Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: If you're enjoying this podcast and you want to hear
Speaker 2: more from the Ft, the Ft Edit app gives you
Speaker 2: eight of the Financial Times His best stories, hand picked
Speaker 2: daily by our editors. You'll get the perfect daily dose
Speaker 2: of expert opinion, surprising stories and fresh perspectives from across politics, culture,
Speaker 2: business and more. Start your free one month trial today,
Speaker 2: then get your first six months for just ninety nine
Speaker 2: p per month. Currently only available on iOS. There's a
Speaker 2: link in the show notes. Previously on Hot Money, Daniel
Speaker 2: Kinahan took over the family business, launched his career as
Speaker 2: a boxing promoter, and waged a bloody war on the
Speaker 2: streets of Dublin. Europe was no longer safe for him.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty one, I was working for the
Speaker 2: FT as a foreign correspondent in Italy. One morning I
Speaker 2: noticed this story that was causing a bit of a stir.
Speaker 2: One of it to Lea's most wanted Fugitives.
Speaker 1: This guy on the run.
Speaker 2: He'd given an interview to a local Naples newspaper and
Speaker 2: his name was Rafaela Imperiale. This interview, it was a
Speaker 2: pretty audacious move because at the time he was wanted
Speaker 2: on drug trafficking charges and was thought to be tied
Speaker 2: to the Neapolitan Camora mafia and Imperial le He looked
Speaker 2: like this classic mob character. He wore finally tailored clothes
Speaker 2: and expensive leather shoes. But the thing that really grabbed
Speaker 2: my attention was his nickname, the Van Goff Boss. That's
Speaker 2: Van go if you're listening in the US, but Van
Speaker 2: Goboss doesn't really sound as good. It came from a
Speaker 2: story that began in two thousand and two when these
Speaker 2: criminals sledge hammered their way into the Van goth Museum
Speaker 2: in Amsterdam in the middle of the night. In less
Speaker 2: than five minutes, they lifted two priceless paintings off the walls,
Speaker 2: ab sailed down the building and disappeared into the night.
Speaker 2: The robbery made headlines around the world and was listed
Speaker 2: by the FBI as one of the most notable art
Speaker 2: thefts of the twenty first century. The thieves they were
Speaker 2: eventually caught, but the paintings were long gone. They were
Speaker 2: sold to an unknown buyer, and for years no one
Speaker 2: knew where the Van Goffs could be. And then in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, an Italian public prosecutor got a letter. It
Speaker 2: was from Raphaeli Imperiale, he was by then living on
Speaker 2: the run in Dubai. Imperiale told the Italians that he
Speaker 2: was the guy who bought the stole a Van Goffs,
Speaker 2: and he was willing to come back and face the
Speaker 2: charges against him, but he wanted to trade the paintings
Speaker 2: in for a lighter sentence.
Speaker 1: It didn't work out.
Speaker 2: The Italians weren't interested, and soon enough the police raided
Speaker 2: a property outside of Naples and recovered the paintings.
Speaker 1: That interview with Imperiale, a lot of it was about
Speaker 1: the Van Goffs.
Speaker 2: What could a mobster know about art? He was asked,
Speaker 2: was he aware about how valuable?
Speaker 1: They were?
Speaker 2: Seemed to slightly annoy him. He tells the interviewer that
Speaker 2: he's a man of culture and refined taste, and that
Speaker 2: he was raised to appreciate fine painting. I'd never seen
Speaker 2: anything like it before. If the most wanted man in
Speaker 2: Italy was freely giving interviews, why hadn't the police caught
Speaker 2: him yet? But what I hadn't grasped was that imperial
Speaker 2: had become a sort of trailblazer. He was a guy
Speaker 2: who spotted a big opportunity in the middle East before
Speaker 2: everyone else, because around the same time that the police
Speaker 2: seized his stolen Van Goffs, the top drug traffickers from
Speaker 2: around Europe were looking out for a new safe place
Speaker 2: to base their operations, and they settled on the same
Speaker 2: city the Imperiale, the Van Goff boss had chosen back
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, the tiny Gulf Emirate of Dubai. Imperiale
Speaker 2: had seen that Dubai was a dream location for a
Speaker 2: man like him, and soon the Kinnahans and other top
Speaker 2: bosses in Europe would be following him out to the
Speaker 2: Middle East alone. Each of these men were ruthless and
Speaker 2: cunning operators, but once they're all together in Dubai, they
Speaker 2: begin to pull their resources.
Speaker 1: They came to realize that by forming a new.
Speaker 2: Type of criminal group, they could become richer, more powerful,
Speaker 2: and more feared.
Speaker 1: Than their wildest dreams.
Speaker 2: They were about to transform organized crime in Europe and
Speaker 2: create the supercartel. I'm Miles Johnson and from the Financial
Speaker 2: Times and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: This is Hot Money Season two.
Speaker 2: The New Narcos episode four, Gangster's Paradise.
Speaker 3: See Dubai as a bit of a combination between Manhattan, Miami,
Speaker 3: and Beverly Hills.
Speaker 2: Matthew Page used to work for the US government in
Speaker 2: several three letter agencies. Now he's an analyst and a
Speaker 2: author who studies corruption and kleptocracy at the Carnegie Endowment.
Speaker 2: He co edited a report on Dubai that helped me
Speaker 2: understand why people like Raphaeli Imperiale love living there. Matthew says,
Speaker 2: Dubai first of all, is a bit like Manhattan.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, Manhattan, because it's got that sort of
Speaker 3: elite skyscraper type of feel to it. Beverly Hills sort
Speaker 3: of that conspicuous consumption, the bling, the if it wasn't
Speaker 3: so hot, they'd have furs, but they certainly have the
Speaker 3: Bentleys and hate couture. And then also Miami because of
Speaker 3: the climate, the beaches, the beautiful people.
Speaker 2: In that newspaper interview, imperial says his life in Dubai
Speaker 2: is nothing fancy. But I've got hold of an Italian
Speaker 2: police file on him that tells a different story. It's
Speaker 2: based on wire taps, informant testimony, financial documents, and information
Speaker 2: shared by police around the world. It paints his portrait
Speaker 2: of him strutting around Dubai wearing expensive suits, tailored in
Speaker 2: his native Naples and always trailed by three bodyguards. Dubai
Speaker 2: is somewhere he can flash his cash in the company
Speaker 2: of other wealthy people who are doing exactly the same thing.
Speaker 2: There are pictures in a high end restaurant with his
Speaker 2: much younger girlfriend draping her arms around him, and he's
Speaker 2: wearing an open net white shirt and a smart jacket.
Speaker 2: It's got selfies he took at the gym, flexing his muscles.
Speaker 2: He drives custom made supercars with conspicuous two letter license plates,
Speaker 2: and he's also developed an expensive diamond habit. He buys
Speaker 2: jewelry for his girlfriends at the Graph Jewelry Store and
Speaker 2: jokes to his friends that he has a motto, no Graph,
Speaker 2: no Love. For a while, he lives in the Burgeo Larrab,
Speaker 2: the luxury hotel where Daniel Kinahan will soon celebrate his wedding.
Speaker 2: The Italian press report that he and his entourage are
Speaker 2: often found at a club called Provocateur inside Dubai's Four
Speaker 2: Seasons hotel.
Speaker 1: It's his sort of place.
Speaker 2: It's guest list only, with leather seats, bottle service, and
Speaker 2: a huge custom seeding light that looks like a giant
Speaker 2: diamond and Imperiale has this reputation as a lavish spender.
Speaker 2: He buys dozens of bottles of crystal at thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars and then picks up the entire tab and leaves
Speaker 2: a very generous tip.
Speaker 1: But it's not just a great place to party.
Speaker 2: It's also a fantastic place for him to do business,
Speaker 2: because in Dubai, alongside the beautiful people and the very rich,
Speaker 2: and the powerful and the dangerous. Someone once told me
Speaker 2: that the best way to describe Dubai is sort of
Speaker 2: like a bling version of the Cantina and Star Wars,
Speaker 2: full of these strange and shadowy characters from around the world.
Speaker 2: You have hedge fund managers and professional athletes drinking at
Speaker 2: the same bars as Russian oligarchs and cocaine kingpins.
Speaker 3: It could be an Afghan warlord who has taken all
Speaker 3: the money that he made during the Karzai regime and
Speaker 3: now that the Taliban is back in control, kind of
Speaker 3: can't go back to the fiefdom that he once ruled.
Speaker 3: The Instagram influencer who makes their living taking pictures of
Speaker 3: themselves on fabulous yachts. It could be the sort of
Speaker 3: nerdy but indispensable sort of pasty British accountant who provides
Speaker 3: the services that these individuals need and legitimizes them. It
Speaker 3: could be people like Isabelle de Santosch, former head of
Speaker 3: Angola's national oil company and whose father was the former president,
Speaker 3: and she's basically on the run from international law enforcement.
Speaker 3: And that's not to mention the local elites, right the
Speaker 3: royal family, the ruling family, cousins and nephews and grandchildren,
Speaker 3: who are the most powerful people in this in this country.
Speaker 2: To understand why Dubai was the perfect place for a
Speaker 2: bunch of international drug lords to join forces, you need
Speaker 2: to know a little bit about its history. It's part
Speaker 2: of the United Arab Emirates, a federation made up of
Speaker 2: seven neighboring monarchies. Before the UAE gained independence in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one, the region was a British colony and an
Speaker 2: important source of oil, but the oil belongs to Dubai's
Speaker 2: Emirti neighbor, Abu Dhabi. So when the British left and
Speaker 2: the UAE was born, Dubai needed to find ways to
Speaker 2: diversify its economy.
Speaker 3: And it was really a tiny place with just you know,
Speaker 3: a few tens of thousands of people until the nineteen
Speaker 3: eighties nineteen nineties when it saw an explosive growth. You know,
Speaker 3: so the royal family in Dubai really had a vision
Speaker 3: of how to transform the emirate by building lots of
Speaker 3: you know, world class infrastructure, you know, power roads, airport, seaport.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just infrastructure.
Speaker 2: The royal family also invested in some of the most
Speaker 2: luxurious real estate in the world. Dubai today is now
Speaker 2: full of skyscrapers and gated communities. Some of them are
Speaker 2: built on these artificial sand islands that stretch out into
Speaker 2: the Persian Gulf. If you've never seen them before, they're
Speaker 2: pretty surreal. There's one in the shape of a palm tree.
Speaker 2: There's another archipelago that replicates a map of the world,
Speaker 2: and they're isolated, which means for the rich and the powerful,
Speaker 2: they feel safe. When Imperiale moved to Dubai, he starts
Speaker 2: to make huge investments in property, and he doesn't settle
Speaker 2: for anything but the very best. He buys the island
Speaker 2: on the archipelago that's shaped like Taiwan, worth an estimated
Speaker 2: eighty million dollars. He begins a project to build ten
Speaker 2: luxury villas worth twenty million dollars each, and according to
Speaker 2: a police file, he tried to get Zaha Hadid, the
Speaker 2: critically acclaimed architect, to design them, because in Dubai he
Speaker 2: can spend that sort of money without too many questions
Speaker 2: being asked.
Speaker 3: Dubai is like a membrane. It's where the sort of
Speaker 3: brackish waters of the underworld and the murky waters sort
Speaker 3: of percolate and mingle with the fresh water of the
Speaker 3: rules based international financial system, and that really captures Dubai
Speaker 3: in a nutshell. It's a place where these different flows
Speaker 3: merge and mix and just generally come out cleaner and
Speaker 3: sweeter smelling than they came in.
Speaker 2: But Dubai has also been an island of stability in
Speaker 2: a region that, otherwise from the perspective of the West,
Speaker 2: has been pretty unstable, and so in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: a lot of Western banks and other companies they chose
Speaker 2: Dubai as their base in the region.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, its own system of rules
Speaker 3: has been kept loose and fungible enough to allow the
Speaker 3: penetration of a lot of unexplained wealth illicit funds into
Speaker 3: the country and as a result, it's served as a
Speaker 3: magnet for those types of funds.
Speaker 2: The fact that there's lots of people who want to
Speaker 2: move there presumably that has also resulted in springing up
Speaker 2: of financial and technical kind of infrastructure to support people
Speaker 2: bringing money from all around the world.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so these include you know, high end estate agents,
Speaker 3: you know the people who again manage those transactions, the accountants,
Speaker 3: the conveyors and so forth. It involves lawyers and maybe
Speaker 3: PR consultants as well, and people who are essentially functioning
Speaker 3: as wealth managers and helping you often within the bounds
Speaker 3: of what is legal, avoid tax and optimize the wealth
Speaker 3: that you have gained without necessarily questioning what the source
Speaker 3: of that wealth is. I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 3: the international financial system is twenty first century as it
Speaker 3: is with you know, contactless payment and instant transactions around
Speaker 3: the globe, is still a very sort of almost like
Speaker 3: eighteenth century element to it. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of trust involved. There's a lot of essentially taking people
Speaker 3: at their word that the money that they've acquired is legitimate.
Speaker 2: In countries either the US or the UK. If you
Speaker 2: suddenly turn up to a bank with a million dollars
Speaker 2: in a suitcase, they might get a little twitchy, But
Speaker 2: in Dubai, according to Matthew, very few questions asked about
Speaker 2: where your cash comes from.
Speaker 3: They're just looking for ways essentially to take that wealth
Speaker 3: off you, you know, and in exchange for a luxury
Speaker 3: apartment or a high end car, or looking to provide
Speaker 3: services to you an extraordinarily high net worth individual, whether
Speaker 3: you be a Silicon Valley you know, multi billionaire who
Speaker 3: earned your money legitimately, or you're a drug trafficking kingpin
Speaker 3: from Europe.
Speaker 4: So there's sort of a whole universe of sort of
Speaker 4: like twenty first century gat spies, like people who've sort
Speaker 4: of come to escape their past in a way or
Speaker 4: at least like sort of set up shop, you know,
Speaker 4: as a new type of person with lots of money
Speaker 4: where people don't ask any questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a way in which wealth can be
Speaker 3: traded or exchanged for elite status. Right, places like Oxford
Speaker 3: and Cambridge used to be that for global elites one
Speaker 3: hundred years ago. Right, this is the twenty first century
Speaker 3: answer to that. And it's all about conspicuous consumption, you know,
Speaker 3: Instagram selfies and an ill gotten wealth.
Speaker 2: But there's another very important part to living in Dubai
Speaker 2: that even the bloodiest crime bosses understand.
Speaker 1: You might be.
Speaker 2: Murdering people or shipping industrial quantities of drugs somewhere else,
Speaker 2: but you don't commit violent crime in Dubai. And that
Speaker 2: means for a city inhabited by some of the scariest
Speaker 2: men on the planet, it's pretty safe. There are very
Speaker 2: few robberies or murders. So why is Imperiale always walking
Speaker 2: around Dubai with bodyguards. Well, the thing is he tells
Speaker 2: his friends that his hench men, they're not there to
Speaker 2: protect him, they're there to protect others in case he
Speaker 2: gets angry. Because in Dubai you've got to keep your
Speaker 2: temper under control, and if you do that then most
Speaker 2: of the time the authorities there they'll leave you alone.
Speaker 2: At the time, Dubai doesn't have extradition agreements with a
Speaker 2: lot of other countries, so even if you do get
Speaker 2: in trouble, it's very hard for the police to actually
Speaker 2: get you, and that means for the kinner hands, Dubai
Speaker 2: will be like the Costa del Soul, but even better,
Speaker 2: more luxurious, lower risk, and way beyond the reach of
Speaker 2: European law enforcement. So Daniel Kinahan arrives in Dubai in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, not long after the attempt on his life
Speaker 2: at the Regency Hotel, and his family moves there to
Speaker 2: his father, Christie and his brother Christopher Jr. Corporate documents
Speaker 2: and property files they show that Christie wasted very little
Speaker 2: time in setting up a bunch of companies, usually in
Speaker 2: the name of Christopher Vincent, leaving off to Kinnahan. He
Speaker 2: reinvents himself as a commodities trader and a business consultant.
Speaker 2: He sets up social media accounts for his companies and
Speaker 2: he tweets out news about the oil market and.
Speaker 1: Tesla's earning results.
Speaker 2: He even follows the ft on that, and he sets
Speaker 2: up a new LinkedIn under his fake identity, and he
Speaker 2: describes himself as an executive with a view to expanding
Speaker 2: my company's and an eye for detail.
Speaker 1: He lists his skills, skills that you would.
Speaker 2: Probably expect a crime boss to have, such as negotiation
Speaker 2: and strategic planning. And actually many of his top business contacts,
Speaker 2: people like Imperiale guys he's known for years through the
Speaker 2: European cocaine market.
Speaker 1: They're all out there with him.
Speaker 2: It's around this time that different police forces they start
Speaker 2: to see that something pretty BIG's.
Speaker 1: Happening in Dubai.
Speaker 2: At the start, they only get little snippets of meetings
Speaker 2: and deals. They learn that the Kinnahans and Imperiale they're
Speaker 2: spending more time together, and other notorious kingpins. They seem
Speaker 2: to be part of the same group. Ridu Antargi he
Speaker 2: shows up in Dubai. He's a Dutch Moroccan crime boss
Speaker 2: who's linked to multiple murders. There's also a Chilean called
Speaker 2: Richard roquelme Vega. He's nicknamed El Rico or the rich
Speaker 2: guy under the Giant diamond in provocateur in five star
Speaker 2: restaurants and high end hotels. These gangsters they start to
Speaker 2: form a sort of consortium. It's a powerful new alliance
Speaker 2: and European police. They believe that by twenty seventeen, they've
Speaker 2: seized control of a third of the continent's cocaine market.
Speaker 2: That's a business worth billions of dollars a year, and
Speaker 2: that's how they earn the name the Supercartel. Like any
Speaker 2: criminal conspiracy, it's not easy to get a clear picture
Speaker 2: of how it works. I've tried to piece it together
Speaker 2: a sort of tapestry of information. But the documents I've
Speaker 2: got they're based on hundreds of pages of shared intelligence
Speaker 2: from various law enforcement agencies, and they do a pretty
Speaker 2: good job of sketching out how the Supercartel operates. It
Speaker 2: calls them partners in a sort of holding company for
Speaker 2: international cocaine trafficking, and that holding company it works on
Speaker 2: a few simple but powerful economic principles. The most important
Speaker 2: thing is market power. This new consortium it's based out
Speaker 2: of Dubai, but it has a global reach that stretches
Speaker 2: across Europe, Africa and Latin America. And by being bigger,
Speaker 2: the Supercartel can buy cocaine in larger quantities at lower prices,
Speaker 2: they can spread their risk. The file says that they
Speaker 2: work to form joint ventures with Colombian cartels to quote
Speaker 2: control the trafficking of cocaine from South America into the
Speaker 2: ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. They share the same transport
Speaker 2: routes and they start to pull their cash. The aim
Speaker 2: is to quote maintain control of the supply channels because
Speaker 2: that gives them bigger market share in Europe and a
Speaker 2: better ability to set prices. And the cartel starts to
Speaker 2: establish economic co interests. They're laundering their money together and
Speaker 2: they're investing it in countries around the world. The file
Speaker 2: also has these remarkably detailed examples of the logistical complexity
Speaker 2: of these operations. They're not only using ports, they send drugs, money,
Speaker 2: and guns through fleets of articulated lorries leaving the nether
Speaker 2: to travel across Europe. And they're these photos sent between
Speaker 2: Imperially and his crew of huge shipments of cocaine sitting
Speaker 2: in a warehouse.
Speaker 1: They're on industrial palettes.
Speaker 2: In this case, it's being sent to Sydney, Australia in
Speaker 2: a shipping container disguised as Italian natural stone. On another occasion,
Speaker 2: Imperially arranges for a truck filled with several million euros
Speaker 2: to be sent to a fellow supercartel member's son in
Speaker 2: the Netherlands. So this is starting to look quite a
Speaker 2: lot like the way you'd structure a multinational trading company.
Speaker 2: You've got equity partners pulling their resources and spreading their risk,
Speaker 2: and they use their scale to get cheaper prices and
Speaker 2: lower distribution costs and profit margins.
Speaker 1: They go up.
Speaker 2: Business is booming, and all of them are making more
Speaker 2: money than ever before. But for Daniel Kinahan, quietly growing
Speaker 2: his business, it's not enough because he wants his reputation
Speaker 2: to grow not as a drug trafficker but as a
Speaker 2: global sports tycoon. And this next bit of the story
Speaker 2: it shows just how fuzzy the lines have become between gangster,
Speaker 2: online influencer and entrepreneur. Today, Tyson Fury is one of
Speaker 2: the best known boxers on the planet. He's outspoken and funny,
Speaker 2: and recently he was given the ultimate badge of fame.
Speaker 1: I Say his own reality TV.
Speaker 2: Show on Netflix, following him his wife Paris and their six.
Speaker 5: Children living in the busy household, three girls, Throny Ball's
Speaker 5: small wife, all freaking crazy.
Speaker 2: Before he met Kinnahan, Fury had some major success in
Speaker 2: twenty fifty.
Speaker 1: He defied the odds to beat.
Speaker 2: Ukraine's Vladimir Klitschko in a match broadcast by Sky Sports.
Speaker 5: I've got everything in the gym for this and i
Speaker 5: just can't believe it, and I've got.
Speaker 6: It, so Fury's credit. It is genuinely one of the
Speaker 6: best wins that British boxer has ever done. It wasn't
Speaker 6: in England, it was a win on foreign soil, and
Speaker 6: it was against a guy who hadn't been beaten for
Speaker 6: more than a decade. But after that win, Tyson Fury's
Speaker 6: life just spiraled.
Speaker 1: This is boxing journalist Alan Dawson.
Speaker 6: He tested positive for the banned substance in andrelone, and
Speaker 6: by his own admission, he was using cocaine and drinking
Speaker 6: tequila in the morning.
Speaker 2: By twenty seventeen, Tyson Fury's down and out. He later
Speaker 2: talked about this period of his life on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Speaker 5: I'd wake up and I think, why did I wake
Speaker 5: up this morning? This is coming from a mom who
Speaker 5: had everything, money, fame, glory, titles, a wife, a family, kids, everything. Well,
Speaker 5: I felt as if I had nothing. I felt there
Speaker 5: was an empty gape in hole.
Speaker 6: So Kinahan entered his life at this point.
Speaker 2: When Daniel Kinahan was in Spain, he picked up promising
Speaker 2: young boxers, paying for the best trainers and the best equipment.
Speaker 1: But that's not what Fury needs.
Speaker 6: And it's kind of unclear what specifically Kinahan did for Fury,
Speaker 6: But for Ben Davison, who was Tyson Fury's coach at
Speaker 6: the time, it was simply a belief in him. It's
Speaker 6: a theme I've observed in Kinnahan where he tends to
Speaker 6: enter people's lives when they're at their lowest step, and
Speaker 6: I kind of see that in quite a predatory way.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, Tyson Fury posts a selfie on Twitter.
Speaker 2: He and Daniel Kinahan are sitting next to each other,
Speaker 2: both wearing colorful shirts.
Speaker 1: They look relaxed.
Speaker 2: They're grinning, arms around each other's shoulders, giving the camera
Speaker 2: a thumbs up. They look like best friends. It's a
Speaker 2: classic story, the fallen champion on the ropes, needing to
Speaker 2: relaunch their career. Tyson Fury doesn't have any connection to crime,
Speaker 2: but just like that, one of the world's most famous
Speaker 2: boxers has a new advisor, Daniel Kinahan. Fury is clearly
Speaker 2: one of the most talented, the most talented boxer of
Speaker 2: his generation, at least bristboxer.
Speaker 1: You know, he's clearly like a huge figure in the sport.
Speaker 1: But what does it do for Kinnahan.
Speaker 2: What does signing up a boxer like Tyson Fury do
Speaker 2: for this seemingly fairly small, low level figure in boxing.
Speaker 6: It completely legitimizes him in boxing. He's in the ear
Speaker 6: of the number one heavyweight in boxing. Yeah, that was
Speaker 6: really the beginning for Daniel Knahan to become one of
Speaker 6: probably the top three most powerful figures in the entire sport.
Speaker 2: Through Daniel's friendship with Tyson Fury, a whole new world
Speaker 2: of celebrity and fame is opening up. So in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: he's at the top of his game. He's rich, and
Speaker 2: he's feared, and he's about to get married. There's a
Speaker 2: huge moment in anyone's life. The venue for the big
Speaker 2: day is the Burj Al Arab, arguably the most luxurious
Speaker 2: hotel in the entire Middle East and easily one of
Speaker 2: the most expensive in the world. It's all about as
Speaker 2: far from inner city Dublin as you could be. His fiance,
Speaker 2: the woman by his side as he builds his family's
Speaker 2: empire in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: She comes from much closer to home.
Speaker 2: Daniel's bride to be was born close to where he
Speaker 2: grew up and for Nicola Talon, the Irish crime reporter
Speaker 2: that we heard from last time, his choice of partner
Speaker 2: gives us an important insight into Daniel's character.
Speaker 7: I see it is amazing that he has traveled the world.
Speaker 7: He has mixed with people both in you know, organized
Speaker 7: crime and at the highest end of boxing. He has
Speaker 7: followed his father's footsteps, first to the Costa del Salon,
Speaker 7: then to Dubai. Daniel Kinahan had to come back to
Speaker 7: Dublin to find a wife and his brother is the same.
Speaker 1: What does that tell us about that, well, about Daniel Kinahan.
Speaker 7: I just think that and maybe you'd need a psychologist
Speaker 7: who could explain this sort of stuff to you. But
Speaker 7: you know, has he got deep underlying insecurities there? Has
Speaker 7: he lived a pretense as he always aspired to be
Speaker 7: his father and at the same time he has those
Speaker 7: narcissistic tendencies. You know, does your world get smaller the
Speaker 7: richer you get. You know, maybe you do have to
Speaker 7: go back to the to the original circle to find
Speaker 7: somebody that you trust. But I think it probably has
Speaker 7: more to do with his insecurities. He's always had a
Speaker 7: craving for.
Speaker 2: Home and maybe that's why, well, he's getting ready to
Speaker 2: enter a new phase of his life, Daniel just can't
Speaker 2: let go of old grudges.
Speaker 8: On the streets of north inner city Dublin, we had
Speaker 8: armed patrons where our emergency response unit were seen along
Speaker 8: with those members of the Girls she con it I
Speaker 8: would normally walk the beat and they were there to
Speaker 8: protect their lives, primarily of those who we knew to
Speaker 8: be targets of the Kinahan organized crime group. So there
Speaker 8: was a huge element of fear within the community.
Speaker 2: Well, Daniel Kinahan establishes himself in his new home back
Speaker 2: in Dublin. John O'Driscoll has just taken up a new
Speaker 2: role as the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Serious Organized
Speaker 2: Crime and his first job is to try and contain
Speaker 2: the gang war that's broken out after the attempt on
Speaker 2: Daniel's life. A year after the shooting at the Regency hotel,
Speaker 2: the violence was still raging. There's this grim contrast between
Speaker 2: the Kinnahan's luxury life in Dubai and the brutality that
Speaker 2: they're orchestrating thousands of miles away in Ireland.
Speaker 1: How is it even.
Speaker 2: Possible to be ordering murders in a European capital with impunity.
Speaker 2: There's only one thing on John's mind, stopping the Kinnahans.
Speaker 8: Perhaps, if they hadn't engaged in the murderous activity that
Speaker 8: emerged after the Regency, they may have escaped the level
Speaker 8: of focus that was placed on them.
Speaker 2: While Daniel Kinahan is making decisions about his wedding, choosing
Speaker 2: the flowers, the wine list, the music, deciding on the menu.
Speaker 1: He's also planning something else.
Speaker 2: Three months before Daniel's wedding is due to take place,
Speaker 2: an Estonian man in his late fifties lands in Dublin.
Speaker 1: Unbelievably. This man he's known as the Butcher.
Speaker 2: He's got a reputation as a ruthless professional, a man
Speaker 2: who for the right amount of money, he'll get the
Speaker 2: job done. So Daniel, in between picking out the final
Speaker 2: details for his wedding, he gets in touch, but the
Speaker 2: Irish police are prepared. They follow the Butcher from the
Speaker 2: moment he lands in Dublin and soon it becomes clear
Speaker 2: to them he's in Ireland working for the Kinahans.
Speaker 8: And within a couple of hours had been apprehended. Gard
Speaker 8: to Chicana and on entering a particular premises, was found
Speaker 8: to be in contact with people believed to be based
Speaker 8: in Dubai, where instructions in relation to a murder that
Speaker 8: was to be undertaken were being discussed.
Speaker 2: That person was convicted, so the contract killing fails. It's
Speaker 2: a blow, but Daniel doesn't have time to dwell. One
Speaker 2: of the most important aspects of planning any wedding is
Speaker 2: the seating plan. Awkward cousins need to be spaced out,
Speaker 2: doting aunts made to feel important, and for Daniel's wedding,
Speaker 2: picking the right seating plan is going to be more
Speaker 2: delicate than usual because among the guests scheduled to attend
Speaker 2: some of the most powerful crime bosses on the planet.
Speaker 2: Raphaeli Imperiale is one of the names on the guest lists.
Speaker 2: Another it's really Antargi, the murderous Dutch crime lord. And
Speaker 2: there's Richard Vega el Rico, the Dutch Chilean drug trafficker.
Speaker 2: Each of them they're known to their police in their
Speaker 2: home countries. Some are already on the run. But Daniel,
Speaker 2: he succeeds in keeping the wedding quiet. There's no pictures
Speaker 2: on social media. Nikola Tallon picks up some details from
Speaker 2: her sources.
Speaker 7: I'm going to say seventeen tiied wedding cake. It was
Speaker 7: in the ballroom of the place. There was thrones for
Speaker 7: him and her.
Speaker 2: One way to get a glimpse into the luxury of
Speaker 2: a wedding at the Burj al Aram. It's from photos
Speaker 2: and videos that other happy couples have shared online. The
Speaker 2: ballroom is circular and dripping with gold paint. A vast
Speaker 2: chandelier hangs from the domed ceiling. The waiting staff they're
Speaker 2: dressed in tails, and there are flowers everywhere, vases and
Speaker 2: arches of them, bouquets hanging over every table. There's also
Speaker 2: an outside space, a terrace that feels private, jutting out
Speaker 2: into the Persian Gulf. In the pictures I've seen, the
Speaker 2: water gives this scene of feeling of peace and calm.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if Daniel Kinahan was feeling calm that
Speaker 2: day as he juggled the competing demands of cousins from
Speaker 2: back home with some of the most wanted and dangerous
Speaker 2: criminal master minds, because he might have been too busy
Speaker 2: to notice that somebody there was paying particularly close attention
Speaker 2: to the details of the day. One of the guests
Speaker 2: is an informant, and later they'll share their account of
Speaker 2: the wedding with Western law enforcement. It's not long before
Speaker 2: the information reaches John O'Driscoll. Do you remember when you
Speaker 2: learned about the wedding, Daniel Canahan's wedding in Dubai and
Speaker 2: what did that make you feel when you learn about that.
Speaker 8: To see Kinahan's at that table and perhaps even being
Speaker 8: looked upon as performing some sort of leadership role, it
Speaker 8: illustrated beyond any doubt that no one law enforcement entity
Speaker 8: could achieve any realistic success on its own entackling one
Speaker 8: of these criminal enterprises to loan a scenario where they
Speaker 8: were cooperating together.
Speaker 2: For John O'Driscoll, the message from the wedding is clear.
Speaker 2: He knows that he and the Irish police they can't
Speaker 2: tackle the kin Hands on their own. They're going to
Speaker 2: have to work with partners in other law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 2: And John realizes something else. Seizing drugs or convicting their associates,
Speaker 2: they're just short term measures to really bring the kin
Speaker 2: Hands down.
Speaker 1: He's going to have to focus on something else.
Speaker 8: Money is the motive for getting involved in crime, and
Speaker 8: whatever tactics law enforcement used to tackle organized crime. Until
Speaker 8: such time as you tackle effectively the motive involved, you're
Speaker 8: not going to achieve the dismantling of an organization.
Speaker 2: John starts working on a plan. It's going to take
Speaker 2: a few years for it to come to fruition. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, elsewhere in Europe, police are close
Speaker 2: to cracking an important code, a code that will take
Speaker 2: them one step close to bringing down the Supercartel and
Speaker 2: solving the murder of the electrician in Almair.
Speaker 8: So in Then Netherlands.
Speaker 7: The panics within Organized Crime group started.
Speaker 8: On that day.
Speaker 1: That's next time on Hot Money.
Speaker 2: Hot Money is a production of The Financial Times and
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me Myles
Speaker 2: Johnson and if you've got any leads or information about
Speaker 2: this story, you can email me at new narcost ft
Speaker 2: dot com. The series producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Russello
Speaker 2: is the associate producer. Fact checking is by Arthur Gompertz,
Speaker 2: Engineering by Sarah Bruguer, sound design from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy
Speaker 2: Warmsley wrote the original music. Our editor is Sarah Nix
Speaker 2: and the executive producers are Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Brumley.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Laura Clark, Alastair Mackie and Green Tunner