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Senior Irish cartel suspect arrested in Spain: UK police

A senior member of an Irish transnational crime gang has been arrested in Spain for suspected gun running, Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) announced on Monday.

Published: 5 June 2023 17:28 CEST
Senior Irish cartel suspect arrested in Spain: UK police
Senior Irish cartel suspect arrested in Spain: UK police. Photo: Josep LAGO / AFP

Liam Byrne, 42, from Dublin – described by the UK law enforcement agency as “one of the most trusted members of the Kinahan organised crime group” – was arrested in Spain on Sunday evening.

Based out of Dubai, the Kinahan cartel, led by Irishman Daniel Kinahan among others, has been linked by US and European authorities to a vast criminal enterprise encompassing drug smuggling and money laundering.

Byrne was arrested while he ate with family in a restaurant on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

He had flown into the Mediterranean holiday destination from the UAE on May 26th.

Another suspected member of the crime group, Jack Kavanagh, 22, from Tamworth, central England, was also held by Spanish police for firearms offences on May 30 as he transitted through Malaga from Dubai.

“This investigation is part of the NCA’s ongoing work targeting the Kinahan crime group,” said Kay Mellor regional head of investigations at the NCA, which investigates serious and organised crime.

“Liam Byrne and Jack Kavanagh have been evading justice for a number of years, but have now been arrested in relation to serious firearms offences.

“We… will continue to work closely with our international partners to ensure those who think they can stay under the radar have no place to hide,” she added.

Irish assistant police commissioner Justin Kelly called Byrne’s arrest a “particularly significant development in the efforts of international law enforcement to dismantle the operations of the Kinahan organised crime group”.

The NCA said the arrests in Mallorca followed an “intelligence-led investigation” supported by the Spanish National Police and officers from An Garda Siochana in Ireland.

Byrne and Kelly remain in custody as extradition proceedings against them continue.

In September last year, Spanish police arrested a British-Irish suspect believed to have moved 200 million in illicit cash for the Kinahans.

In April 2022 the US Treasury Department placed sanctions on senior Kinahan gang members prompting the UAE to follow suit shortly afterwards.

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CRIME

Spanish police recover stolen Francis Bacon painting

Spanish police said Thursday they have recovered a €5 million ($5.4 million) painting by late British artist Francis Bacon that was stolen with four other of his works in 2015.

Published: 23 May 2024 14:09 CEST
Spanish police recover stolen Francis Bacon painting

The work is one of five portraits of Spanish banker Jose Capelo by Bacon, together worth over €25 million ($27 million), which were stolen from Capelo’s Madrid home in July 2015.

The thieves also made off with a safe that contained coins and jewels in what was described at the time as one of the biggest contemporary art thefts in Spain. Police recovered three of the five paintings in 2017.

In a statement, police said they had arrested two people suspected of involvement in the theft, which allowed them to recover one of the stolen works still missing at a property in Madrid.

Police have so far arrested 16 people suspected over the theft since 2015, including the person believed to have ordered the heist and those who carried it out, the statement added.

“Investigations are continuing to locate the remaining work and arrest those in possession of it, with the focus on Spanish nationals with links to organised groups from Eastern Europe,” the statement said.

Police did not provide further details about the people involved in the robbery or how they were identified.

Bacon is regarded as one of Britain’s greatest recent painters, with some of his expressionist works achieving record amounts at auction.

His triptych “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” sold for $142.4 million at auction in New York in 2013, making it one of the world’s most expensive works at the time.

Bacon often visited Madrid, where he spent time studying old masters paintings in the Prado Museum, and died in the city in 1992, aged 82.

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