IT was the most audacious, carefully-planned gun attack in modern gangland history, as a disguised team of hitmen stormed the Regency Hotel and opened fire, sending innocent civilians scrambling for cover.
Under the orders of the Hutch gang, the six-man death squad had been sent to a boxing weigh-in at the Dublin hotel in a bid to assassinate cartel boss . Ten years on, the shockwaves triggered by the brazen raid are still being felt across Ireland’s criminal underworld.
Ten years ago today the Regency Hotel in Dublin was targeted by rivals to the Kinahan cartelCredit: Not known clear with picture desk
Gunmen entered the building while a boxing weigh-in was taking placeCredit: PA:Press Association
The target, crime boss Daniel Kinahan, escaped before he could be killedCredit: Refer to source
Kinahan associate David Byrne was ruthlessly shot dead as assassins looked for a scalp
Two men entered first, one identifiable wearing a flat cap and the other dressed in drag. They were followed moments later by three gunmen disguised as armed gardai in full tactical gear.
As shots were fired, men, women and children fled in panic to the nearest exit.
Elusive crime boss Daniel slipped out through a side door as the bullets rang out. Not wanting to leave without taking at least one scalp, the gunmen turned their attention to one of Kinahan’s trusted lieutenants, David Byrne, as he tried to flee out of the main entrance.
CCTV footage would later show one of the disguised ‘gardai’ shoot Byrne in the back as he ran through the foyer.
A second assassin leaped on to the hotel reception desk, pointing his AK47 at a BBC journalist cowering behind it, before jumping back down and coldly pumping six bullets into Byrne’s head and body as he lay stricken on the tiled floor.
The men then fled the hotel in a waiting silver Ford Transit van, which was later found burnt out beside a nearby sports club, where the gang were picked up by six cars that disappeared into the Friday afternoon Dublin traffic.
Over the next two years, the shocking events of February 5 2016 sparked a brutal bloodbath fought on the streets of Ireland’s capital , as the Kinahans exacted brutal revenge on the Hutch gang.
By the second anniversary of the Regency attack, 18 men had lost their lives violently. It was, according to Michael O’Sullivan, the former head of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, the “most lethal criminal feud in the history of the State”.
But what were the reasons for the brutal attack? And what impact did the events of a decade ago have on the Kinahan Cartel – at the time the most powerful drug traffickers in Europe, in control of a €1billion cocaine empire?
As The Irish Sun returns with a second series of its award-winning podcast on the gang, Kinahans: Downfall, we chart the events which led to – and followed – the carnage at the hotel.
The Irish Sun’s new Kinahans Downfall podcast traces how investigators took down the cartel one by oneCredit: Supplied The Sun's award-winning podcast returns
KINAHANS Downfall is the follow-up to international smash hit The Kinahans
Millions of people listened to the first series, which told the story of the “Dapper Don” Christy Kinahan Snr’s improbable rise to become an international criminal kingpin.
It finished in 2023, just after the gang’s leaders were hit with US sanctions and a collective $15million bounty placed on their heads. Kinahans Downfall, narrated again by The Irish Sun’s Damien Lane, reveals how the gang’s wealth has only grown since then.
But while they flourish on the international stage, the podcast reveals how the gang was dismantled in Ireland.
Using reconstructed garda wire taps, it unmasks the kill crews who cops took down one by one.
Listen to the ten-episode series on Apple , Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Kinahan cartel was founded by , a middle-class Dubliner who started his career in crime as a fraudster.
He later moved into cocaine, flooding the lucrative Dublin market during the 1990s, using young criminals to distribute the drugs.
During a jail sentence in the early part of his criminal career, Christy learned Dutch and Spanish, studied business and taught himself how to be a very effective money launderer.
He moved to Spain in the early Noughties – cultivating numerous international contacts in Europe, South America and the Middle East – as he went about expanding his empire from a street-dealing gang to a global narcotics behemoth.
By now, he had brought his sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr, on board. They were in charge of distributing the drugs throughout Ireland and later the UK.
Business boomed and the family made huge profits, along with senior cartel members.
Best friends to loathed enemies
As Christy began to hand over the reins of the cartel to his eldest son, Daniel, his heir built up a team of cartel foot soldiers around him in Spain.
He set up a gym with English former boxer Matthew Macklin, who has no involvement in organised crime.
One of the gang members who moved to the cartel’s new Marbella base was Gary Hutch , who came from another notorious Dublin crime family.
His uncle, , was renowned across Ireland. He was the chief subject in two major armed robberies, but had always evaded capture and had built up a Robin Hood-like reputation in the north inner city community that he came from.
The gunmen, disguised through police, stormed through the building on the hunt for KinahanCredit: Not known clear with picture desk
One assassin leapt up on to the hotel’s reception desk
The hit squad fled in a Ford Transit vanCredit: Not known clear with Picture Desk
Gary Hutch and Daniel Kinahan became best friends in Spain while the cartel grew, but their relationship eventually soured.
Hutch had been involved in a €7.6million robbery at a Bank of Ireland branch in Dublin in 2009 and had given a large chunk of the proceeds to his cartel pal to launder for him. But he never saw a cent back.
The subsequent falling out led to Hutch being wrongfully accused of being a police informant by Daniel.
In 2014, Gary attempted to assassinate his former pal as he arrived back at his villa in Marbella.
Two gunmen lay in wait for the crime boss, but they shot innocent Liverpool boxer Jamie Moore by accident, not knowing Daniel had arrived home earlier and was inside the villa at the time.
Moore, who made a full recovery, was staying in the property at the time.
The Special Criminal Court in Dublin would later hear claims that the second gunman was Gary’s younger brother, Patrick Hutch, and the pair had hatched a plan to murder Kinahan and steal €4.5million in cash that he had stashed inside his home.
Gerry Hutch and his brother Patsy, Gary’s father, flew to Spain in August 2014 to make a deal with the cartel to save Gary’s life.
They paid €200,000 in compensation to Daniel Kinahan and Patrick Hutch agreed to be shot in the leg in a punishment shooting.
Despite this deal being brokered, in September 2015, Gary Hutch was assassinated at his flat complex in Marbella by a hitman, James Quinn, who was sent by Daniel Kinahan .
On New Year’s Eve, two hitmen were then sent to a bar in Lanzarote to murder top boss Gerry Hutch – but the wily criminal spotted them walking in and was able to hide without being spotted before the men left.
Street wars erupt
Five weeks later, the Regency Hotel attack took place as the Hutch gang went after Daniel Kinahan, knowing that some of the boxers he trained were being weighed-in ahead of a fight night billed as the Clash of the Clans at Dublin’s National Stadium.
But they were to pay a heavy price for missing the cartel boss – as the Kinahans went after family members, associates and anyone connected to the Hutch family.
Three days later, Gerry and Patsy’s older brother Eddie Hutch, a Dublin city taxi driver, was .
Gary Hutch was suspected of betraying the cartelCredit: Collins
Despite a deal being cut, Gary Hutch was murdered in SpainCredit: Refer to Source
Taxi driver Eddie Hutch was among those murdered in revenge for the Regency Hotel attackCredit: Crispin Rodwell – The Sun Dublin
The bloodbath continued for the best part of two years as the cartels went to war, taking out completely innocent victims along the way.
Two of Gary Hutch’s cousins, Gareth Hutch and Derek Coakley-Hutch, were murdered as part of the feud, just because of the family they were part of.
Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan, who was photographed beside Gerry Hutch at his brother Eddie’s funeral, was gunned down in December that same year.
Meanwhile, Martin O’Rourke and Trevor O’Neill, who were also both innocent, were each shot dead by the same hapless gunmen, Glen Clarke, in cases of mistaken identity.
O’Neill was a Dublin council worker who was murdered in Majorca because he was standing close to Jonathan Hutch, another one of Gary’s cousins who was the intended target.
Gary Hutch was the first of 18 men who would be shot dead as part of the feud – with most of the casualties coming from the Hutch side.
The Gardai would also foil a number of plots to murder Gary’s father, Patsy Hutch, and his childhood best friend James ‘Mago’ Gately, who had trained in Daniel Kinahan’s Marbella gym and was someone whom the cartel believed was directly involved in the Regency Hotel attack.
The Kinahans even flew an , Imre Arakas, to Ireland to take out Gately, but he was arrested within hours of landing in the country.
Weeks later, in May, 2017, Gately was shot a number of times as he stopped at a Dublin petrol station but survived because he was wearing a bullet proof vest.
The net tightens
The bloodshed saw a major crackdown on the activities of the Kinahan cartel, who moved from Spain to Dubai in 2016 as the net tightened.
As former police boss O’Sullivan tells The Sun: “A dismal milestone in the history of criminality in the country, these events were a catalyst to An Garda Siochana (Ireland’s national police service) receiving additional resources, which assisted them in apprehending the majority of those responsible.”
Daniel Kinahan tried to legitimise his name by forging a career as a boxing promoter.
But after the US imposed sanctions on the cartel in 2022, stopping them from doing any business in America, that boxing dream died as he became a pariah within the sport.
Back in Ireland, Gary Hutch’s brother Patrick stood trial in 2018, accused of being the man dressed in drag at the Regency Hotel.
But the case collapsed after a few weeks following the tragic death of the lead investigator, Detective Superintendent Colm Fox, who had taken his own life in Ballymun Garda Station.
Gerry Hutch was acquitted for the hotel shooting and even ran for electionCredit: Reuters
Drug lord Christy Kinahan Sr built a formidable global crime cartelCredit: Refer to Source
In 2021 Gerry Hutch, who had been in hiding for a number of years, was arrested in Fuengirola in Spain and extradited back to Ireland to be charged with Byrne’s murder at the Regency.
In a high-profile trial at the end of 2022, the prosecution relied on claims from a state witness, Jonathan Dowdall, a former Sinn Fein councillor who was recorded on tape discussing the Regency attack with Gerry during two of trips to Northern Ireland.
Dowdall claimed the gangster had told him that he was part of the hit team and the Hutches had asked him to use his contacts in the IRA to mediate in the feud and this was the reason they were travelling north.
The pair were also recorded at length discussing the attack and the cartel, but at no point did Gerry ever say he was directly involved.
There was no corroborating evidence to support Dowdall’s claims and in six days of cross-examination he was exposed as a person who had told multiple lies in the past.
Gerry Hutch was found not guilty and walked free in 2023. The acquittal increased his notoriety even more and in 2024 he even ran for political office, coming within a few votes of being elected as a member of parliament in Ireland’s general election.
Cartel crumbles
Since then the Kinahans’ Irish and UK operation has been dismantled. Major figures within the cartel have been locked up, including Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, who ran the UK arm , and various hit teams the gang hired to carry out their killing spree.
Ireland has also since agreed an extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates and last May Sean McGovern, a Kinahan associate, was flown back to Ireland and charged with the murder of Noel Kirwan, conspiracy to murder James Gately and a number of organised crime offences.
Christy Kinahan Sr and his two sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr, are still believed to be in Dubai, but spend their lives looking over their shoulder as many of their domestic and international allies have been brought down.
They’re still in control of a transnational drug trafficking organisation, but are also the subject of various investigations by the Gardai, Interpol, the FBI and the DEA.
Now, many believe their life of luxury in the Arab state may soon be coming to an end.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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