John Mooney
Appearances
Criminal
Five Stars
So they grew up with their mum in Dublin and they had not a lot of contact with him until they reached their teens. But I understand that their mum felt that she could no longer control them because they were continuously trying to emulate him and they traded on his reputation. It appears that they were sent off to live with him in their late teens
Criminal
Five Stars
So they both became involved in the drugs business, and they became senior figures within the organization.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I understand from police officers that have raided their homes that he would always be super polite when search warrants were being executed.
Criminal
Five Stars
And he was actually very successful on that. And he became an advisor to some top boxing personalities in the world.
Criminal
Five Stars
They wanted to send a message to organized crime in Ireland that they were the big fish and no one could get in their way.
Criminal
Five Stars
And the Irish authorities had never experienced anything like this. These people were gunning down people on the streets of Dublin. And the Irish public were both horrified and intrigued by this all at the same time.
Criminal
Five Stars
The powers that be here realized that they really couldn't stop this because it was being directed from the United Arab Emirates. So the police started engaging with the United States and other European law enforcement agencies to try to have something done about this and action taken against them.
Criminal
Five Stars
You must remember, these are individuals with colossal wealth. I mean, more wealth than most people could imagine.
Criminal
Five Stars
It prevents any bank that conducts business with the United States or entities of the United States or its representatives from engaging with that sanctioned entity. For example, it prevented Christie Kinahan from running companies with his own name on them. So it stopped banks from trading, from having bank accounts for these companies. from offering them financial services.
Criminal
Five Stars
Remember one person saying to me that when you're sanctioned by the US, it also prevents you, say, from buying an airline ticket or, you know, having a credit card or conducting any sort of online financial transactions. It's supposed to and designed to destroy your legitimate finances. So it makes... It's very awkward to have a normal life.
Criminal
Five Stars
Now, it should be stated that not every country in the world enforces US sanctions, but certainly most in the Western Hemisphere do.
Criminal
Five Stars
We spent months and months and months looking at social media profiles and working back from the Google reviews that we had identified.
Criminal
Five Stars
Christopher Kinahan is probably the most successful and entrepreneurial criminal that Ireland has ever produced. He is currently a billionaire. He controls much of the cocaine trade in Europe. It could be argued that he is one of the most prolific criminals that Europe has ever produced.
Criminal
Five Stars
We would stay up quite late at night looking through social media posts, searching for images of the Kinnans who had disappeared from public view. Certainly Christy Kinnan, no one had seen him in years.
Criminal
Five Stars
And we had searched and searched and searched. And lo and behold, in the back of an image that the restaurant itself had uploaded online on its Instagram account, was an image of Christopher Kinahan and his son, Christopher Jr., having lunch. And that image became almost infamous because it was the first one to... show that the Kinneans were living openly in Dubai. They were living quite freely.
Criminal
Five Stars
And publication of that image really shocked a lot of people on this side of the world because there was an impression being created that these people were moving from location to location in fear of arrest and possible extradition. And they were just having lunch.
Criminal
Five Stars
These turned out to be quite instrumental and important in terms of mapping out where he was travelling, but also on occasion, people that he was engaging with. So, for example, he would maybe book himself into a hotel. And we were able to identify other people that were in that vicinity at similar times and identify these people as being associates of Kinahan's.
Criminal
Five Stars
And indeed, I think we identified a number of parties that are involved in his financial activities that I'm pretty sure the security services still don't know about.
Criminal
Five Stars
In the 1980s, Ireland witnessed the arrival of drugs, and that came in the form of heroin, which caused havoc to inner-city communities. Kennehan was someone who was involved in this business, but wasn't at the pinnacle or the apex of it. At the time, he was employed as a taxi driver, but he appeared to be wholesaling heroin. He wasn't a street dealer.
Criminal
Five Stars
I did explain that I did not like to be called boss and please could you call me Chris, Mr. Vincent or Sir. The waitress tittered. I thought nothing more of it until we were paying my bill. My friend was kind enough to pay the bill and were about to leave when the same waitress made a point of saying, thanks boss.
Criminal
Five Stars
I was and I wasn't. I was a little bit taken aback that someone who was the subject of an international manhunt would carry a phone to begin with, because I thought he wouldn't carry a phone in case it could be used to track his movements. I was completely astonished that they would be taking images on that phone and uploading them onto Google. for anyone to see.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I was both bemused and completely taken aback that they would accidentally photograph themselves in those same images that they were posting online. This is an individual who's one of the most wanted men on the planet. But still, he's just a man who makes mistakes.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I always thought, and this is only a suspicion I have, but I do feel as if I know him, I always felt that he posted those reviews when he was bored and hanging around and someone was late, running late to meet him, that it was something like that.
Criminal
Five Stars
I have identified and analyzed encrypted communications networks that the cartel have set up so that the key figures within it could communicate with each other securely. And they've spent lots of money building these secret networks, encrypted networks, to stop intelligence services snooping on their activities. And then he goes off
Criminal
Five Stars
with a smartphone, opens up a Google account and starts posting images of himself at specific locations. He names these locations and starts taking a deep dive into the types of food he eats. his opinions of various matters. I mean, one of the most incredible things that he posted on Google was a review of Dubai's immigration service after he had had his residency card reissued.
Criminal
Five Stars
That actually proved that the Emirates knew he was there and they could no longer pretend or deny that they knew that this wanted man was in their jurisdiction. That turned into a very big story in Ireland because the Emirates had been insisting that we're taking every action against him.
Criminal
Five Stars
But I don't know many fugitives who wander in to immigration services and have their residency permits reissued when they're among the most wanted people on the planet.
Criminal
Five Stars
I suspect that when Bellingcat and the Sunday Times began publishing these reviews, I think there was probably a degree of horror there. at what had happened. I think there was probably even a greater sense of horror when they discovered that they couldn't take down the reviews and delete them and delete their accounts.
Criminal
Five Stars
We believe that they had set up two factor authentication on that particular account. But the big problem that they had was that the email address that they had used to create the accounts was actually gone because it had been tied and created using a defunct website.
Criminal
Five Stars
So when they were trying to gain access to that Google account, they couldn't do that because the two step authentication, which involves sending an email to the account used to create the Google account, was now gone. So they were kind of caught in this situation where they had to leave all of this content, including photographs. and locations online for everyone to sift through.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I think his sons in the back of their minds would have known that every security service in Europe would be pouring over these reviews and using them to, I suppose, trace, you know, collate information on them. And we still don't know how many puzzles were solved by... the disclosure of that information.
Criminal
Five Stars
Not a lot of people would have known his name unlike other serious criminals from that time who had reputations that preceded them and often featured in newspapers and in the tabloids and in, you know, local folklore in certain parts of the city. They liked the notoriety of being photographed and filmed and and having their names and reputations covered in the tabloid press in particular.
Criminal
Five Stars
Their organisation is very durable. I don't know how many times I've interviewed senior police officers who've told me that Kynan is about to be arrested and extradited, that the cartel is about to implode or that something else is about to happen. And yet they're still there.
Criminal
Five Stars
So could I use this opportunity to once again extend that invitation to Christopher Kinahan?
Criminal
Five Stars
And his sons. And I've no doubt they will listen to this podcast and they'll listen to this episode of Criminal.
Criminal
Five Stars
I've no doubt that Christopher Kenan or one of his associates will listen to this podcast. This guy monitors all media and radio shows and podcasts that are broadcast about him. I know that they have contemplated at certain times doing an interview to set out their position. If I ever got the chance or the opportunity to meet him and interview him, I think I'd ask him, how did he do this?
Criminal
Five Stars
Most criminal groups implode because their hierarchy and their leaderships turn on each other. They implode because they try to transition into legitimate industry and put their criminal activities behind them or they're imprisoned. And none of those scenarios really fit Kinahan.
Criminal
Five Stars
I'd also like to know if there are areas of this that have been misinterpreted, that maybe there were other dynamics going on within the family, within the organisation. But he's the only person that can really tell that story. And so far, he's chosen to remain silent on that.
Criminal
Five Stars
But I have to say, I do think there will come a day where he'll send for someone like me or it could be someone else to certainly put on record what happened and his story. And I'd really love to hear that.
Criminal
Five Stars
But Kinahan was very different. He kind of kept himself to himself. He shunned publicity. No one really knew a lot about him.
Criminal
Five Stars
When I've spoken to people who met him at that time, the one thing that always struck them about this guy was he seemed very together, very well-spoken man, well-educated and could pass himself off as a businessman or someone maybe who, you know, if he had pursued a different type of career, could have got involved in stockbroking or banking or something like that.
Criminal
Five Stars
I have interviewed lots of people that have spent time with the Kenhans. People that, for example, have been involved in laundering money for the cartel. I've interviewed paramilitaries that have crossed paths with the Kenhans. I've interviewed... certain people that had been involved in feuding with the Kinan cartel.
Criminal
Five Stars
When you're examining an organization like this, you really have to be very careful with them because they have huge capabilities, they have infinite finances, and they also have demonstrated time and time again the ability to kill people that get in their way.
Criminal
Five Stars
I have to say, in saying that, I don't think they'd ever be silly enough to do something to a journalist, but we've had journalists killed in Ireland. So you have to be mindful and very careful and professional when you go about investigating this particular organization.
Criminal
Five Stars
Where he has... made threats without making threats. And that's something that I find it almost very difficult to explain. In one voicemail that was played to me, he was trying to intimidate someone and he had sent them a series of messages on WhatsApp. And some of them he would end by saying, God bless. But there was one particular message that struck me as quite intimidating.
Criminal
Five Stars
And in that message, he said, I'm not looking for a fight with you. I thought you didn't want to have an argument with me. So you see yourself as a mouse. Then that's up to you. Keep your energy levels up. Goodbye. So that's classic Kinahan. He kind of says everything, but he says nothing at all. You can't really make a complaint about something like that.
Criminal
Five Stars
Not that you would make a complaint against Christy Kinahan. But what has he said?
Criminal
Five Stars
Basically, the Irish government decided to lobby the United States and build a coalition of countries that had an issue with the cartel and had an interest in bringing its leadership to justice. What makes him truly unique is his relationship with hostile states like Iran, terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, and virtually every powerful criminal organization across the world.
Criminal
Five Stars
So he's a very unique individual. He's highly intelligent. He's very smart, very savvy, very cosmopolitan. He is not your average criminal.
Criminal
Five Stars
Service was good and the staff were pleasant and helpful. The menu caters for non-vegan, dairy and sugar. I had an acai bowl followed by eggs with almond bread and green salad. My meal was well presented and tasty. I give this establishment five stars.
Criminal
Five Stars
We certainly were able to map out his activities, his contacts, some of his political views, but also what would appear to be very anodyne information, but which was actually quite revealing. And he kind of gave the game away on lots of different things.
Criminal
Five Stars
And that family lived in a flat complex in Dublin's inner city. But the marriage didn't last long because of his involvement in crime. He then went on to have a number of relationships with different women. And he fathered at least eight children that I know of. Some of these people have no involvement in crime or anything like that.
Criminal
Five Stars
And the prison he was sent to is called Port Leash. So Port Leash is a prison that was used to house serious criminals, but also paramilitaries from the IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army.
Criminal
Five Stars
And he undertook various educational courses. He completed a degree. He learned to speak various languages. I understand he was a voracious reader while inside. And he read everything from economics to history to criminology and any other material he could lay his hands on.
Criminal
Five Stars
The prison authorities regarded him as a model prisoner. He never got involved in squabbles inside the prison. He was very courteous to prison guards, stayed out of trouble. I remember interviewing a paramilitary who served time alongside him, and he told me the story of seeing a fight or riot break out in the prison.
Criminal
Five Stars
And he recalled seeing Kinahan standing at the door of a cell, watching chairs being flung at different people and weapons being produced and people being assaulted and attacked, including prison officers. And he distinctly remembered Kinahan watching this and going back into a cell and not participating in any of it.
Criminal
Five Stars
I've interviewed and spoken to lots of people who have been in close proximity to him and have spent time with him. They all say that he turns himself out quite well. And one particular man who knew him quite well often told me that when he got up in the morning, he reminded him of a peacock that liked to strut around.
Criminal
Five Stars
He often, for example, would walk around in a towel after having a shower, spraying himself with various scents. That's not something that Irish men would do, but he did it. And he would often talk about how he was looking after himself health-wise.