Ireland. The fact the Kinahans are still at liberty in Dubai, four years after US law enforcement offered a $5 million rewards for information that would lead to their prosecution, is significant. Never again can a crime gang be given the breathing space that the Kinahans were in their start-up phase in Spain.
There remains huge demand for drugs in the Republic. Therefore, it is imperative the network of Garda liaison officers put in place in parts of the world in recent years is expanded. The sharing of intelligence, and joint operations, with international law enforcement agencies to target Irish gangs abroad trying to supply the domestic drugs market must be ramped up.
