In Sept. 2023, Irish Special Forces raided ‘narco tanker’ and the fallout could expose the actors behind the largest drug smuggling cartel in the world

The multi-billion dollar Kinahan cartel of Ireland, has been accused of trafficking methamphetamine and fentanyl precursor chemicals worldwide

It is alleged that they are also involved in money laundering, arms smuggling, extortion and land developments with diverse clientele such as Mexican cartels, Hezbollah and Iran’s intelligence services

Undercover operation by American agents successfully infiltrated a global drugs trafficking ring run by Irish gangster Christy Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr. from their base in Dubai

Undercover DEA operation came to light with release of details after eight men from the Kinahan cartel were jailed early July for their part in a massive cocaine smuggling attempt

The men received varying sentences of 13 to 20 years after being caught attempting to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine, worth $181 million [£135 million], into Britain 

After a DEA under under cover operation led to joint operation raid with Irish Special Forces on MV Mathew, a Panama flagged cargo ship turned ‘narco tanker’, led to a massive drug bust. It is expected the seizure to expose the Irish gangsters behind the largest drug smuggling cartel in the world

An undercover operation by American agents that successfully infiltrated a global drugs trafficking ring run by the Kinahan cartel has been revealed for the first time, just days after eight members of the gang were caught in a multi-agency raid on a ‘narco-tanker’ in the Irish Sea were jailed. 
In the lead up to the bust in September, 2023, operatives from the US Drug Enforcement Administration penetrated the gang’s vast international network. 
The depth of the undercover operation, according a freshly unsealed US federal court records, exposes how far the cartel has gone expanding its empire in a bid to rival the major players in the global narco trade, including Mexico’s fearsome drug Cartels. 

Family patriarch Christopher Kinahan Sr, aka ‘Dapper Don’ [photo], founded the Kinahan Cartel as a drug-dealing ring in Dublin in the 1990s. Now expanded into a global empire he runs with his sons, from his self exile in Dubai. He remains one of the world’s most wanted men

Dapper Don’s sons Christopher Kinahan Jr. [left], Daniel Kinahan [right] have been accused of running day-to-day operations of the gang with their father out their Dubai base

Members an Irish narcotic empire, which has links to mainland Britain have been accused of trafficking methamphetamine and fentanyl precursor chemicals worldwide.
The gang’s operations garnered global attention back in April 2018, after five male and one female suspect were arrested in a raid on a north Dublin apartment where $400,000 was found stashed under a mattress. The suspects police said, were backed by Ireland’s Kinahan cartel, already flagged for smuggling cocaine into Australia and New Zealand.
The gang was accused of distributing millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine in Australia, arranging shipments from South America to Australia, with profits then laundered back in Ireland.
Authorities in Ireland and Australia had been collaborating, investigating the Kinahan gang which reportedly, targeted the market in Australia as the street value of cocaine was five times higher than Ireland.

Dramatic footage of a daring operation by Irish Army Rangers, part of the multi-agency task force, [photo], rappelling down ropes from the helicopter to the deck on Sept 26, 2023. The special forces team uncovered and seized 2.2 tonnes of cocaine worth $181 million £135 million], from the container ship

The scope of the operations uncovered by the DEA, showcases the cartel’s move towards smuggling synthetic drugs, a shift from its traditional cocaine trafficking operation. 
News of the operation by American agents comes after eight men from the Kinahan cartel were jailed early July for their part in trying to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine, worth $181million [£135million], into the country. It was the largest cocaine seizure in Irish history.
The men, who were part of international operation, received sentences ranging from 13 and a half to 20 years.

Six of the eight men who have now been convicted and sentenced for the massive narco smuggling operation were arrested on board the MV Matthew [photo] Two other suspects who were also convicted and sentenced were on a trawler on a trawler

Six of the drug convicts had been on board the MV Matthew.
In February 2025, after pleading guilty to having 2.2 tonnes of cocaine for supply on board the ship, Mykhailo Gavryk, 32, from Ukraine was sentenced to 14 years in prison.  Cumali Ozgen, 49, from the Netherlands, was sentenced tor 20 years and Vitaliy Vlasoi, 33, from Ukraine was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in prison.
Three other men who pled to the same charge will be spending time behind bars as well. Soheil Jelveh from Iran, 52, was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years, Vitaliy Lapa, 62, from Ukraine, 14-and-a-half years and the one UK citizen Jamie Harbon, 31, sent to away with the shortest term of 13-and-a-half years in prison.
Two other defendants, Saeid Hassani, 40, from Iran and Harold Estoesta, 31, from the Philippines, who pled guilty to the possession of cocaine for sale or supply on board the MV Matthew, were handed sentences of 15 and 18 years respectively.
The vast haul was discovered after special forces soldiers from the Irish Army Ranger Wing spearheading a multi-agency operation, rappelled from a helicopter onto the deck of the Panamanian cargo ship, MV Matthew when it arrived in Irish waters on September 26, 2023.
The haul of 2.2 tons of cocaine was hailed the biggest-ever cocaine seizure in Irish waters. Furthermore, the seizure exposed the links between the Kinahan clan and other global players including the terror group, Hezbollah.

On July 4, eight men admitted their roles in trying to smuggle the cocaine, as part of a massive drug trafficking operation, and received varying sentences from 13 to 20 years behind bars in early July. Pursued by the strike force, they attempted to burn the cocaine [photo]

Details of the American mission combined with the Irish special forces raid, are raising fresh questions about just how powerful the Kinahan cartel is in the global drugs trade, how far their reach now extends across the globe. 
Founded in the late 1990s in Dublin, the narcotics ring is led by Christy Kinahan aka the ‘Dapper Don’, a former street dealer-turned-international cocaine trafficker. 
The cartel is notorious for its brutal tactics, having been accused of a number of gangland hits against rivals. 
Now on self-exile in Dubai, Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr are the subjects of international sanctions, with a $5million bounty from the US authorities hanging over their heads. 

Christy Kinahan [right], from Dublin, Ireland and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr allegedly run the multi-billion crime empire. US authorities placed individual bounties of $5million bounty for information leading to their arrest. 

The Kinahan cartel estimated to be worth over $2.2 billion in assets buried under offshore accounts around the world, is widely regarded as one of Europe’s most powerful organized crime groups, responsible for trafficking large quantities of cocaine into Europe and Australia.
It has been alleged that they are also involved in money laundering, arms smuggling, extortion and land developments with diverse clientele such as Mexican cartels, Hezbollah and Iran’s intelligence services
Newly emerging details reveal how DEA agents infiltrated the gang’ operations more than a year before the mega drugs bust in September 2023, coming at a time when Ireland’s Garda successfully extradited Seán McGovern, an alleged senior member of the Kinahan gang, from Dubai to face a murder charge in Ireland.

Senior cartel member Seán McGovern, [photo] was extradited from Dubai to face murder charges in Dublin in May

The sting operation reportedly, began in the Turkish city of Ankara, in June 2022, when the authority’s office there recruited a confidential informant, code named ‘Queen’, to penetrate the gang’s trafficking operation,
The insider gained the trust of Opinder Singh Sian, a Canadian national accused of holding a top position in the network.
Sian who was arrested in Nevada in June 2025, allegedly told undercover agents he was linked to the Kinahan cartel, the Italian mafia and a major Turkish trafficker wanted since 2019. 
The Kinahans are known to have strong links to Turkey, where they have made substantial investments in. Kinahan’s cartel also supplies drugs to Australia.

Army Rangers seized the narco vessel ship MV Matthew. The vessel which departed from Curacao, off the coast of Venezuela, was boarded on arriving in Irish territorial waters with a cargo of £135 million of cocaine for the Kinahan cartel

Under the guidance of DEA handlers, Queen introduced Sian to an undercover agent posing as a relative, who claimed to have the ability to shift vast quantities of drugs via the Port of Long Beach, one of America’s busiest container ports. 
The trio met at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, California, in March 2023, to set up a new trafficking deal smuggling methamphetamine to Australia, where prices can exceed $200,000 per kilogram.
Over the summer of 2023, Sian worked with a team of undercover agents to set up a staged shipment of meth via a safe house in Pomona, east of Los Angeles. 
DEA agents then staged a fake handover, seizing the real drugs for analysis before replacing them with decoy packages. 
Meanwhile, when the ship arrived in Australia, police there used a GPS-tracked container to trace the trail to a suspected drugs den in Sydney. 

The crew aboard the MV Matthew [photo] had no clue that suspicions about its activities had been relayed to An Garda Siochana, such that the drugs and organized crime bureau was monitoring the ship

Court documents also show how Sian had used encrypted apps such as Threema to communicate with Queen and other business associates.
And further investigation uncovered plans by the Kinahans to allegedly smuggle fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into the United States via Canada, with Queen reportedly meeting two Canadians, ostensibly to aiding the narcotics expansion.
Unbeknownst to Sian, these men were collaborating with Queen to expose the gang’s activities. 
The extensive undercover operation provides fresh insight into how the Kinahans have linked up with other key figures in the criminal underworld to try and gain a foothold in the international drugs trade, shifting drugs through global ports. 

The Panama-flagged MV Matthew entered Irish territorial waters on September 23, 2023, having set off from Curacao carrying a cargo of 2.2 tons of cocaine

It’s unclear whether this undercover operation provided intelligence which ultimately led to the huge bust on the drugs container ship in September 2023.  
As previously reported, the gang’s plans were dealt a major blow when its £132million haul of cocaine was seized by the Irish authorities. 
An elite strike force from the Irish Defense Force roped in from helicopters in gale-force winds while the container ship’s crew desperately attempted to evade them. 
Dramatic footage of the raid showed how Irish troops were in ‘hot pursuit’ of the criminals, which included warning shots fired by the Naval Service before army rangers stormed the ship. 
The Panama-flagged MV Matthew entered Irish territorial waters on September 23, 2023, having set off from Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela.
But unbeknown to the crew, suspicions about its activities had been relayed to An Garda Siochana – Ireland’s national police organization -which ordered teams from its drugs and organized crime bureau to monitor the ship.

Irish Army Ranger Wing boarded the MV Matthew vessel from helicopters during gale force winds, after Irish naval ship LE William Butler Yeats [photo], fired warning shots at the ship 

As part of the mission, the FV Castlemore fishing trawler, which had been purchased by two men with funding from an organized crime group, was also tracked.
The two men on the FV Castlemore were communicating with the operational command in Dubai and beyond about the MV Matthew ‘mothership’.
However, several attempts to receive clandestine transfers of the cocaine from the MV Matthew, failed.
During what would be its final attempt, the Irish Coast Guard engaged with the vessel to warn it of dangerous conditions and inquire about its lack of movement.
The FV Castlemore later put out a distress call to the Coast Guard after running aground on a sandbank off the Wexford coast.

Irish Army Rangers comb through the narco vessel MV Mathew – Six of the eight men now convicted were on board the MV Matthew [photo], at the time, while the other two were on the trawler

The crew were rescued by Coast Guard helicopter and taken to the naval vessel, the LE WB Yeats – essentially inadvertently handing themselves in for arrest.
When the mothership became aware of the distress call, a change of plan was ordered.
Voice messages from an individual in Dubai, identified as ‘Captain Noah’ and who gardai believe remains in the Middle East, show the crew on the MV Matthew were instructed to load all cocaine into a lifeboat for a rendezvous with a different vessel. The narco vessel was intercepted before it could execute the fresh instructions.
The container ship repeatedly ignored instructions issued by naval ship LE WB Yeats to halt. Recovered text messages and voice notes in the panicked communications within the gang’s network, include the erroneous assumption that the vessel was safe and would not be boarded if it managed to get outside Irish territorial waters.

Irish Army Rangers took the crew of the narco-vessel into custody and seized the ship along with the cargo of illicit drugs

The attempt at evasion by the traffickers prompted ‘hot pursuit’ by the Navy vessel and the firing of warning shots.
At this point the captain of the MV Matthew communicated that it was a commercial vessel and was not in jurisdiction covered by the Irish navy: ‘Irish warship, please do not fire at us,’ adding ‘Can you advise if you are in hot pursuit of us?’
Told they indeed would be boarded, the crew began deleting messages and attempted to burn the cargo onboard. Shortly after, the Army Ranger Wing of the strike force landed on the his deck, rappelling down ropes from a helicopter
Taking over the vessel with the crew in custody, ended the chase.