Lawyer who sued Daniel Kinahan and MTK Global for €8.7m hands over legal dossier to CAB
A US lawyer who sued drug cartel boss Daniel Kinahan and MTK Global for €8.7 million has handed over a legal dossier on the defunct boxing agency's dealings with fighters to the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Eric Montalvo, who successfully represented boxing promoter Moses Heredia in a civil racketeering case in the US against Kinahan, confirmed this week he has been in contact with CAB and has handed over information relating to MTK financial transactions
'I'm calling for these transactions to be examined,' Mr. Montalvo told the Sunday World.
Daniel Kinahan's gym in Marbella
'There are banking records that show MTK was paying hundreds of thousands of euros to fighters who had entered into zero percent contracts.
'According to the contracts, MTK was making nothing from representing these fighters, while at the same time bank records show it lodged sums in excess of half-a-million euros to their accounts.
'How any company could operate in this manner and turn a profit is beyond me?
'I have been in contact with CAB. I was in the UK last month and I sent over a batch of information to them. It is for the law agencies to examine these transactions and see what, if anything, is there.'
In September of last year, Kinahan and MTK were ordered by Californian Judge John Holcomb to pay damages of $9.7 million or €8.7 million to Mr Montalvo's client Moses Heredia after he accepted the claim they had used cartel drug money to poach boxer Joseph Diaz from him.
Police searching the MTK gym
As part of his case, and during court proceedings covered by privilege, Mr. Heredia had alleged MTK was using fighters to wash Kinahan's drug money.
In an unredacted transcript from the US court case obtained by this newspaper, Mr Montalvo submitted that fighters, who were not identified by name, were given 'zero pc' representation by MTK.
This meant the boxing company charged these fighters nothing to represent them and took no portion of any winnings associated with their fights.
During a hearing on August 25, he told Judge Holcomb: 'The big takeaways are I travelled to both the Middle East and Ireland,' Mr Montalvo said.
'I sat down with key persons, and I acquired a fair amount of documentary evidence already that demonstrates MTK had a plan and practice to attack managers, put them in arbitration postures, and then also sue.
Kinahan's MTK tried to poach boxer Joseph Diaz
'In the discovery in the litigation, it reveals that MTK would enter into zero percent agreements with the fighters and then push in half-a-million to a million dollars' worth of euros in increments, and then you would see that money leave the fighter's bank account in also large sums.
'So, it appears this is a mechanism upon which they were moving their money.'
Crucially, it's understood that during the course of Mr Heredia's four-year case against Kinahan, Mr Montalvo obtained extensive bank records showing how MTK moved cash around.
It's understood banks – including institutions based in Ireland – were used in the transactions which Mr Montalvo now wants probed.
Cash taken from Kinahan's boxing gym
As well as furnishing law enforcement with information gained during the case, Mr Montalvo is currently documenting assets linked to MTK and Kinahan that can be liquidated to pay his client the €8.7 million he is owed.
He told the same court sitting he had brought in an expert from the US Department of Justice's Asset Forfeiture Division to help in this regard.
'He has got 30-plus years of money-laundering experience across the globe. I have worked with him previously, so we are excited to bring him on board and sort of tidy up the connections that I have established. We are doing pretty well,' he said.
Company documents filed by MTK Global USA in the state of Delaware – where it was incorporated in 2020 – show it 'voluntarily cancelled' its status as of May 26, 2022.
The development occurred a month after Kinahan had a €5 million bounty placed on his head by the US government.
Both Kinahan and MTK Global USA fired their legal counsel in the case in California and 'ghosted' the legal proceedings.
Daniel Kinahan's involvement in the world of boxing is the subject of a separate multi-million law suit in California.
A leading boxing 'fixer' says Kinahan secretly struck a multi-million dollar deal with global fight promoter Top Rank to be its exclusive consultant outside of the US.
Lawyer Eric Montalvo
Former Top Rank agent William (Billy) Keane claims in a lawsuit filed in California in March the 'under the table' deal was struck after Kinahan helped him to get world champion Tyson Fury to agree to a rematch fight with Deontay Wilder.
Keane is suing the promoter for in excess of $25 million, plus interest, in allegedly unpaid fees.
He claims that he spent $27,000 courting Kinahan and Fury in Dubai for Top Rank in January 2019 ahead of the fighter's change of promoters the following month.
Keane says Top Rank president Todd duBoef wanted to woo Fury away from Frank Warren because Top Rank needed a new star fighter to satisfy sports broadcaster ESPN.
But deBoef allegedly told Keane that ESPN could not find out that Kinahan was involved because the Irish press had reported that the Dubliner was the leader of a drug cartel, and if duBoef were linked to him, ESPN might be forced to terminate their contract.
'It had been more than six months since Top Rank signed the 2018 ESPN Extension, Top Rank was earning more money under the new deal terms but had not yet signed any new, meaningful talent, ESPN was not happy..,' the filing adds.
In a statement to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, duBoef's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, rejected Keane's claims: 'Nothing was secret. [Keane's] allegations are false and his lawsuit is frivolous.'
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