NEXT OF KINAHAN

Deadly Irish crime family grew from small-time hoods to a global drug empire with murder & mayhem the calling card

- BY CRAIG MCDONALD

THEY'RE the global organised crime clan who started out in the Dublin of the 1970s stealing cars and handling stolen goods.

So when the US Department of State announced rewards of $5million, almost £4million, three years ago for information leading to the capture and conviction of senior Kinahan figures, it was further evidence that this is a crime family now playing in the big league.

Yet it all began in unlikely fashion with Christy Kinahan, born in 1957 into a relatively middle-class family, and whose mother ran a Dublin bed and breakfast.

Kinahan started out on his life in crime in his 20s, dabbling in cheque fraud and linking up with other gangs.

Low-level crime was never enough though for Kinahan and, as a grim heroin epidemic swept his native city in the 1980s, he moved in for his share.

Kinahan was jailed for six years after being arrested in 1986 in connection with more than £100,000 worth of heroin found in his Dublin flat.

But rather than curtailing his activities, his spell in the city’s notorious Mountjoy Prison presented an opportunity to develop contacts with other serious players in the drugs trade.

And so, as the 1990s arrived and Dublin began to experience economic growth, Kinahan was well placed to make his bid to rise to the very top of the criminal tree.