The KINAHANS have used their drug millions to isolate them from the REAL WORLD – as bombs and drones make their ‘safe haven’ a SICK joke… Why the first family of Irish crime NOW caught in a WARZONE they never imagined…

As Irish emigrants flee Dubai in their droves, the very top tier of the Kinahan cartel are effectively trapped in the desert city as Iranian missile and drone attacks continue.

Sources this weekend said cartel founder Christy Kinahan Snr, 68, and his sons, Daniel, 48, and Christopher Jnr, 45, have not left the United Arab Emirates in years – and gardaí believe the drug lords have no plans to voluntarily leave in the near future.

The war in Iran has further trapped the Kinahan leadership in the Arabian peninsula. Considered one of Europe’s biggest crime groups, the Kinahans forged connections in Iran – including with terror group Hezbollah – a number of years ago.

But with the US military bombing the Middle Eastern country, a source familiar with the long–running investigation to bring down the Kinahan crime gang told the Irish Mail on Sunday this weekend the UAE is ‘clearly not a safe country for them to relocate’.

And the source added the ongoing war in the Gulf has ‘only complicated’ matters for the Kinahans.

‘Their world has become small and this war has made it even smaller,’ the source told the MoS.

‘Gardaí know exactly where they are and believe they will have to remain there until they are forced home.’

But the gardaí cannot launch formal extradition proceedings until the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) gives them the green light.

Sources this weekend said gardaí expect this decision from the DPP – who has had a file on the Kinahan leadership since 2023 – before the end of the summer.

The investigation has recommended Daniel Kinahan be charged with murder and of directing an organised crime gang. Christy Sr and Christy Jr are, however, unlikely to face charges because they were not as hands–on as Daniel during the feud.

While the Kinahans cannot yet be arrested and extradited to Ireland, US financial sanctions imposed on the cartel bosses in 2022 have left them too fearful to leave their Dubai base.

Rewards of $5million (€4.7million) were offered by the US to anyone who could supply information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the three Kinahans.

The sanctions mean no US citizen can do business with the Kinahans, who were also locked out of the American banking system.

These moves effectively ended Daniel Kinahan’s public role as a major professional boxing promoter.

Sources told the MoS that, faced with the US sanctions, the Kinahans decided Dubai – where they have been based for a decade – was the safest option for them to avoid arrest or assassination by a rival gang.

But with the UAE now under attack from Iran, sources said the authorities’ indifferent attitude towards the Kinahans is changing.

One expat security source based in the UAE who has studied the Kinahan gang with interest told our sister newspaper, the Irish Daily Mail this week, he believes the government there is already starting to change their position.

‘The missile and drone strikes have strengthened the view here that they need the US more than they need Iran,’ the source said.

‘So the Kinahans, given their links to Hezbollah and their pariah status with the DEA (US Drugs Enforcement Division), are starting to become an embarrassment to the UAE – and this place is all about image. Their days are numbered, I’m convinced of it.’

Last month, a former senior garda told the MoS he is confident the Kinahan cartel leaders will be brought back to Ireland, either in handcuffs or a bodybag. 

Former Garda Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy said it is ‘inevitable’ Christy Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christy Jnr will be extradited home ‘unless something happens in the criminal world that interferes with that process’.

Mr Leahy said that while he is ‘sure’ the Kinahans are making plans to try evade justice, ‘the leverage is there now to drop the net on them’ wherever they are living.

It comes as new images of Christy Snr and Daniel Kinahan were published last weekend, in the first sightings of the crime bosses since the US put the multi–million–dollar bounties on their heads.

It also follows separate reports yesterday that the crime family were forced to abandon secret plans to flee their Dubai hideout after securing a safe sanctuary in Russia.

According to the report, the Kinahans reportedly obtained Russian travel documents, including passports for themselves, their partners and children, over a year ago with the help of criminal contacts and government officials in the rogue state.

However, the Kinahans reportedly had a last–minute change of heart about the move over Christy Snr’s concerns that Russia’s war with Ukraine would ultimately cause them bigger problems than they already have.