JOHANNESBURG—A notorious Irish crime group, described by the United States government as “a murderous organization involved in trafficking drugs and firearms,” is active in South Africa, according to several intelligence officials and senior members of law enforcement agencies in the country.
An officer with one of South Africa’s elite units focusing on organized crime told The Epoch Times, on condition of anonymity: “Information provided to us from colleagues in America and Europe indicate that the Kinahan cartel is involved in illegal gold and tobacco smuggling, and also drugs including cocaine.
“We could be looking at money laundering here as well.”
In its latest report, the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) named South Africa as a “key transit point” for the trafficking of illicit gold and cocaine.
South Africa’s one of the world’s leading gold producers.
In April 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department said the Kinahan cartel often used Dubai “as a facilitation hub for its illicit activities.”
It imposed sanctions on some of the group’s alleged members.
His sons Daniel Kinahan and Christopher Kinahan Jr., it alleged, managed his drug operations.
Part of the Treasury statement read: “[The Kinahan cartel] emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the most powerful organized crime group operating in Ireland.
“Since then, Irish courts have concluded that [it] is a murderous organization involved in the international trafficking of drugs and firearms.”
In a joint statement, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the State Department said the Kinahan Transnational Crime Organization (KTCO) “originally distributed South American cocaine and heroin in Ireland, and later to the United Kingdom and throughout mainland Europe.
“In addition to narcotics trafficking, the Kinahans have engaged in money laundering, firearms trafficking, and murder.”
It described Christopher Kinahan Sr. as “a bilingual educated criminal nicknamed ‘The Dapper Don.’”
The DEA and State Department said the KTCO “gained notoriety” in 2016 “when a feud with the rival Hutch drug trafficking gang— also from the inner city of Dublin—led to a shooting attack at a Dublin hotel.”
The statement continued: “The brazen daytime attack targeted Daniel Kinahan during a weigh-in for an MTK Global (formerly MGM) boxing match and shocked the Irish public.
“Although Daniel escaped unharmed, the subsequent and ongoing feud has resulted in 18 homicides, encompassing nearly all members or relatives and associates of the Hutch gang.”
A subsequent crackdown on mob violence in Ireland resulted in the Kinahan’s moving their operations to the United Kingdom, Spain, and the UAE.
“Christopher Sr. has utilized his influence and power to create international businesses to increase the financial wealth and further conceal the KTCO’s criminal proceeds,” said the statement.
The Kinahan group’s alleged activities in South Africa are less well-known, but there are several links, according to organized crime specialists in the country.
On 15 October 2023, The Times newspaper in the UK reported that Kinahan associates “used a small army of helpers to buy gold from [illegal] dealers in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique.”
The Kinahan’s apparently own properties around the world, including South Africa.
In February 2023, a judgment by the High Court of Ireland also linked the Kinahan cartel with South Africa.
It said senior group member Ross Browning (37), and his sisters Cheryl and Robyn, had travelled to the United States, UAE, and South Africa on a number of occasions in previous years, but the purposes of their visits remain unknown.
According to a report in the Irish Mirror, the court ordered that Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) take control of €1.5m worth of assets linked to Ross Browning, referred to as “the Kinahan cartel’s No.1 man in Ireland.”
Assets subsequently seized from Mr. Browning included property, Rolex watches, a diamond ring, and luxury vehicles.
In January 2023, the judge ruled that his assets were the proceeds of crime and that he’d tried to disguise the origin of money through family members, including his sisters.
“These relatives have involved themselves in highly culpable activities,” said the judgment against Mr. Browning.
“They either facilitated money laundering or took benefits funded by organized crime of the most serious sort.”
Johan Burger, a former South African police colonel who’s a crime analyst for the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said it would be “unsurprising” if it’s established that the Kinahan cartel is using South Africa “in some way or other to facilitate crime.”
He told The Epoch Times: “A lot of the major international organized crime groups—from the Sicilian and Italian and Chinese mafia to the Russian and Serbian and Bulgarian mobs—have been basing part of their operations in South Africa since the 1990s.
It’s a very attractive place for these criminals because of its strategic importance at the tip of Africa, with its ports receiving traffic from across the world.
Many ships have to stop in South Africa en route to and from Asia, for example. South African ports are also often the first point of entry for vessels from South America, which is the world’s cocaine hub.”
Mr. Burger said South Africa’s reputation for official corruption also attracted criminals, as well as its banking systems which offered links to financial institutions across the world.
In its report, the GI-TOC said that Durban, the port on South Africa’s east coast, had become one of the world’s key cocaine smuggling nodes.
The country’s shipping authority, Transnet, describes Durban as “the largest and busiest shipping terminal in sub-Saharan Africa,” saying it handles 31.4 million tons of cargo every year.
Late last year, law enforcement agencies in Europe combined to swoop on a multinational cartel later described as controlling a third of Europe’s cocaine trade.
The statement said Dutch police had arrested Edin “Tito” Gacanin, a Bosnian who’d previously been detained in Dubai on suspicion of importing massive amounts of cocaine.
“It is also suspected that the man was involved as organiser, broker, and financier in the import of 739.5 kilos of cocaine from Durban to Rotterdam,” the Dutch police statement said.
A statement from the U.S. Treasury Department said: “Gacanin is the leader of the Tito and Dino Cartel. In addition to narcotics trafficking … Gacanin’s cartel is involved in money laundering and is closely linked to the Kinahan Organized Crime Group.”
Last week, South African police intercepted a vessel before it could enter Durban harbor, seizing cocaine with a street value of about $5 million. The ship had traveled from Brazil.
The operation led to a second seizure of cocaine worth an estimated $6 million at the King Shaka International Airport, near Durban.
Mr. Burger is one of many analysts who suspect that law enforcement and customs officials at points of entry in Durban are being “paid off” by traffickers to ensure that consignments of narcotics are not seized.
“It seems that we’re only acting when we get tipped off by foreign law enforcement agencies. Our own intelligence structures seem non-existent … or purposefully non-existent,” he said.
South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson, Brigadier Athenda Mathe, told The Epoch Times this week: “SAPS is not aware of these criminal activities in Durban, or about it being used by mafia-type organizations.
“We have never heard of the Kinahan cartel. None of the air, sea, and land points of entry in KwaZulu-Natal [the province in which Durban is situated] have detected anything illegal that we can connect to this group.”
But Colonel Katlego Mogale, of South Africa’s Hawks unit, which is tasked with investigating organized crime, told The Epoch Times: “We have previously arrested police officers with regard to seizures of cocaine, especially in Durban.
“We’ve formed a special task team specifically to investigate law enforcement involvement in cocaine trafficking. I can’t say more because things are very sensitive at this stage.”
Speaking to journalists after last week’s bust, South Africa’s National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola insisted: “We are disrupting and dismantling transnational organized crime.”
But, according to the GI-TOC report, South Africa’s under-resourced and frequently corrupt law enforcement agencies are currently in no position to “dismantle” the vast network of organized crime groups now active in the country.
The report also concludes that there seems to be little political will to fight organized crime in South Africa.
