An Irishman extradited from the UAE was involved in surveilling an “active target for assassination” for the Kinahan organised crime group, a court has heard.
Sean McGovern, 39, appeared before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on Monday for a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to two charges of directing the activities of a criminal organisation.
The activities relate to the deadly Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud in Ireland. The court heard a gang member told McGovern one deadly attack “could have wiped out” the “whole bloodline” of the organisation.
McGovern was arrested in the UAE in October 2024 after an Interpol red notice was issued. Shortly after his arrest, Ireland and the UAE finalised an extradition treaty, and McGovarn became the first person to be affected.
He was transported back to Ireland in an Irish military plane, then formally arrested by police investigating the activities of the Kinahan crime gang when the aircraft landed.
McGovern was once described by US officials as being the closest confidant of Daniel Kinahan, who was arrested in Dubai in March and faces extradition over accusations he ran a multibillion-dollar drug operation. Legal challenges and security issues mean it could take up to a year for him to be extradited.
The non-jury three-court judge heard evidence on Monday that one charge of McGovern directing the activity of the gang was in the lead-up to the murder of Noel Kirwan, who was shot in Dublin in December 2016, and the other was around the surveillance of James Gately with a view to him being shot in 2017.
Det Supt Dave Gallagher, from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, told the court that McGovern was involved in the activities of the Kinahan organised crime group (OCG) in targeting Gately. He said the Kinahan OCG and the Hutch OCG worked together as one criminal network, and would have been “quite friendly” before 2014.
However, he said there was a “falling out” and a “number of acts of violence” in Ireland and Spain – including the shooting of an innocent man in a case of mistaken identity. Mr Gallagher said this was followed by the shooting of Gary Hutch, a senior member in the OCG, in Spain in 2015, as he was believed by the Kinahan gang to have been involved in the earlier shooting.
Gately was among those who carried Mr Hutch’s coffin at his funeral and was an “active target for assassination” by the Kinahan OCG since 2015. The feud escalated further and led to the Regency Hotel shooting perpetrated by the Hutch gang in Dublin in February 2016, in which David Byrne was killed and others, including McGovern, were injured.
Mr Gallagher said it became apparent that the Kinahan OCG believed Gately was involved in the attack as he outlined the evidence around subsequent surveillance carried out by McGovern. He explained the case was being presented by a “number of strands” of evidence being “woven together”.
This included garda surveillance and searches, CCTV analysis and data seized from phones and satellite navigation systems in a van, as well as tracking devices used by the organised crime group itself, which were later seized.
He explained the Kinahan OCG had used Blackberry phones reconfigured to use Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) email encryption software to communicate surveillance of Gately in Dublin and Belfast.
Mr Gallagher also provided evidence of GPS tracking devices being attached to Mr Gately’s car by members of the Kinahan OCG, as well as a vehicle used by his partner and sister.
He told the court the gang members used nicknames in the encrypted messages, with McGovern identified as “Knife” and Gately referred to as “Mago”. The evidence included communications between McGovern and a senior figure in the Kinahan OCG, identified as “Cap”.
Two days after the Regency shooting, Cap messaged McGovern to say he was “sick over David”. Cap said “it could have been six of us”, and “could have wiped out” the “whole bloodline”. McGovern told Cap: “They wanted you.”
Mr Gallagher said encrypted messages also show the two discussing possible targets in the Hutch family as well as Gately, and McGovern stating: “On my baby’s life I’m not stopping.”
He also told the court that McGovern had shared what he called “fresh pics” of Gately, his partner and his children with another man in the gang as they were tracking his partner.
Mr Gallagher also told the court that gardai became aware that Imre Arakas, an Estonian hitman for hire, was arriving into Ireland in April 2017 and was arrested. He was found with one of the Blackberry phones with the PGP software and a piece of paper containing information on Gately and some PGP account information of Kinahan gang members – including “Bon new”.
Mr Gallagher told the court: "The Kinahan group was engaged in a murderous feud against the Hutch Organised Crime Group and at the same time involved in drugs and organised trafficking at an international level.
"The main Kinahan leadership operated at a high level ... various sub-cells assigned various activities. Each stem of those cells would have its own internal hierarchical structure."
The sentencing hearing continues.
