Kinahan crime boss ordered to pay back £1m or face more jail time
Irish national Thomas Kavanagh, 57, of Mile Oak in Tamworth, Staffordshire, will have three months to pay the sum or face another 12 years in prison, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Friday.
Advertisement
Prosecutors estimate the Kinahan organised criminal group, of which Kavanagh was the head, smuggled drugs from Europe with a street value of around £30 million by hiding the products inside machinery.
Kavanagh was sentenced in March 2022 to 21 years in prison after pleading guilty to drugs and money laundering offences.
A judge sitting at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday estimated that Kavanagh and his associate Gary Vickery, 42, of Boundary Road in Solihull, West Midlands, gained £12,235,047 and £10,966,619 respectively from their criminal lifestyle, the CPS said.
The judge ordered Kavanagh to pay £1,123,096 based on his current assets, which include 'his 50 per cent share of his fortified family mansion in Tamworth, money from the sale of various other properties in the UK and a villa in Spain, and approximately £150,000 of high-end bags, clothes and accessories which were discovered when Kavanagh's house was searched following his initial arrest in 2019', a spokesperson for the NCA added.
Advertisement
Vickery was ordered to pay a sum of £109,312 within three months, or face another two years in prison, prosecutors said.
At previous court hearings, orders were made to forfeit an Audemars Piguet watch worth £75,000, as well as just over 100,000 euros that was seized from a hotel room when Vickery was arrested, the NCA added.
Kay Mellor, head of Operations HQ at the NCA, said: 'Thomas Kavanagh was the head of the UK's arm of the Kinahan organised crime group, responsible for the importation and distribution of drugs and firearms, making millions of pounds in the process.
'He and his gang believed they were untouchable, but that proved to be their downfall.
Advertisement
'Kavanagh and Vickery will be behind bars for many years to come and now have to pay back more than £1 million to the state.'
Adrian Foster, chief Crown prosecutor, said: 'Thomas Kavanagh and Gary Vickery are dangerous criminals in the organised gang world, importing millions of pounds worth of dangerous drugs on an industrial scale to the UK.
'This successful £1 million Confiscation Order demonstrates the prosecution team's commitment to work across borders to strip organised criminals of their illegal gains.
'We continue to pursue the proceeds of crime robustly and will return them back to court to serve an additional sentence of imprisonment if they fail to pay their orders.'
Advertisement
In October 2024, Kavanagh was sentenced to another six years in jail after he and associates plotted to lead NCA officers to a buried stash of 11 weapons in a bid to secure himself a lighter prison sentence for his multimillion-pound drug enterprise.
Running the conspiracy from prison, Kavanagh enlisted the help of his brother-in-law, 44-year-old Liam Byrne, and associate Shaun Kent, 38, in the plan to deceive the NCA.
Byrne – who fled to Majorca after the events – was jailed for five years while Kent was handed a six-year prison sentence for their roles in the plot.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
14 minutes ago
- The Sun
More protests held outside migrant hotels across UK as anger over crisis continues to rise
MORE protests have been held outside migrant hotels across the country yesterday as anger over the issue continues to rise. Another demonstration was held nearby to the Brittania International Hotel in Canary Wharf, East London — which had been revealed earlier this week to be set to house asylum-seekers. 4 4 4 The large group of various ethnicities held a banner saying: 'Stop calling us far right. "Protect our women and children.' Meanwhile, rival groups clashed outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. Around 300 anti-migrant protesters had been kept in one fenced-off pen while around 500 in the pro-migrant group were in another, with cops between them. Around 500 officers from 31 forces across England and Wales attended — with three arrests reported by Essex Police, including a woman on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence. It was the latest incident in Epping since Ethiopian asylum-seeker Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was accused of sexual assault. He has denied three charges. Elsewhere, around 250 protested near the Brook Hotel in Norwich, while more than 200 stood outside a migrant hotel in Altrincham, Gtr Manchester. Other gatherings over the weekend have been reported in Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Leeds. Migrant hotel protests spread across the country with more planned today as cops clamp down on weekend of stand-offs 4 Four in 10 sex attack charges non-Brits Exclusive by Jack Elsom NEARLY four in ten people charged over sex attacks in London in the last seven years are foreign nationals, police figures show. Non-Brits are thought to be behind 2,809 out of 7,798 such crimes — 36 per cent — but make up less than a quarter of the city's population. A further 358 charged are of unknown nationality, meaning the foreigner total may be higher. Brits accounted for 4,631 charges. The largest cohort of foreign suspects were Romanian at 308, but Afghans are the most prolific by share of population at 89. The Centre for Migration Control obtained figures on nationalities of those charged with sex offences since 2018. It said: 'The spike in sexual offences against women and girls is directly attributable to our open borders.' The Home Office said: 'We continue to deport foreign nationals who commit heinous crimes in the UK.' Fury over Sharia law job advert A JOB ad for a 'Sharia law administrator' on the Department for Work and Pensions website sparked fury. Islamic Sharia law is followed by many Muslims around the world — though it is not accepted in the UK. The Manchester Sharia Council job pays £23,500 a year to help provide guidance on matrimonial matters under Sharia law. It requires a diploma or degree in Sharia law but only 'familiarity' with our legal system. Reform UK's Nigel Farage warned: 'Our country and its values are being destroyed'. Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'This is wrong. 'We only have one set of laws in the country. No other law should be recognised by the state.'
The Sun
14 minutes ago
- The Sun
More woke madness as beloved ITV detective show has been slapped with trigger warning over ‘crime scenes'
INSPECTOR Morse has been hit with his most baffling case yet — woke trigger warnings for the show's 'crime scenes'. ITV bosses fear viewers may get offended or upset while the mild-mannered Oxford detective solves his mystery of the week. 1 Streaming service ITVX even warns of 'Satanic images' in one episode of the crime drama, which ran from 1987 to 2000. Viewers must click past a parental control screen to watch series seven's 'Day of the Devil'. The episode sees Morse — played by John Thaw — and sidekick Det Sgt Robbie Lewis, (Kevin Whately) hunt down a rapist in a devil-worshipping cult after a jailbreak. One scene shows a Satanist being burned to death during a black mass. Many other episodes also have crime and violence warnings. Senior Tory MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke blasted: 'This is another example of soft-touch Britain seeping into everything. 'We're just going to be laughed at as a country if things like this continue, because nobody's prepared for the real world where there are no trigger warnings.' ITVX was contacted for comment on the Morse warnings. It previously said about general alerts: 'Programming that contains politically sensitive or distressing themes, content, or language has carried appropriate warnings since our launch.'
The Sun
14 minutes ago
- The Sun
Boy, 11, among 2,000 kids arrested last year for dealing heroin, cocaine and amphetamine, The Sun can reveal
A BOY of 11 was among almost 2,000 under-17s arrested last year for dealing drugs including heroin, cocaine and amphetamine, The Sun can reveal. Police figures show an average of about 40 children aged 16 or younger were held every week in England and Wales on suspicion of peddling Class A substances. Experts believe many are vulnerable victims of county lines gangs who are coerced into transporting drugs from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries. The 43 forces in England and Wales, plus British Transport Police, released figures after a Freedom of Information request. They showed that 1,914 under-17s were nabbed for either selling drugs — or having such huge quantities they were suspected of being dealers. The 11-year-old was held in Wiltshire. The forces for Merseyside, Northamptonshire and Hampshire did not provide figures so the true total would be higher. London saw most arrests, with 219 — including seven 13-year-old boys. Greater Manchester had 128, two involving boys of 12. One was trying to deal in Class A drugs and the other attempted to supply cannabis. The same force nicked a boy of 13 for trying to sell heroin. West Midlands Police arrested 114 under-17s, including two girls of 16 over Class A drugs. Leicestershire saw 108 arrests, with children pulled in for allegedly dealing in LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, cannabis and heroin. Sussex cops made 102 arrests, two of boys aged 13 on suspicion of dealing in crack and heroin. Anastasia de Waal, of the Civitas think-tank, said: 'We're continuing to see the exploitation of very vulnerable children here. Such exploitation blights not only these youngsters' childhoods but also their futures. Not enough is being done to prevent it.' Lynn Perry, chief executive of Barnardo's, added: 'Children who are exploited are often forced to commit crimes by being coerced, threatened and made to feel like there's no way out.' Ministers want to bring in a law so drug kingpins who force kids into county lines gangs can be jailed for up to ten years. 1
