ON 12 APRIL of this year, the inner workings of the Kinahan Organised Crime Gang (KOCG) and its organisational structure was laid bare to see.
Pictures of Daniel Kinahan, his brother, Christy Jnr and his father Christy Senior were flashed across screens with a $5 million dollar bounty put on their heads.
While the KOCG is a household name infamous for drug crime, the vast majority of the general public would not know the people lower down the pecking order.
One of those men, John Morrissey, is accused of being the gang’s money man. It’s alleged he was able to wash money through various shell corporations and seemingly legitimate companies.
Back in April, he was accused of money laundering and serving as the organisation’s enforcer and facilitator of illicit drug shipments from South America.
He, like the rest of the gang, was a wanted man until this week.
Videos and photographs supplied by Spanish police showed an early morning raid in the south of Spain.
There, sitting on a bed shirtless and in Hawaiian shorts, was Johnny Morrissey. A man accused of being a facilitator of clean money to the Kinahans was in shackles. Money which police say had been able to leak up the chain had now been plugged.
Morrissey represents the first of seven named at April’s City Hall meeting to be arrested.
As sources told this publication, gardaí are hoping this represents a “domino effect” and that other major players within the organisation will be detained in a matter of weeks, if not sooner.
As today carried on, we got to learn more about Morrissey and his alleged involvement in the operation. The scale of which police say amounts to €350k every single day.
But how such sums are being moved is itself a fascinating facet of how this highly organised criminal gang has operated.
Nero Drinks
If you’ve ever been to Spain and drank something called Nero vodka at a nightclub then you may have unwittingly helped the Kinahan gang wash their drug money. This is the sad reality of the spread of the KOCG’s tentacles into the real world.
Morrissey, who is believed to live on the Costa del Sol, launched the venture in 2020 with his wife Nicola.
She is not a direct target of sanctions.
The US Treasury says of the vodka firm: “Nero Drinks was designated for being owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, John Morrissey.
“John Morrissey, who outwardly serves as the Nero Drinks’ brand ambassador, is heavily invested in Nero Drinks and has given a significant portion of the business to Daniel Kinahan to compensate for loads of drugs seized by law enforcement.
“John Morrissey controls and operates Nero Drinks through his wife, the primary shareholder, who is used as a frontperson for his interests.”
As ambassadaor, Morrissey had attempted to make the Nero brand synonymous with nightlife on the Costa Del Sol. The brand had made some serious inroads before the US Treasury revealed its links to organised crime.
Nero had made itself the preferred vodka brand in many of Spain’s top venues.
It had also joined with exclusive beach front bars and restaurants who advertised expensive pool parties in association with the drink.
The drink had also made its way into the VIP scene in Malaga with it being used as the premium vodka in many of the VIP sunbed lounges often frequented by Premier League footballers.
It is not unfair to say that Nero Vodka had positioned itself as the premium drink in Malaga. It had tried to hide in plain sight. However, once Nero Drinks was sanctioned by the US, venues were quick to disassociate themselves with the brand.
Hawala Method
Europol believes that Morrissey laundered €200 million worth of drug money in the space of a 18 months.
While much of the cash would be washed through traditional methods, such as front companies like Nero Drinks, the KOCG used innovative money laundering solutions often used by huge criminal outfits like the Camorra in Italy.
According to the Europol statement released today: “The money was transferred using the hawala underground banking system, an informal method of transferring money without any physical money actually moving.
BREAKING: Spanish police release dramatic footage of the arrest of Kinahan cartel gangster Johnny Morrissey in Malaga.
— Paul Healy (@Healyhack) September 15, 2022
Morrissey is said to have laundered €350,000 for the cartel A DAY. pic.twitter.com/AZGiJTDOer
“During the course of the investigation (1.5 years), it is believed that the suspects have laundered over €200 million using this method. The scope of activity of this criminal organisation is worldwide.”
According to Europol, this is how it works: An individual who wants to transfer money to another country gets in contact with a Hawala dealer (dealer A). He gives him/her the money plus a commission and the information of the beneficiary of the funds.
At this moment, the individual receives a unique code. The dealer contacts (i.e. via phone or fax) a Hawala dealer (dealer B) from the country where he wants to send the money.
The dealer B will give the amount of money that the dealer A asked him to give to the designated person, who has to reveal his code in order to prove that it is him/her the receiver of the money.
There is no physical movement of cash. Hawala brokers are the key people in these transactions. The whole system is based on the trust (which is actually what “Hawala” means) between them.
What now for the KOCG?
As we reported in April of this year, the Kinahan gang is on borrowed time. In its current form, it has no means of washing money and its influence as a major player in Europe has been diminished due to large numbers of informants cutting deals with police forces in exchange for information on the workings of the KOCG.
Daniel Kinahan’s attempts to frame himself as a legitimate business promoter have disappeared completely. He is thought to have escaped from Dubai and made his way to Kazakhstan where he has some friends.
But this does not mean that the Kinahan gang is not a threat. It belived to still have communication with South American drug suppliers and the gang is still suspected of involvement in the attempted importation of 120 kilos of cocaine (worth over €8 million) into Ireland.
That consignment was seized by gardaí in August of this year. It is believed that the large shipment was due to be divided up into smaller packages and distributed to drug dealing gangs in various parts of the country.
Today’s arrest of John Morrissey could prove to be a defining moment in the history of the KOCG. Given he’s the first of the US Treasury seven to be arrested, he represents the first “domino to fall”, according to our sources.
The other six must now feel like they are are living on borrowed time and that a similar raid as seen today in Spain may be just around the corner.
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