Sunday evening, February 5, 2017. A 27-year-old Amsterdammer of Nigerian origin clashes with patrol agents. He has just survived a murder attack. In Club Smokey, at the Rembrandt Square, some drunken guys had put a gun on his head. He is only alive because the fact that the weapon misfired. The police enter the club and arrest two Englishmen and two Irishmen. During the search, they find three pistols and a silencer. One of the weapons is in a bin, the other two under a cushion.
The Irish newspapers take an interest and send journalists to Amsterdam. They spread out broadly about Smokey and the bandits and about the detention of ‘Kinahan enforcer’ Gareth Chubb (29). ‘Enforcer’ means a violent person who applies the rules on behalf of a group. While the police are normally very reticent towards the Dutch media, the Irish newspapers report them declaring that the four-man gang had arranged a meeting with the Dutch Nigerian intending to kill him. An Irish newspaper reports ‘a Dutch police source’ saying that it seemed to be a targeted action by the Kinahan gang in Amsterdam. The Dutch newspaper Het Parool agrees that the Irishmen arrested belong to the crime syndicate of the Kinahan family. “One of them would be a prominent member of the clan,” it says. According to Het Parool, Gareth Chubb is responsible for the trade in cocaine, heroin and cannabis in the labor districts of southern Dublin, for the infamous Kinahan cartel.
On May 23 there is a lawsuit against the four men. All are suspected of possession of prohibited firearms and Gareth Chubb of attempted manslaughter. One of the four has since been freed due to personal circumstances. The Public Prosecutor’s Office will not release anything about the incident, but according to Panorama’s sources, the group had been partying for a few days in Amsterdam and had ordered coke from the Nigerian, who had underestimated these ‘tourists’ and had sold them baking soda. It might have been just another café dispute, if not for the remarkable number of weapons found there. The Amsterdam police reveal that they have “absolutely not” not communicated with Irish journalists about the character of this incident.
Was or is Gareth Chubb a “leading member” of the Kinahan clan? Panorama tried to get in contact with the Kinahan family. Son Daniel has now taken over the reins of ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan. Neither of them wants to speak to a journalist directly, but we can submit the questions through a trusted person (TP). About the incident in Amsterdam, the TP says: “Gareth Chubb has nothing to do with the Kinahan family and does not work for them either. He is friends with ‘Fat Freddie Thompson’; he has a good relationship with the family.”
Fat Freddie (35) could not be in Amsterdam: he was arrested in November 2016 for a murdering a drug dealer in Dublin.
The first attack in the bloody feud between the Kinahan and Hutch families came on August 4, 2014 in Marbella, on boxer Jamie Moore, near the MGM gym of Daniel Kinahan, the oldest son of Christy Kinahan. The attack is like a thunder in clear sky. Initially, nobody understands why someone would do this to Jamie. He is shot in his head and knee and his boxing career is ruined for the time being.
It takes a while before it becomes clear to the Kinahans what happened. The clue is in the car used by the attacker: a BMW that was from Mink Kok, an infamous Dutch criminal. Mink was a confidant of the Kinahans and stayed regularly on the Costa. When he was jailed in Lebanon for a long time, his car in Marbella was left standing. The Spanish police investigation shows that this BMW was used by the attack on Jamie Moore. Those commanding the attack had used the car because they already had it, it was not stolen. It must have been an inside job and, given the situation and circumstances, it is concluded that the attack was intended for Daniel Kinahan and that the gunman had been mistaken.
Back to the beginning. Christopher Vincent Kinahan was born in 1957 into an Irish family in London, where his father had a business; not, as is often mentioned, in Dublin. In the sixties they did in fact return to Dublin. Christy was the black sheep of an otherwise straight family. He didn’t like studying at school and was only interested in judo. At the age of 22, he was first convicted of car theft and burglary. He was already married and had a son.
In a documentary broadcast on Irish television in 2016, crime reporter Stephen Breen said that from the beginning Christy Kinahan was different from other criminals: he had good manners and was not violent. He initially focused on cheque frauds, but from 1985 would have been in drug trafficking. From that time on, he started travelling through Europe. In March 1987 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment. In the infamous Mountjoy jail he was later transferred to Limerick maximum security prison where he met John ‘the Colonel’ Cunningham, a robber who also later landed in drug trafficking. Cunningham had specialized in abductions in the 1980s, most spectacularly that of banker’s daughter Jennifer Guinness (48) in 1986. She was freed by police after eight days in captivity and Cunningham was sentenced to 17 years. In the Irish prison, John and Christy became “friends for life”; Cunningham would often later be called “the right hand of Kinahan.”
In September 1996, Cunningham managed to escape. He fled to the Netherlands and set up a chain in Amsterdam for trading in xtc and hash. A flower transport company served as a cloak. The Irish police kept a close eye on it, together with the Dutch police. Cunningham lived in a luxurious rental house with heated indoor pool in Weteringbrug, near Amstelveen. In 2000 there was an importation involving ten million euros of weapons and drugs and Cunningham and seven gang members were arrested. Cunningham was sentenced to nine years and delivered to Ireland where he had to sit out for the rest of his sentence for the kidnapping of Jennifer Guinness. When his detention ended in 2007, he left for Marbella, where he was warmly welcomed by Christy Kinahan, who had settled there.
When Cunningham escaped from the Irish prison, Christy remained in Portlaoise maximum security prison (he was there from 1998 until 2001). He did what he would always do: use the lost time to study. He had taken Social Studies, Psychology and Politics with the Open University from 1986 until 1991. He later studied Renewable Energy and Business Studies whilst in prison from 1998 until 2001. After his release, he worked in a social-based community project where he input data onto social sites. He also leased a mini-supermarket and ran this business whilst studying, but there was very little money earned so he returned to what got him in trouble in the past.
In 1993 he was arrested in the Netherlands. Up to April 1996 he was in several prisons, from the Bijlmerbajes to Norgerhaven. There he studied Dutch, a language that he still speaks. After his release, he lived in the Netherlands, but sometimes traveled illegally to Ireland. That went well until he wanted to go to the funeral of his father in 1997: the police waited for him. He was stuck until 2001. After his release, he returned to The Netherlands, where he married Jacqueline Kallenbach on October 30, 2001. A well-kept secret: only in 2016, an Irish journalist revealed that this Jacqueline is no less than our Jacky Hagemann, the wife of the lifetime-convicted Louis Hagemann. They were married in prison. Jacqueline was not amused when this detail was discovered about her life. According to the Irish journalist, she had eventually denied that she was the one and said it was about her sister.
Christy lived with Jacqueline in Almere-Haven. He traveled a lot back to southern Spain and had a home in London. The relationship with Jacqueline did not last long: he left and settled with a new love in a villa in a leafy avenue in Brasschaat, Belgium. He often went by bike to the Kaasrui in Antwerp, where he established a limited company in 2007. An attempt to buy and let the building of the gambling hall Fantasy in the center of Antwerp for 1 million euros to grow into luxury apartments failed. The Belgian justice arrested him. The police searched his house and took documents. A cash machine and tens of thousands of euros of cash were found. Kinahan refused to tell the police where the money came from and was sentenced for money laundering.
After a year in prison he released on bail and left for Spain; in 2010, he received an appeal for another four years. On that occasion, when he was waiting at the Court in Antwerp, he was addressed by Paul Williams, a renowned Irish crime reporter who followed the Kinahans for years. In the book Organized crime in the Low Countries part II of 2015, the Belgian journalist Joris van der Aa writes that Kinahan laughed like a farmer with a toothache, that he grabbed Williams warmly at his shoulder and whispers him in his ear: “Paul, you still know that you were in the whores in Marbella. So we have pictures of that.'” In the book, Williams denies having been there.
One of the biggest actions against organized crime in Europe was in May 2010, under the name of Operation Shovel. A total of 750 police officers invade England, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Belgium and Cyprus. 32 suspects were arrested. The chief suspect wais Christy Kinahan. The Spanish police hit the door of his 10 million euro villa in Marbella and hold him and his sons Daniel and Christy junior, as well as John Cunningham. According to a police spokesman, it is one of the most successful actions ever against international organized crime in Europe. In reality, there’s nothing to brag about: all suspects are released. There only remains a suspicion of money laundering, but nobody has heard any more about it. The Kinahan group will not again be in the picture until August 2014, after the first attack on Daniel Kinahan.
The current feud between the Kinahan and Hutch families goes back to Dublin in the 1980s. The Kinahan family lived on the south side, the Hutch family on the north side. Jokes were made over and over again between the two, a bit like our Amsterdam-Zuid and De Pijp: the women of the south have real jewels and fake orgasms, the women of north have fake jewels and real orgasms.
A crucial moment came in February 2008. The infamous Irish gangster Patrick Doyle was liquidated in Marbella. He had ripped a Turkish drug gang, along with companion ‘Fat Freddie’ Thompson. When the Turks came to see them, Freddie showed them two fingers and Patrick laughed at them. The Spanish police them to take the Turkish thread serious, but they were insensitive. The Kinahans had nothing to do with this case, but it became a ticking bomb. Gary Hutch, a cousin of Gerry “the Monk” Hutch, had been seen in a car with Doyle and Thompson and had thus received the attention of the police.
Gary often lived in Marbella and was a good friend with Daniel Kinahan, at the moment there were no problems between both families. A call between Gary and Daniel Kinahan was enough to involve the Kinahans in the investigation, and according to the Kinahans, this was the starting point of Operation Shovel, which would lead to massive attacks in 2010. Gary was already looking forward to the Netherlands. Not until 2010, after the Shovel operations, that he returned and spent a lot of time with Daniel Kinahan in Marbella. Daniel had thought of him as a friend but now he is convinced that Gary has been used by the police as an informant, perhaps for years. And that Gary was involved in the assassination aimed at him that struck Jamie instead. “He could have known,” said the confidant, “at the time of his mother’s funeral, there was written on a wall: “Gary Hutch is a rat.” Daniel could not believe that. “The fact is that in September 2014 Gary Hutch will be liquidated in Marbella. He is the first deadly victim in the fat; There would be many more.
Was it time to turn? It has been tried. At Madrid airport at the end of January 2015, a peace talk took place, initiated by Christy Kinahan. Present were Christy Kinahan, his son Christopher and John Cunningham, on one side, while on the Hutch were Johnny Hutch (father of Gareth Hutch, he was later murdered during the feud) and Patsy Hutch (father of murdered Gary). Kinahan claims that Patrick Hutch junior must leave Ireland and that the Hutch family pays the cost of nursing the shot boxer Jamie Moore. That is an amount of 200,000 euros. Daniel Kinahan paid this to him, but he thinks the Hutch family is responsible for this and so has to pay.
The Hutch family say they will discuss it. In the Irish newspapers is written that this money was paid; The Kinahans deny it. The response to the peace proposals is given a week later: the attack at the Regency Hotel in Dublin, intended for Daniel Kinahan.
Occasionally, a little more emerges about the backgrounds. Especially about someone who would like to keep himself in the shadows: George Mitchell, alias the Penguin. Well known in the Netherlands: he had been living here since the mid-nineties. In 1998, he was arrested for theft of computers from an Irish truck at Schiphol and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He lived with his Dutch-Moroccan wife and their children in Amsterdam. In the war between Kinahan and Hutch, Mitchell tried to keep in the background as much as possible, but that was difficult. On the one hand he had good contacts in Hutch circles. On the other hand, he and his right-hand man Robbie Murphy – his financial man – worked together for years with the Kinahan group.
It seems that Mitchell had chosen Hutch’s side when the problems between both families began. As a result, the Hutch family was hit by the fact that the Kinahan Kartel controlled drug delivery routes from South America, thanks to their good Dutch trade contacts. People from the Hutch group would also have violated a 200 kg cocaine run of the Kinahan’s, after which Mitchell and Murphy were threatened by someone from the Kinahan Kartel. Shortly thereafter – in August 2014 – the first failed attack on Daniel followed. Daniel later found out that Mitchell and Murphy both knew one day before the attack that it would happen and that they had not warned him. The Kinahans concluded that Patrick Junior was turned to murder by his own father, but that Mitchell and Murphy did not intervene in their own interests. If the attack on Daniel had been successful, Mitchell and Murphy would have been given the opportunity to collaborate with the Dutch group and outplay the Kinahan Kartel.
At the second attack on Daniel Kinahan, February 5, 2016, a murder command enters the Regency Hotel in Dublin during a weigh-in prior to a boxing gala. When they can not find Daniel, they kill one of his friends: David Byrne. Patrick Junio, who was involved in the first murder attack, is being held as one of the suspects. It is reported that when Robbie Murphy heard that the attack on the Regency Hotel had been a failure, he left his home in the leafy suburbs of Amsterdam, where he lived, and would have concluded that it was wise to leave the Netherlands for the time being. Nobody knows where he stays. George Mitchell also left. According to Irish newspapers, he moved to Spain, then to Morocco and later to an unknown destination.
Irish newspapers report that after the second failed attack on Daniel, Mitchell and Gerry Hutch spoke to each other at least once in the Netherlands. Hutch was in England, the Netherlands and Spain to mobilize contacts in the war against the Kinahans. According to The Sunday World, Mitchell maintained contacts with Moroccan drug gangs and Colombian drug cartels. Was this the meeting Martin Kok had heard of? On July 20, 2016, he wrote on his website: “I walked for three days after I got a tip that Gerry Hutch alias the Monk was seen in Volendam. I sat well on the terrace at the harbor and then there Gerry Hutch alias Monk came for a bike ride. I got crazy and quickly picked my mobile, but he had been cycling again.”
According to Irish newspapers, Hutch and Mitchell would then have told that the war will not end before Daniel Kinahan is dead. Meanwhile, Mitchell and other Irish criminals known as Hutch’s friends would have left Christy Kinahan the message that they did not want to be a party to the conflict: please, leave us out.
In the Irish newspapers, everything that has to do with Kinahan is big news. Which doesn’t mean it’s always true. In April 2016, Naoufal (“Noffel”) F. (36) was accidentally detained in a Dublin house where the police attacked because they thought Daniel Kinahan was there. The story with Noffel is going to lead its own life, not least because Irish media used Martin Kok’s website Vlinderscrime as a serious source. Martin was fed with some incorrect and uncontrollable information, especially about the Kinahans and the Noffel Mocro group. In the Irish media, Noffel was set as one of Europe’s biggest drug criminals and assassins and as a head of the Kinahan cartel. One of the theories about the liquidation of Martin Kok on December 8, 2016 is that it has to do with the stories about Noffel and his alleged connections in the Irish media.
Even without Martin Kok, the Irish are getting their stories. At the end of January 2017, Paul Williams wrote in The Irish Independent that the Kinahan cartel had put a price of 1 million euros on Gerry ‘the Monk Hutch’ his head. “Relatives of the murdered drug dealer David Byrne want to kidnap the old gangster so that they can torture him,” said a source. “The contract would have been extinguished by a number of international drug gangs.” The newspaper has to withdraw the allegation soon. There is not one serious source for the story, let alone two.
What is actually true? According to the confidential person, the Kinahan family never co-operated with Noffel and did not know him at all until he was detained in that house. A friend of a brother had arranged this, as a friendship service, because Noffel was temporarily looking for shelter.
In the Irish media, sympathy is on the side of the Hutch family, of which the journalists make no secret. The Kinahans are seen as the hard gangsters of a mega-rooted drug cartel, Hutch they see more like a kind of Robin Hood. Not only the press, but also the Irish police would be more favourable to Hutch and very anti-Kinahan. For example, according to the newspapers in November 2015 at the Red Cow Hotel in Dublin, at a boxing gala, a failed attack was made on Liam Roe, a cousin of ‘Fat Freddie’ Thompson and also a renowned Kinahan associate. That was quite widely reported in the press, but in reality, Liam was not present at all, and the Kinahans think the attack was intended for Daniel Kinahan.
According to the confidential person, both the Kinahans and the police were warned at the time and there were rumors that a new attempt was being made on 5 February 2016 at the Regency Hotel. Everyone was therefore very careful. That the police continued this event would have been the presence of ex-Ira members, of the Irish Republican Army, who were followed by Irish undercover agents and a British detective. Nevertheless, after the shooting, it took 23 minutes before the police appeared officially. The Kinahans argue that photos of them appeared in the media the next days, while the photographs of the killers were not to be published. Later, one of the victims of the series of liquidations, Eddy Hutch, was labeled in the Irish media as an innocent taxi driver. According to the Kinahans, he had arranged the weapons that were used in the Regency Hotel.
MURDER IN THE SINGER STREET
George “the Penguïn” Mitchell, has been living in the Netherlands for a long time. What few people know is that in 2000 his son-in-law, Derek ‘Maradona’ Dunne, 33, was murdered in Amsterdam. His nickname is thanks to the fact that he was a good football player in Ireland. After moving to the Netherlands he became a major supplier of hash, heroin and xtc to Ireland. He lived with his wife Rachel and their two children in the Singer Street in Amsterdam. On June 3, 2000, at 10.30 p.m., there is unexpected visit. Rachel looks through the spyhole. Good people: A good friend of Derek’s from Liverpool. She opens the door. Then it turns out that the good friend is handcuffed; he was abducted earlier that day. He is pushed in by an Amsterdam criminal and a Croatian. The man from Amsterdam is retrieving his money for a lot of bad drugs that Dunne had delivered. They throw Rachel on the ground and shout that Dunne has to appear. Dunne calls: “So you wanted your money?” and shoots the man from Amsterdam in his head. The wounded man flees with the Croat. Dunne runs after him and gets hit in a firefight. The men escape, Dunne has been hit four times in his back and dies in the hospital. The Croatian who has unloaded the fatal shots is arrested and convicted. During the search, the police finds a quarter of a million euro in cash and a huge amount of hash.
KINAHAN: WITH PRINCESS AMALIA IN CEMENT AND GOLD
An Irish TV documentary broadcast on the Kinahan Kartel in 2016 claims that Kinahan has invested his capital and earns money in cement, sugar and gold. A Spanish document was displayed as proof. “A 55 dólares americanos para venderlas a 97”. Crime reporter Owen Conlon of The Irish Sun claims that Kinahan purchased the cement for $55 per tonne and sold for $97 and transported between countries like Angola and Namibia and Dubai.
This story picks up in several newspapers, but is based on a misunderstanding. In December 2003, Christy Kinahan was detained in Belgium for one year. He was figuring out: “How can I make money with cement and gold?” After all, that is a lot less risky than drugs or weapons. The Dutch Princess Amalia had just been born and Kinahan founded an English Limited under the name of Amalia Trading. In prison he set up a complete financial model, concluding that there is no profit in this trade. It has been pure theory, but the Belgian justice had found the documents and added to the file. The Spanish police did not understand much about it.