Leader in Kinahan drug gang extradited to Ireland from UAE

A pacesetter of the infamous Kinahan organised crime team has been flown from the United Arab Emirates to Ireland within the first extradition of its type.

An Irish army plane sporting Sean McGovern – who’s sought after on fees of homicide and directing organised crime – used to be because of land in Dublin amid heavy safety on Thursday afternoon.

The 39-year-old has been in custody in Dubai since October, when he used to be detained on an Interpol pink understand, which is a request to legislation enforcement businesses to find and provisionally arrest a suspect pending extradition or an identical felony motion.

McGovern, who has been named in Ireland’s particular prison courtroom as a senior member of the Kinahan cartel, is sought after in reference to the homicide of Noel Kirwan, an blameless guy who used to be shot in Dublin in 2016 amid a feud between the Kinahan and Hutch prison gangs.

UAE government passed McGovern to gardai on Wednesday, and then he used to be placed on an Irish Air Corps Airbus C295. After touchdown on the Casement aerodrome, McGovern is anticipated to be taken beneath armed guard to the particular prison courtroom to be officially charged.

Shawna Coxon, the deputy commissioner of Ireland’s police power, An Garda Síochána, mentioned it used to be a vital construction in global legislation enforcement. “Transnational organised crime gangs cause misery to communities not only in Ireland but throughout the world. They engage in murder, human trafficking and drug dealing.”

Ireland’s justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, thanked his Emirati counterpart, Abdullah bin Sultan bin Awad Al Nuaimi, and the Dubai police for his or her cooperation.

The UAE has grow to be a base for Irish criminals and their buddies partially since the state has no extradition treaty with the EU. However, a decade of lobbying by way of Irish officers cleared the path for an extradition treaty that turned into operational on 18 May.

It used to be now not retrospective and didn’t observe to McGovern however government in each jurisdictions made a separate, one-off association to switch the suspect. McGovern used to be shot within the abdomen in 2016 when a rival gang’s hit group stormed a Kinahan-organised boxing weigh-in at a Dublin resort.

Irish government hope to additionally extradite the group’s founder, Christy Kinahan, and his sons Daniel and Christopher, who’re believed to be in Dubai.

British police say the Kinahan cartel, which began as a low-level street-dealing operation within the 1980s, has flooded Britain with weapons and medicine. In 2022 the United States introduced sanctions in opposition to alleged Kinahan gang leaders and introduced a $5m praise for info resulting in an arrest or conviction.