Speaker 1: Pushkin.
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Speaker 2: p per month. Currently only available on iOS. There's a
Speaker 2: link in the show notes. Previously on Hot Money, the
Speaker 2: pressure on Daniel Kinahan is rising. His partners in the
Speaker 2: Dubai supercartel are starting to fall, and police around the
Speaker 2: world are working on a secret plan to take him
Speaker 2: down for good. It's the morning of April twelfth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, and reporters and crews arrive at a press
Speaker 2: conference in Dublin that's been called by the Irish Police. Officially,
Speaker 2: there'll be an update on how law enforcement agencies are
Speaker 2: working together to collaborate against international organized crime, but it's
Speaker 2: a bit vague, perhaps suspiciously vague, and journalists they're starting
Speaker 2: to speculate about what this press conference is really about.
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes. John O'Driscoll is getting nervous. John's assistant
Speaker 2: Commissioner in charge of Serious organized crime. Ever since his
Speaker 2: meeting with US officials three years before, he's been working
Speaker 2: on a single objective. And the press conference this morning
Speaker 2: in Dublin it's going to be the moment he finally
Speaker 2: gets to announce it to the world. But John knows
Speaker 2: that if work gets out, it could all fall apart.
Speaker 1: He's chosen the venue carefully.
Speaker 3: I said that, beyond any doubt, it was not going
Speaker 3: to take place in those rooms that we may have
Speaker 3: had press conferences relate to the ken Hens previously.
Speaker 2: Instead, it would take place in Dublin City Hall. It's
Speaker 2: the right sort of setting for a historic announcement. Marble flows,
Speaker 2: huge classical pillars and statues on ancient Roman style plints.
Speaker 3: The holding of the event in City Hall was important,
Speaker 3: first of all because it is that one for building
Speaker 3: that it is, but also it is situated in south
Speaker 3: inner city Dublin, which is where the Kenhn organization emerged from.
Speaker 2: Quietly, senior officials from various foreign police forces have been
Speaker 2: flying into Dublin. People from the US Treasury, DA and
Speaker 2: Customs and Border protection officials from Europole and the UK's
Speaker 2: National Crime Agency, including Deputy Director of Investigations Matt Horn.
Speaker 4: We derived the day before from the UK and had
Speaker 4: been extremely well looked after by the GUARDA from the airport,
Speaker 4: and you know they were keeping a very close eye
Speaker 4: on ask to make sure that all the all of
Speaker 4: us representatives of the international law enforcement community were sort
Speaker 4: well looks after and well protected.
Speaker 2: And despite all these high profile police officers arriving in
Speaker 2: Dublin at exactly the same time, John's been able to
Speaker 2: keep things under wraps. Everyone's now seated, The whole falls
Speaker 2: quiet in anticipation, and John walks out onto the stage.
Speaker 2: Within minutes, the kinner Hands will become some of the
Speaker 2: most wanted men on the planet. I'm Miles Johnson and
Speaker 2: from the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. This is hot
Speaker 2: money The New Narcos, Episode eight, The Red Notebook. Back
Speaker 2: when I started at the FT as a trainee reporter
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, I never expected I'd end up writing
Speaker 2: about organized crime. We covered things like the stock market
Speaker 2: and mergers and acquisitions. There was this very clear boundary
Speaker 2: back then between the world. We wrote about the world
Speaker 2: of business, CEOs and politicians and the underworld, but something's
Speaker 2: changed since then. The line between criminal activity and state
Speaker 2: backed enterprise, between big business and gangsters has become fuzzier.
Speaker 2: We live in a time where some heads of state
Speaker 2: increasingly act like crime bosses, and the crime bosses they
Speaker 2: act like the heads of multinational companies. It could be
Speaker 2: a world leader investing billions into startups and tech companies,
Speaker 2: but at the same time ordering the murder of dissidents abroad.
Speaker 2: It could be North Korean state hackers stealing bitcoins to
Speaker 2: fun missile programs, or Emmeinin backed tycoons using mercenary armies
Speaker 2: to mine for gold in Africa. Or it could be
Speaker 2: a cocaine cartel hiding out in Dubai while carrying out
Speaker 2: contract killings in Europe for a sanctioned regime. It's all
Speaker 2: part of the rise of a new type of criminal boss,
Speaker 2: one backed by authoritarian governments. I called them state backed gangsters,
Speaker 2: and they're thriving at a time when the world is
Speaker 2: becoming more fragmented and more chaotic. Reporting on the Dubai supercartel,
Speaker 2: I've discovered that European drug traffickers have been taking advantage
Speaker 2: of the same money laundering channels that Iran uses to
Speaker 2: evade Western sanctions. That seems to be the reason why
Speaker 2: international criminals have become unlikely bedfellows with a theocratic regime.
Speaker 2: That press conference that John's arranged, he knows it could
Speaker 2: be the beginning of the end for the supercartel. But
Speaker 2: before we get to that, I want to take a
Speaker 2: little detour because there's an important question from the start
Speaker 2: of this series that we still don't have an answer to.
Speaker 2: The murder Broker was convicted for arranging the assassination of Alimtamed,
Speaker 2: the electrician who was on the runt from Iran, but
Speaker 2: no one has ever been able to find out who
Speaker 2: in Iran gave the murder broker his orders. And enjoying
Speaker 2: the reporting of this series, I came across something that
Speaker 2: might help us get one step closer. It was a
Speaker 2: case that revealed a ton of new information about the
Speaker 2: way that Iran secretly pursues its enemies in Europe, people
Speaker 2: like Alim Tamed. And there's someone I want to talk
Speaker 2: to because he was directly involved in that case, someone
Speaker 2: who has first hand experience of the long history of
Speaker 2: violence against enemies of the Iranian regime wherever they are
Speaker 2: in the world. Husseyin Aberdini was born in Iran, but
Speaker 2: he now lives in London. He's in his late fifties
Speaker 2: and he's quietly spoken that he's been fighting for most
Speaker 2: of his life.
Speaker 5: I have been with the resistance over three decades now,
Speaker 5: nearly four decades.
Speaker 2: In the spring of nineteen ninety, Hussein was a young
Speaker 2: activist and he was in Turkey. He says he traveled
Speaker 2: there to try and stop the deportation of Iranian refugees
Speaker 2: who'd crossed the border illegally. One day in Istanbul, he's
Speaker 2: in a car with two colleagues. They're on the motorway
Speaker 2: when suddenly something blocks the road ahead.
Speaker 1: The traffic slows down. Hussein's up front, sitting next to
Speaker 1: the driver, and all.
Speaker 5: Of a sudden we heard, you know, the sound of bullets.
Speaker 5: They riddled our car from the bag.
Speaker 2: Hussein barely has time to take in that someone is
Speaker 2: shooting at them when a car smashes into the front
Speaker 2: of their vehicle.
Speaker 1: They can't drive away and.
Speaker 5: Another car pinned us from behind. It was then which
Speaker 5: I realized, you know, this was this was an assassination
Speaker 5: or kidnapping.
Speaker 2: A man jumps out of the vehicle in front, the
Speaker 2: one that's just plowed into their car.
Speaker 1: He's holding a revolver.
Speaker 5: And it was only I think a couple of meters
Speaker 5: before he reached our car. I tried to do something.
Speaker 5: There was a briefcase belonging to my female colleague and
Speaker 5: sitting the back of the car, so I just took dad,
Speaker 5: opened the door and went to stop him.
Speaker 2: He's clutching the briefcase like a shield as the man
Speaker 2: starts shooting.
Speaker 5: First bullet hit my chest and I didn't know how
Speaker 5: many bullets, you know, I received then, and I just
Speaker 5: fell down, fell down in the street.
Speaker 2: Saint's lying on the ground, bleeding, and he can see
Speaker 2: the man walk up to him. He's preparing to take
Speaker 2: a final shot, but nothing happens.
Speaker 5: The bullet jammed and the muzzle of the gun.
Speaker 2: That's a Saint's first lucky break. The traffic starts to
Speaker 2: move again, and the assassin take off. Hussein desperately needs
Speaker 2: to get to the hospital, but the car he was
Speaker 2: in is smashed up, and everyone else on the motorway
Speaker 2: they seemed to be trying to run away as quickly
Speaker 2: as they can.
Speaker 5: I remember very vaguely that my colleague threw herself, you know,
Speaker 5: in front of one of the cars, and there was
Speaker 5: a taxi which has stopped and I was put at
Speaker 5: the back of the taxi and I just got unconscious.
Speaker 5: The hospital was only three minutes away. If it was
Speaker 5: further than that, I wouldn't make it.
Speaker 2: Hussein fell into a coma. It would be fifty days
Speaker 2: before he woke up. He was told that one bullet
Speaker 2: had passed very close to his heart and another had
Speaker 2: destroyed his liver. But even at the hospital he's not safe.
Speaker 2: The killers they come back, and this time they're posing
Speaker 2: as his friends.
Speaker 5: But my true friends arrived and they were told, you
Speaker 5: know that there are other people who wanted to come
Speaker 5: and see me. And then those people escaped from the
Speaker 5: scene when they realized, you know, there were people, my
Speaker 5: true friends, you know, we're there.
Speaker 2: That's the same second stroke of luck, and there'll be
Speaker 2: a third one as well. When the killers call up,
Speaker 2: pretending to be the police, they tell the hospital staff
Speaker 2: that they know Hussein is now conscious and they want
Speaker 2: to interview him about what happened.
Speaker 5: But the president of Turkey in those days was Tolgodozol
Speaker 5: and his mother, you know, was in the same hospital.
Speaker 5: The president wanted to come and visit his mother, and
Speaker 5: they sailed off the whole area hospital and they realized
Speaker 5: there was another branch of police who wanted to come
Speaker 5: and see me, and they found out there was a
Speaker 5: Bogos call. It was the Ranian regime who wanted to
Speaker 5: get rid of me because they didn't want me to speak.
Speaker 5: That was very pure luck.
Speaker 2: That was more than thirty years ago. Hussein tells me
Speaker 2: he's still affected every day by the damaged onto his
Speaker 2: liver in that attack. He's one of the rare survivors
Speaker 2: of an assassination attempt by the Iranian regime. Several of
Speaker 2: his friends and colleagues have been murdered since then. Today,
Speaker 2: Hussain is a senior member of Iran's main foreign opposition group,
Speaker 2: the National Council of Resistance of Iran or the NCRI.
Speaker 5: SO the main objective of the National Council of Resistance
Speaker 5: of Iran is to establish a democratic and the secular
Speaker 5: government in Iran. Its main principle, of course, has been
Speaker 5: against any dictatorship, whether there's the formula dictatorship of the
Speaker 5: Shah or the present medieval dictatorship of the Mullahs.
Speaker 2: The NCRI, it's an umbrella organization, and one of the
Speaker 2: largest groups within it is called the People's Mojahdeen Organization
Speaker 2: of Iran, known by its Farsi initials me e K
Speaker 2: now the MEK, it hasn't always had the West's approval.
Speaker 2: It was implicated in several terrorist attacks against Iran, including
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty one bombing that Tehran claimed was carried
Speaker 2: out by Ali matamed the Quiet Electrician.
Speaker 1: In the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: From nineteen ninety seven to twenty twelve, the mk was
Speaker 2: designated as a terror organization by the US government, But
Speaker 2: over the past decade it's refashioned itself and now it's
Speaker 2: a pretty influential opposition voice on Iran. But for all
Speaker 2: its acceptance by Western powers, the NCRI remains a top
Speaker 2: target of the Iranian regime. In June twenty eighteen, Hussain
Speaker 2: and his colleagues are in Paris. They're holding a huge meeting,
Speaker 2: a rally called the Free Iran World Summit.
Speaker 5: Tens of thousands of Iranians with many non Iranian supporters
Speaker 5: of the resistance who came from sixty seven different countries
Speaker 5: throughout the ward.
Speaker 2: Dozens of foreign politicians are invited as well, and everyone
Speaker 2: convenes in a vast conference center. It's only afterwards the
Speaker 2: Hussain finds out what very nearly happened.
Speaker 5: I think it was on the first of July. The
Speaker 5: next day that was told by a friend that the
Speaker 5: Belgian Featheral police, you know, they had arrested two Iranians
Speaker 5: who are trying, you know, to bring a bomb.
Speaker 2: Belgian police had arrested two Iranians who were on their
Speaker 2: way to the Paris conference center with a bomb. It's
Speaker 2: another lucky escape for Hussein and hundreds of other people.
Speaker 2: And as police investigate the failed bomb plot, they're going
Speaker 2: to discover something that I believe could shed new light
Speaker 2: on the murder of Alimtomed. It's the most important discovery
Speaker 2: in decades about how Iran targets its enemies abroad. And
Speaker 2: this time the clues aren't just glimpses, hints or encryptied messages.
Speaker 2: They're in a battered, red notebook filled with handwritten notes,
Speaker 2: sitting in the back of a car. So Hussein and
Speaker 2: his colleagues they discover that someone had tried to plant
Speaker 2: a bomb at the rally in Paris, and at the
Speaker 2: same time, police in Germany arrest an Iranian man on
Speaker 2: a highway in Bavaria. His name is Assa Dolla Asadi
Speaker 2: and officially he's the third councilor of the Iranian Embassy
Speaker 2: in Vienna. He arrived in Europe in twenty fourteen, but
Speaker 2: in reality he's a top spy for Iran's Ministry of
Speaker 2: Intelligence and Security. It's Iran's equivalent of the CIA or
Speaker 2: MI six. Assadi is running a network of agents across Europe,
Speaker 2: meeting them in cafes in small medieval towns and handing
Speaker 2: over secret instructions or bundles of cash. And months before
Speaker 2: the Paris rally, he traveled to Tehran, returning to Europe
Speaker 2: with a sophisticated bomb hidden in his diplomatic luggage. The
Speaker 2: bombs made from an explosive known as Tatp or Mother
Speaker 2: of Satan, extremely volatile. Asardi carries it on too Luxembourg
Speaker 2: and hands it over to his agents. In this part
Speaker 2: of the story, it's a bit less like a Lacarian
Speaker 2: novel because the venue he chooses it's a pizza hut.
Speaker 2: He gives them the bomb with instructions for planting it
Speaker 2: at the Paris rally, and the code word he uses
Speaker 2: is PlayStation. But what Asardi doesn't know is that European
Speaker 2: intelligence agencies have been watching his every move and know
Speaker 2: exactly what he's been planning. They even disabled the airport
Speaker 2: security scanner so he could get through. The two agents
Speaker 2: are arrested as they travel from Brussels to Paris. Assardi
Speaker 2: is pulled over by the police on a motorway in Germany,
Speaker 2: and in the back of his car they find a battered,
Speaker 2: red notebook filled with handwritten notes, notes that reveal that
Speaker 2: Asardi was involved in way more than one bomb plot.
Speaker 2: Assadi has listed hundreds of different meetings with agents across Europe.
Speaker 2: He's itemized cash payments he's made to spies, and he's
Speaker 2: listed more than two hundred places he's visited as part
Speaker 2: of his work in eleven different countries. Because as Sardi,
Speaker 2: according to the findings of a Belgian criminal court, is
Speaker 2: part of a secret unit of Iranian foreign intelligence, a
Speaker 2: sort of murder squad in Europe. It's called Department three
Speaker 2: one two and its role is to kill opponents of
Speaker 2: the regime abroad. There's not much public information about Department
Speaker 2: three one two, but what we do know it's pretty terrifying.
Speaker 2: It's thought to be a top secret unit that specializes
Speaker 2: in spying on human rights activists, journalists and others who
Speaker 2: the Iranian regime believed to be a threat, but was
Speaker 2: Ali Mtummed one of their targets. We know that Assardi
Speaker 2: arrived in his new job in June twenty fourteen, a
Speaker 2: little over a year before Alie Mtummd was killed outside
Speaker 2: his house in ol Mayor. It was the first successful
Speaker 2: targeted assassination carried out by Iran in Western Europe in
Speaker 2: over twenty three years. And then two years later, in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, while Assardi was still free, another Iranian opposition.
Speaker 1: Member was gunned down in the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: So we can say that Assadi arrives in Vienna in
Speaker 2: late twenty fourteen and then suddenly Iran is linked to
Speaker 2: several assassinations in Europe. This isn't conclusive evidence, but according
Speaker 2: to the Belgian criminal court documents targeting dissidents, that was
Speaker 2: Assadi's job, so it makes sense that he would at
Speaker 2: least be a suspect in the Matamad murder. And we
Speaker 2: also know that Assadi he was reporting into really top
Speaker 2: people in Iran, including the Deputy Minister of Intelligence After
Speaker 2: his arrest for the bomb plot, Assardi's put on trial
Speaker 2: in Belgium and he gets prison visits from some of
Speaker 2: Iran's most senior spies and other officials from its foreign ministry.
Speaker 2: They clearly cared a lot about this case. The criminal
Speaker 2: case against Assadi was brought by the Belgian government, but
Speaker 2: there were also twenty five five others who joined as
Speaker 2: private plaintiffs. They were all at the Paris rally, and
Speaker 2: Hussein was one of them, and it gave him access
Speaker 2: to all the prosecution's evidence. He sent me the files.
Speaker 2: This is hundreds of pages of documents in several European languages,
Speaker 2: and there's also extracts from Asardi's red notebook. And there's
Speaker 2: something else, something that I think could be important. Assardi's
Speaker 2: job meant that he had to travel a lot on
Speaker 2: work trips across Europe to meet with his various agents.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that even spies used booking dot Com,
Speaker 2: the huge online travel agent, to book their hotels, or
Speaker 2: at least Assadi did, and the details of all those
Speaker 2: bookings they're in the files. So I'm sat here in
Speaker 2: the offices of the Financial Times looking.
Speaker 1: At these records.
Speaker 2: Every hotel Assadi stayed in over his four years operating
Speaker 2: in Europe. For some of the bookings he used his
Speaker 2: official Iranian Foreign Ministry email address. For others it was
Speaker 2: burner accounts from Yahoo and Gmail. I should have met
Speaker 2: his agents in some pretty low key locations, and he
Speaker 2: often seemed to book two hotels in different places for
Speaker 2: the same night, maybe thinking it would throw off anyone
Speaker 2: who was following him. In the records, they do show
Speaker 2: that he traveled to the Netherlands on the sixth of
Speaker 2: September twenty sixteen, less than a year after Mtammad was murdered.
Speaker 2: He stayed at the Best Western in the Hague for
Speaker 2: one night. The next evening, Assadi booked two hotel rooms,
Speaker 2: one in the Dutch town of Meppel and another in
Speaker 2: swart Sluice, both really small towns. And in April twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: Assardi booked a room at the Savoy Amsterdam for one
Speaker 2: of his agents. So we know he was working in
Speaker 2: the Netherlands and around the same time that Ali Mctammad
Speaker 2: was murdered. It's far from a smoking gun, but it's
Speaker 2: enough enough for me to ask Kasain does he think
Speaker 2: that Asardi could have been connected to the murder of
Speaker 2: Mohammed Reza Kalahi, also known as Alimtammad. I lay out
Speaker 2: what we know, so he.
Speaker 6: Arrives, Assadi arrives in Austria in twenty fourteen, and then
Speaker 6: in twenty fifteen, a man called Mohammed Reza Kolahi, who
Speaker 6: was living in a town and al Mayor, was shot
Speaker 6: and killed outside his house. The murder has never been solved.
Speaker 6: They know who shot him, they know who told those
Speaker 6: people to shoot him. The Dutch government then said we
Speaker 6: believe the Iranian regime was behind this murder, and they
Speaker 6: expelled to diplomat. But there's never been any any further
Speaker 6: information about who could have coordinated a plot like that.
Speaker 6: Do you think it's reasonable to assume that Asadi could
Speaker 6: have been behind something like that.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't have a precise information about this case,
Speaker 5: but it I think makes sense to believe that. Of course,
Speaker 5: I mean, then Asadi was the you know, the head
Speaker 5: of this intelligence section in mainly the Western Europe. I
Speaker 5: think that is this could very well be I mean
Speaker 5: I said, it could very well be behind that.
Speaker 6: So it's reasonable to assume, you know, we have a
Speaker 6: spy working under diplomatic cover who is in charge of
Speaker 6: all of Western Europe, and his focus is effectively organizing
Speaker 6: assassination attempts against opposition figures. So it's a reasonable assumption
Speaker 6: to think that of the assassinations or attempted assassinations that
Speaker 6: occurred in Western Europe after twenty fourteen, he presumably would
Speaker 6: have had to have some.
Speaker 5: He's had a hand in his hand in it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely what he say says.
Speaker 2: Of course, it doesn't prove anything, but at the very
Speaker 2: least Assadi has to be considered a suspect. There's this
Speaker 2: new wave of assassinations in Europe, all connected to the
Speaker 2: Iranian state, and they begin after Assards posted to Vienna
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, and the first is the murder of
Speaker 2: an electrician in a small Dutch town. A year later,
Speaker 2: Assadi is convicted for the attempted bombing in Paris and
Speaker 2: he's sentenced to twenty years for attempted murder and plotting
Speaker 2: a terrorist attack. Iran denies any involvement, but will never
Speaker 2: know if he was involved in Ali Mahommed's death because
Speaker 2: after Asadi is convicted, a Belgian aid worker is arrested
Speaker 2: in Iran on these trumped up charges of espionage and
Speaker 2: sentenced to forty years in prison and seventy four lashes.
Speaker 2: Then in May twenty twenty three, the Belgian government agrees
Speaker 2: to exchange Assadi for the aid worker, So Assardi he's
Speaker 2: now back in Iran and his notebook aside. He's taken
Speaker 2: his secrets with him. It's the twelfth of April twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and we're back in Dublin City Hall. The entire time,
Speaker 2: John O'Driscoll has been working on a plan to sanction
Speaker 2: the Kinahans. He's been worried about it leaking because he
Speaker 2: knows if the news gets out, they'll quickly be able
Speaker 2: to hide their assets before they're frozen.
Speaker 7: Today's a landmark day.
Speaker 1: But now the Kinahans have run out of.
Speaker 7: Time and in particular against the Kenahan organized crime gang.
Speaker 2: John's boss, Drew Harris, Commissioner of the Irish Police, steps
Speaker 2: up to the podium.
Speaker 7: This organized crime gang started life as a sopha inner
Speaker 7: city Dublin drug dealers, but has grown over the decades
Speaker 7: to become a transnational crime cartel that is estimated to
Speaker 7: have generated over one billion euro for them.
Speaker 2: Then a senior official from the US Treasury announces the
Speaker 2: news that will make headlines around the world.
Speaker 8: So, as of today, the Kinahan transnational criminal Organization joins
Speaker 8: the ranks of Italy's Camorra, Mexico's Los Zetas, Japan's Yakuza,
Speaker 8: in Russia's Thieves in Law. Also, as of today, the
Speaker 8: result of of these sanctions, these individuals are immediately served
Speaker 8: from the US financial system and in the assets brought
Speaker 8: property under US jurisdiction are immediate blocked.
Speaker 2: At this moment, we have to stop here for a
Speaker 2: minute just to take this all in. It's utterly remarkable.
Speaker 2: A criminal family that began in a Dublin flat in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties is now being compared to the Yakuza
Speaker 2: and Camorra crime groups whose origins date back hundreds of years.
Speaker 2: They've been sanctioned by the US government, one of a
Speaker 2: handful of organized crime groups to ever face that kind
Speaker 2: of penalty, and the US also puts a five million
Speaker 2: dollar bounty on the heads of Christy Daniel and his
Speaker 2: brother Christopher Jr. Calling their organization a threat to the
Speaker 2: entire Lizard economy through its role in international money laundering.
Speaker 2: Detective Chief Superintendent Seamus Poland he knows that the US
Speaker 2: sanctions will destroy the in a hands chance of continuing
Speaker 2: their life of luxury in Dubai.
Speaker 9: Because the dangers with sanctions is that if any legitimate
Speaker 9: business engages with somebody who's on a sanctions list, they're
Speaker 9: actually the people who are committing the criminal offenses, and
Speaker 9: they risk all their assets being seized and they risk
Speaker 9: being prosecuted. So, you know, avenues to live the high
Speaker 9: life that you would have had before are closed down
Speaker 9: very very quickly. You know, people end up with so
Speaker 9: much money from cocaine trafficking. Behind all this, it's all
Speaker 9: about greed. You have money to try and live in
Speaker 9: your big house, drive your fancy car, fly business class
Speaker 9: all across the world, stay in the best hotels. What
Speaker 9: the sanctions actually does is it removes a lot of
Speaker 9: the facilitation that would be possible for people to live
Speaker 9: their lives and to benefit from the illicit wealth that
Speaker 9: they've actually achieved.
Speaker 2: Soon, the United Ara memorates freeze Daniel's assets too, and
Speaker 2: they empower their own sanctions on the Kinnahans in Dubai,
Speaker 2: removing one of the last places on Earth they can
Speaker 2: hide the Kinahans.
Speaker 1: They go on the run.
Speaker 9: Significant parties within the Kinahan organized crime group all went
Speaker 9: to ground and have been attempting to evade justice and
Speaker 9: hide in the shadows since that date. But from our
Speaker 9: own information and intelligence and conversations with other criminals as well,
Speaker 9: you know, I think this took to a different level
Speaker 9: because the criminal on the world in Europe didn't anticipate
Speaker 9: that sanctions was something that would happen on this side
Speaker 9: of the Atlantic.
Speaker 2: But the strange thing is it's been more than a
Speaker 2: year since that big announcement in Dublin and the Kinnahans
Speaker 2: they're all still at large. It's not clear where they are.
Speaker 2: I've heard multiple rumors something that they're still in the UAE,
Speaker 2: living on the false identities. Others think that there's somewhere
Speaker 2: else in the Middle East laying low. Even had speculation
Speaker 2: that they're building connections with Putin's Russia. So I asked Seamus,
Speaker 2: why haven't the police been able to bring them in yet.
Speaker 9: Well, investigations are still ongoing as well at the moment,
Speaker 9: so the sanctions was only one phase of a much
Speaker 9: wider investigation that that's continuously ongoing and taking place. And
Speaker 9: as was announced in April twenty twenty two at the
Speaker 9: designation as well. You know, extradition warrants were in place
Speaker 9: for one of the principles who's sought for charges in
Speaker 9: relation to murder and directing organized crime, and that's still
Speaker 9: outstanding as well. But you can rest assured that that
Speaker 9: investigations are continuing actively across many different jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: For a few.
Speaker 2: Years, the men one who gathered at Daniel Kinahan's wedding
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen seemed almost invincible. They created a new model,
Speaker 2: stateless gangsters, using modern technology to run global mafias in
Speaker 2: ways that were impossible a few decades before. But eventually
Speaker 2: their reputation caught up with them. They made the mistake
Speaker 2: of becoming too public, too brazen. I began reporting on
Speaker 2: this story because I think it tells us something important
Speaker 2: about how the world is changing and the global shifts
Speaker 2: that made the Dubai Supercartel possible. They're only accelerating the
Speaker 2: criminals of the future. I think they're going to be
Speaker 2: more global, more sophisticated, and more dangerous, and I think
Speaker 2: it's going to get harder to tell if someone's a gangster,
Speaker 2: a businessman, or both. The story of the Supercartel for
Speaker 2: me It's an ominous sign of these new hybrid threats
Speaker 2: that democracies face and of government's weakening ability to fight them.
Speaker 2: The sanctions against the Kinnahans, they've been hailed as a victory,
Speaker 2: a landmark in coordinated action by Western governments to take
Speaker 2: down a major crime group. But there's something I've kept
Speaker 2: asking myself. With the sanctions a show of strength or
Speaker 2: really just a sign of weakness. Some of the world's
Speaker 2: most powerful governments have teamed up to go after the Kinnahans,
Speaker 2: but a year later, they're still out there. So the
Speaker 2: Dubai supercartel may be finished, but its model will live on,
Speaker 2: and perhaps something new and maybe worse, will take its place.
Speaker 2: In fact, somewhere out there, it probably already has.
Speaker 1: Not.
Speaker 2: Long before the sanctions were announced, Rafael Imperiale, the Van
Speaker 2: Goff boss, was arrested in Dubai and sent to Italy.
Speaker 2: He since agreed to become a state's witness, and in
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty three, he told Hallian prosecutors he would
Speaker 2: sell off his eighty million dollar private island in Dubai
Speaker 2: in the hope of his sentence being reduced. MTK, the
Speaker 2: boxing company that Daniel Kinahan co founded It closes and
Speaker 2: back in the Netherlands where we began our story, Paul Urks,
Speaker 2: the crime reporter, has been able to come out of
Speaker 2: police protection and return to his normal life.
Speaker 8: We want dur life back in full, so not riding
Speaker 8: an armored gah, but riding the bike and sitting down.
Speaker 2: A terrace uleas a Eliam, the local councilor and our
Speaker 2: mayor who campaigned about the Alimtamid murder. Well, he's now
Speaker 2: a national politician. In twenty twenty one, he was elected
Speaker 2: to the Dutch Parliament.
Speaker 10: Look, you know, I was like this baby when I
Speaker 10: got here. My father had like twenty dollars in his pocket.
Speaker 10: But the honor of representing the Dutch people's it's massive
Speaker 10: for me. My goal in life is defending democracy, defending freedom,
Speaker 10: and that relates to the story of my dad and
Speaker 10: also this story. Look how dangerous the world around us
Speaker 10: can be.
Speaker 2: In the Kinahans, they have to live every day knowing
Speaker 2: they're being hunted by police.
Speaker 1: For MIKEE.
Speaker 2: Oysullivan, the man who first arrested Christy Kinahan in a
Speaker 2: Dublin flat back in the nineteen eighties, it's only a
Speaker 2: matter of time you.
Speaker 11: Feel like saying to them, did you not think this
Speaker 11: stay had come? By doing what you're doing? Better people
Speaker 11: than them have been got and they have made themselves
Speaker 11: a global target. And with the DEA on your case,
Speaker 11: the world is a small place and it gets smaller.
Speaker 2: Pot Money is a production of The Financial Times and
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries. It was written and reports by me Miles Johnson,
Speaker 2: and if you've got any leads or information about this story,
Speaker 2: you can email me at New Narcos at FT dot com.
Speaker 2: The series producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Russello is the
Speaker 2: associate producer. Fact Checking is by Arthur Gompertz, engineering by
Speaker 2: Sarah Bruguerer, sound design from Jake Gorski. Jeremy Warmsley wrote
Speaker 2: the original music. Our editor is Sarah Nix and the
Speaker 2: executive producers are Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks
Speaker 2: to Ruler Calaff, Laura Dubois, Peter Spiegel, Tofa Forehez, Manuela Saragoza,
Speaker 2: Breen Turner, John Schnaz, Jacob Wiseberg, Alistair Mackie, Laura Clark,
Speaker 2: Nigel Hansson, Paulo, Pascual, Minnie Advincoula, Dan Dombi, Tom Braithway,
Speaker 2: Ronda Taylor, Matt Vela, Alex Barker, Patricia Nilsen.
Speaker 1: Matt Garahan, Madison
Speaker 2: Marriage, Paul Murphy, rich Ward Arley Adlington, Marsha Wolraven, Jude Webber,
Speaker 2: Harry Brodie, Eric Sandler, Nicole op den Bosch, Christina Sullivan,
Speaker 2: Vicky Merrick, Jake Flanagan and Greta Cone