Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE KINAHAN CARTEL’S woes continue to mount after a sophisticated drug trafficking enterprise spanning three continents unravelled following the seizure 20kg of cocaine in a Australian building site.
Earlier this month, federal police based in Brisbane raided a building materials company which had, in the last year, been let to an Asian national working in Australia.
The officers discovered a quantity of cocaine, valued at AUS$2.4 million (€1.6 million) and the man was arrested. He is still in custody. What Australian officers discovered in their follow-up investigations was a sophisticated supply chain involving European businesses, Moroccan suppliers and Australian dealers.
For the last year, the Irish drug market has been fraught with danger for the Kinahan cartel as large seizures by gardaí have been occurring on a regular basis. This, combined with the arrest and charging of senior members of the gang, has meant that the gang’s boss Daniel Kinahan has had to move to another market in an attempt to increase his cash flow.
In the last year, police in Australia managed to take down a large cocaine ring in Queensland – effectively freeing up the area for new businesses.
The Kinahans’ interest in Australia was already there, however. A large number of Irish heading Down Under meant the cartel had more chance of getting people to give up their trade and work for them. The setting up of a building materials company worked as the perfect front for the traffickers – large numbers of Irish men coming and going from a massive building site was not going to rouse much suspicion.
TheJournal.ie has discovered a number of property deeds and documentation relating to the suspected front for the Kinahans’ Australian distribution centre. The director of the shell company is an Australian citizen. This man works for a company with links to a European port city.
When contacted by TheJournal.ie, the Australian Federal Police confirmed an investigation has started.
A spokeswoman said: “The AFP can confirm it is investigating the seizure of a quantity of cocaine from the Brisbane suburb of Geebung. This activity is part of an ongoing investigation, as such it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”
Another reason the Australian market was a tempting one for the Kinahans was the potential for profit.
Informed sources have told TheJournal.ie that the cartel is sourcing their drugs from a gang in northern Colombia. The going rate for buying a kilo of uncut cocaine is around €1,800. The average price of a kilo in Australia is AUS$180,000 (€120,000).
It’s a similar story for marijuana – the raw material is usually supplied from a Moroccan compound with the knowledge and permission of a well-known veteran Irish criminal who has been living in north Africa for over a decade and who controls the cannabis trade in the region.
However, most of the cannabis which is being distributed from Morocco is not ending up in UK or Irish markets. Instead, newer destinations are proving successful for the cartel.
Sweden, Norway and Denmark are all recent shipping destinations for the drugs. However, the influx of drugs into regions such as Stockholm has not gone unnoticed. Swedish police have been conducting more detailed searches at a number ports.
In August of this year, Malmo customs officers made the largest narcotics seizure in the history of Sweden. Almost a tonne of cannabis was discovered in August of this year.
The man arrested was originally from the Netherlands but had been living in the south of Spain – a region which has come under the influence of the Kinahan cartel for the last decade.
Last month, TheJournal.ie reported that the cartel’s Dublin operation was on the verge of imploding as paranoia sets in among the drug traffickers.
At least five of the men who are running the drug ring have ordered the murder of associates who once would have been considered close friends.
The men, each of whom has a price on his head ranging from €50,000 to €150,000, are all aware that they are in danger. Gardaí have given each of them Garda Information Messages (GIM) – a legal requirement to inform people when their lives are at risk.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
In 2008 1.7tonne was worth 650million,In 2023 2.3tonne is worth 157million.
Cost of living crisis must be hitting the drug dealers also these days.
@John Sleator: That’s a good one john
Street Value……I do wonder what streets the Guards are buying their drugs on……
@Shane Scanlan: asking for a friend?
@Shane Scanlan: “what street do you buy your drugs on? Because it’s not the same street I buy my drugs on!”
@Shane Scanlan: I don’t know but if they ever want a better deal then they should go somewhere else
@Shane Scanlan:at that price their probably selling around Temple bar
Pointless waste of money.
Note that there will be no follow up reporting – there never is – on the actual impact of things like this.
We need information.
How much do drugs polices cost taxpayers? (millions a year at least)
What impact do they have on availability of drugs? (85% of drugs aren’t intercepted, so the educated guess would be that the impact is negligible and very tempory at best – more likely the impact is closer to zero)
Relative to their cost, bearing in mind how badly we need money to eg pay carers, what is the point of these policies?
Not reducing supply. Supply is unaffected.
Not reducing deaths. We have twice the OD deaths of Portugal, which has twice our population.
So what’s the point?
I’m all for letting the lads shoot machine guns into the ocean, but surely that can’t justify the cost.
@Chris O’Brien: seeing as a kilo starts for about 2k from it’s point of origin the original value of the cocaine probably cost less than the surveillance alone.
@Butters: the real cost is the impact, not how much it costs to make them. It doesn’t cost much to make bullets, but they do a lot of harm. However, I would not assume to know the impact this haul would make or not make, I’m just thinking about the desperately addicted people here.
Great work by all involved, maybe tip of the iceberg but it keeps some of the filth off our streets.
@Eamon: Why are people so negative. A budget amount is given for all the law enforcement agencies for the purpose of detecting and seizing drugs entering Ireland. While I agree that drugs are imported every week into Ireland a seizure like this, no matter how small people think it is, should be celebrate. How many lives has this seizure saved ?. And I don’t mean deaths from drugs. There are serious OCG running riot in this country and importation of drugs is just 1 of their sources of income. They reek havoc every where, people smuggling for slavery, prostitution, extreme porn. Let’s celebrate 1 up for the good guys
On my way to Wexford for 2 x bags of strawberries…
@Paddy: Double dips ? On blotter paper?
@Brian Keelty: showing your age there I think lol
We should keep and it sell ourselves to pay off our debt. By bedtime tonight the Garda will estimate the haul to be now worth 600 trillion bajilloon euros.
Has the value of cocaine decreased since 2008? I’d have thought that it went up.
Great money in Drugs.. Surprised Michael and Paschal don’t have a tax tied to it….
Then they’d know the drug dealers
Probably bound for the UK and we done them a favour
By the time it’s cut up Irish dtyle6itll be 10 x that.
Liked and shared hope I win!
have your say