Crime World

The trial for two men charged with the murder of celebrity Dutch journalist Peter R. De Vries has heard of the text messages sent between the hit team and an un-named overlord who ordered the shooting in broad daylight on an Amsterdam Street. In court, journalist Jan Meeus, a colleague of mine from the Netherlands and someone who knew Peter personally, watched the harrowing scenes and today he con...

Retired detective Paul Holes knows just what it is like to immerse himself in a murder mystery. It was his work on the infamous 'Golden State Killer' case which led to the 2018 arrest and conviction of Joseph James DeAngelo Jnr, the man responsible for at least 10 murders and 50 sexual assaults. The case first came to Holes' attention in 1994 when he dusted down the files of the so-called 'East Ar...

They are the killers and rapists deemed so dangerous that they are serving life sentences behind bars. But what does life mean in Ireland, and while the sentence is mandatory in murder cases, how does a sex offender reach the maximum term lock-up? Nicola Tallant talks to journalist Eamon Dillon about the 350 prisoners doing life behind bars - about the gangland triggermen on the promise of blood m...

It is a story that reads like the plot from a Hollywood movie and punches right into the heart of one of the most secretive regimes in the world. Hackers from the so-called ‘Lazarus Group’ first shut down Sony Studios when it attempted to screen a movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and then went on to attempt a daring theft of $1billion dollars from a Bangladesh Bank. But who are the Laz...

She is the former Irish soldier who, a court heard, enveloped herself in the black flag of IS.Now, Lisa Smith awaits her fate in the Special Criminal Court, which heard the details of her journey into the dark heart of Islamic terrorism. During her trial, she was portrayed as a vulnerable, love-lorn woman who believed she was following her religion and beliefs when she travelled to Syria - but ins...

When drug dealer James Whelan was gunned down in Finglas, north Dublin, two months ago gardai braced themselves for an explosion of violence and tit-for-tat attacks. In recent weeks, the home of Whelan’s mother, Sonya, has been firebombed amidst 70 violent incidents linked to the feuding gangs, many of which are flagged on social media postings. But is this Finglas feud the future of gangland wars...

When the Criminal Assets Bureau was set up in 1996 after the brutal murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh was its first target. A known drug dealer and with a string of convictions, Bomber was then running a lucrative business along with his cousin Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh. They were dealing whatever they could get their hands on and making a pretty penny as a result. Hat...

When the Criminal Assets Bureau was set up in 1996 after the brutal murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh was its first target. A known drug dealer and with a string of convictions, Bomber was then running a lucrative business along with his cousin Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh. They were dealing whatever they could get their hands on and making a pretty penny as a result. Hat...

When the Criminal Assets Bureau was set up in 1996 after the brutal murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh was its first target. A known drug dealer and with a string of convictions, Bomber was then running a lucrative business along with his cousin Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh. They were dealing whatever they could get their hands on and making a pretty penny as a result. Hat...

Emer O'Loughlin (23) had her whole life ahead of her when she was brutally murdered in a mobile home in Galway in 2005. She had just finished a year-long trip across the world with her boyfriend Shane and they were living in caravan site while they saved money. But on April 8 2005, Shane received a call to say that the mobile home next to theirs, owned by a man named John Griffin, was on fire. Hum...

Keeping the peace inside Ireland's prison system has never been easy - but the fall of the Kinahan cartel has made life behind bars more dangerous than ever. According to prison officials, there are currently a total of 166 inmates from 14 separate criminal mobs jailed in prisons across the country. However, prison insiders claim that the lines between the different gangs have become so blurred, w...

THE American government has KO’d the Kinahan Cartel with a raft of sanctions that have caused chaos for the mob. But when did the name Kinahan start coming on the radar in the United States and was it the mob's brazen move into top-end boxing that sealed their fate? As Tyson Fury prepares to step into the ring at Wembley Stadium to defend his WBC heavyweight title amid a storm of controversy, Nico...

The 'Dead Zoo' is the name the famous Dublin ‘wits’ came up with for the Natural History Museum in the capital. The quirky Victorian-era institution is packed with stuffed exotic animals from around the world – a moose, a hippo, a giraffe, a rhinoceros and a lot more. The 'Dead Zoo Gang' is the name the Sunday World gave the Irish criminals who started buying or stealing rhino horns all over the w...

He was Crime World’s first guest, when the former Scotland Yard detective told us about two gangland murders, a missing fugitive and his quest to find the elusive Kevin Parle. Now, Peter Bleksley reveals the details of his ongoing hunt for Parle and how he now believes he may have been in Ireland and could have an Irish girlfriend. The celebrated podcaster, whose 'Manhunt' series is one of the BBC...

He is the Scottish politician who says football is contaminated with drug money and that the tentacles of the Kinahan organisation run deep into the heart of the Glasgow underworld. And Russell Findlay knows more than the regular politician about such issues, because for years he worked as an investigative crime reporter who himself became headline news when he was targeted in an acid attack at hi...

In 2010, Spanish police announced that they had dismantled the Irish Mafia by shutting down the Kinahan Organised Crime Group. Headed by Christopher Kinahan Snr and managed by his sons Daniel and Christopher Jnr the so-called ‘Cartel’ was estimated to be worth €100 million when it was hit with the killer blow by cops who had spent two years wire-tapping the gang and keeping them under close survei...

Two gangsters have been convicted in the first murder plot trial involving EncroChat phones, a system described in court as ‘an Amazon for organised criminals’.Despite no DNA evidence, no fingerprints and no weapon, the court found that Paul Fontaine and Frankie Sinclair tried to organise a 'hit' by text. At least 260 other cases in the UK have been successfully convicted since the 'hack' by Frenc...

One month since US sanctions were levelled against the Kinahan Cartel and as the dust settles on the dramatic announcements, what exactly has changed for those named and shamed as targets? What exactly does it even mean to be sanctioned and who else is on the list compiled by America’s most powerful? Nicola Tallant talks with journalist Eamon Dillon about the intricacies of a financial circuit bre...

FOR decades, the Troubles in Northern Ireland set the news agenda, engulfed the resources of crime fighting and left thousands of families traumatised. But there were other murders too, many of which journalist Allison Morris believes didn’t get the full attention of police because of the war that raged throughout the province, and because some of the victims simple were not high profile enough. N...

A Lithuanian gang who flew unwitting slaves into Ireland to sell heroin and then starved and beat them sounds like the plot from a TV crime drama – but that’s exactly what happened over the course of 15 years until Gardai, the PSNI and their Eastern European counterparts uncovered the mob. Known as ‘The Russians’, the gang fuelled Northern Ireland’s emerging heroin market from the mid 2000s and la...

For years flash Johnny Morrissey has been splashing his cash on the Costa del Crime, where his luxury villa is a monument to the Roman Emperor Nero. Larger than life, Morrissey thought he was untouchable - but now that he has been named as the Kinahan mafia’s Costa enforcer and sanctioned by U.S. for laundering dirty money, the vodka boss has been running for cover. But Morrissey is no newcomer to...

They are the wives and girlfriends of the first family of crime who have lived a lavish lifestyle built on the Kinahan’s billion-dollar drug business. So, what next for the WAGS of gangland, as the carefully-constructed money machine behind the Kinahan Organised Crime Group crumbles under the weight of U.S. sanctions. Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the wome...

They are the wives and girlfriends of the first family of crime who have lived a lavish lifestyle built on the Kinahan’s billion-dollar drug business. So, what next for the WAGS of gangland, as the carefully-constructed money machine behind the Kinahan Organised Crime Group crumbles under the weight of U.S. sanctions. Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the wome...

He is the Scottish politician who says football is contaminated with drug money and that the tentacles of the Kinahan organisation run deep into the heart of the Glasgow underworld. And Russell Findlay knows more than the regular politician about such issues, because for years he worked as an investigative crime reporter who himself became headline news when he was targeted in an acid attack at hi...

He was Crime World’s first guest, when the former Scotland Yard detective told us about two gangland murders, a missing fugitive and his quest to find the elusive Kevin Parle. Now, Peter Bleksley reveals the details of his ongoing hunt for Parle and how he now believes he may have been in Ireland and could have an Irish girlfriend. The celebrated podcaster, whose 'Manhunt' series is one of the BBC...