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 later placed agents in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Kerry after being run out of Dublin by bigger gangs.

Nicola Tallant talks with journalist Paulie Doyle, who followed the trail of gang leader Kestutis Klemauskas and his violent lieutenants from Lithuania into the heart of loyalist Belfast and onwards to the big cities of Ireland where they pocketed a fortune from the slave dealers.

In a lengthy investigation for Vice World News and working with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, he drew together the pieces of a story that make for an incredible insight into organised crime in a modern world.

Episode 103: The Lithuanian gang who flooded Ireland with heroin through slave dealers

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 surveillance.

But the scenario sounds all too familiar now and 12 years on the Kinahans are not only still in business, but ten times bigger than they ever were. So what went wrong?

Today I’m joined by journalist and author Stephen Breen whose book, 'The Cartel', details the surveillance and wire-tap probe by the Spanish which failed to take the head from the snake.

Episode 107: How Spanish Cops Failed To Take Down The Kinahan's Reign In Spain

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, with the influence of the Kinahan cartel so all pervasive, that the traditional divides can no longer be said to apply.

Five prisons, in particular, house the majority of the country’s most notorious gangland criminals.

These are: Mountjoy, Portlaoise, Wheatfield, Castlerea and Limerick.

Today, I’m joined by Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald to look at how the Prison Service are keeping Ireland's most notorious gangsters under control while behind bars.

Episode 108: How The Prison Services Are Controlling Ireland's Most Notorious Criminals

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. 

Hatchet would be shot dead in Marbella in 2014, a hit understood to have been sanctioned by Kavanagh and organised by his then business partner, Daniel Kinahan.

But when David Byrne took a bullet meant for Daniel at the Regency Hotel in February 2016 — it changed everything and cemented a blood bond between Kinahan and Kavanagh that would set them in the sights of international law enforcement. 

Now, in a Crime World special, we reveal the rise and spectacular fall of Bomber's empire and why he became one of Ireland's most-feared mob bosses.

Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Pt 1)

Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Pt 2)

Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Pt 3)

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 or is it part of the fallout of the collapse of the Kinahan empire where the so-called ‘Flashy’ gang once held a prominent position of power?

Nicola Tallant talks to Sunday World deputy Editor Niall Donald about the dirty warfare on the streets of a Dublin suburb and the consequences of it for policing drug mobs.

Episode 110: 'Mr Flashy' and Dublin's dirty gang war

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 instead found herself in a harsh regime and surrounded with violence which she never expected nor condoned.
But the State said different, and FBI officers said it was beyond suspicion that she had joined the group.

Today Nicola Tallant talks with courts correspondent Eoin Reynolds about the sensational trial which ended with a guilty verdict and a sobbing mother now counting the cost of the choices she made.

Episode 111: Lisa Smith's journey into the dark heart of Islamic terrorism

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 Lazarus Group and how did they emerge from a secretive nation where only the chosen few are allowed online?

Nicola Tallant talks to author and journalist Geoff White about the incredible tale played out in his top podcast 'The Lazarus Heist' and in his new book of the same name.

Episode 112: The truth behind North Korea's cyber-crime gang 'The Lazarus Group'

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 Area Rapist', which he later linked to Southern California’s unidentified 'Original Night Stalker'. 

But it wasn’t until his retirement - through dogged DNA and genetics work - that the wily old cop solved the mystery and became a household name in the process.

Today, we talk to Holes about his career and the extraordinary case of America's most-infamous serial killer.

Episode 114: How I helped crack the case of the infamous 'Golden State Killer'

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 considers the bigger picture of such a senseless and brazen murder.

He tells me about the criminal at the very top of the ruthless Mocro Maffia, Ridouan Taghi, the business partner of Daniel Kinahan who police suspect is behind De Vries murder and those of a lawyer and brother of a prosecution witness.

He describes the fear that surrounds Taghi’s organisation and how he has challenged the very foundations of the Netherlands.

Episode 115: Mob boss Ridouan Taghi and the murder trial of journalist Peter R. De Vries

Crime World, with Nicola Tallant, is a weekly Irish podcast about criminals, drugs and the sins of the underworld. Discussing the real stories, and the real people, behind the grisly headlines.

Episode 112: The truth behind North Korea's cyber-crime gang 'The Lazarus Group'

Crime World

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