Irish gangsters' drugs empire laid bare after eight men jailed following Special Forces raid on 'narco-tanker'
Details of a major undercover operation by American agents into an international criminal network have been revealed - days after eight Irish mobsters arrested in a Special Forces raid on a 'narco-tanker' were jailed.
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The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) staggering operation has laid bare details of the vast criminal network in newly unsealed federal court documents.
They show how gangsters from the infamous Kinahan family were expanding their empire across the globe in a bid to become one of the most feared cartels on the planet.
The gang, which has links to Britain, is accused of trafficking methamphetamine and fentanyl precursor chemicals around the world
Now, it has been revealed that the cartel has transitioned towards smuggling synthetic drugs in significant shift from its traditional cocaine trafficking business.
Read more: Irish police seize more than €2m of drugs
It comes after eight men from the organised crime syndicate were jailed earlier this month for their involvement in attempts to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine worth €157million (£132million) into the US.
The massive stash was discovered after special forces soldiers from the Irish Army Range Wing roped down from a helicopter onto a Panamanian cargo ship, MV Matthew back in 2023.
It was said to be the biggest-ever cocaine seizure in Irish waters and uncovered how the Kinahan family had alleged links Hezbollah - the Iranian-back Lebanese group proscribed a terrorist organisation by the UK government.
DEA agents had infiltrated the Kinahans at least year before the major bust, it has been revealed.
In fact, the operation began in Ankara, Turkey, in June 2022.
According to The Times, the DEA's office in the Turkish city recruited an inside informant, codenamed 'Queen', to infiltrate the gang's trafficking operation.
The informant earned the trust of Opinder Singh Sian, a Canadian citizen with an alleged high ranking in the organisation.
Sian was arrested in Nevada last month.
He allegedly told undercover officers that he had links to the Irish cartel, the Italian mafia and a major Turkish trafficker.
His arrest has offered new insights into the how the Kinhana gang has struck new ties to traffic drugs via global ports and distribution hubs.
Queen followed the DEA's instructions and introduced Sian to an undercover agent pretending to be a relative who could facilitate large drug shipments through the Port of Long Beach, a major container ports hub.
The three of them met at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, California, in March 2023. They agreed to traffic methamphetamine to Australia following the meeting.
That summer, Sian worked with the undercover agents to create a staged shipment of methamphetamine through a safehouse in Pomona, near Los Angeles.
But the DEA intercepted the drugs in a sting operation. They were analysed and substituted with a decoy batch before being sent on.
Police in Australia used a GPS-tracked container to follow its path to a suspected stash house in Sydney.
Court records reveal Court show Sian used encrypted apps to communicate with Queen and other suspected smugglers.
DEA agents were able to identify multiple aliases used by figures involved int the network, which stretched from Dubai to Istanbul.
The drugs gangs also planned to traffic fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into the US via Canada, the investigation has revealed.
It could suggest the Kinahan gang may trying to expand its empire into synthetic drugs and chemical precursors, to reap higher and face less severe criminal penalties
The Kinahan cartel, created in Dublin in the late 1990s, is thought to be headed by Christy Kinahan.
The Kinahans are known to have a large pool of connections in Turkey, making substantial investments. The cartel also reportedly supplies drugs to Australia.
It is thought to be headed by Christy Kinahan, a former low-level street dealer who grew into the head of the international drugs and money-laundering empire.
He now lives in Dubai with his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr, while facing international sanctions and a $5 million reward offer from US officials for information leading to their arrests.