Notorious crime boss ordered to pay back £1 million or face extra 12 years in jail

Independent

17 hours ago

A UK boss of a notorious crime group has been ordered to pay back more than £1 million or face more jail time, prosecutors have said.
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.
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% 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.
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.
'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.'
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.