1 week Ago By Stephen Breen
THIS is the image showing Ireland’s most wanted Sean McGovern at the heart of the Kinahan cartel. The CCTV image featuring McGovern, 38, alongside mob boss Daniel Kinahan , 47, Christopher Kinahan Jnr, 44, and Liam Byrne, 43, is the first time the leaders of the narco terror gang have all been pictured together. The pic — taken at the Matthew Macklin and Jorge Sebastian Heiland fight at Dublin’s 3Arena in 2014 — was captured two years before the cartel went to war with Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch’s gang.
And the still is one of a number of shocking images contained in the explosive new book entitled ‘ Kinahan Assassins ’, published by Penguin Sandycove on October 24. Also sitting alongside the cartel heavyweights in the image was Peadar ‘Leg’ Keating, 43, from Clondalkin. At the time, Keating was the gang’s “director of operations” in west Dublin before he would go on to play a key role in recruiting a hit squad during the Kinahan and Hutch feud.
Reflecting on the image, one investigator said: “The image is a reminder of the influence that Sean McGovern had within the upper echelons of the cartel. “He would have been relatively unknown to the general public in those days, but even then he was Daniel Kinahan’s right-hand man. “Liam Byrne might also have been there but Daniel placed most of his trust in McGovern — he was the one who mattered to Daniel.
“Keating was the Kinahan group’s director of operations in west Dublin and the fact he was sitting alongside the top tier members of this gang shows just how respected and trusted he was.” Also contained in the book is a never-before-seen image of Keating stalking his victim . The extraordinary CCTV footage shows Keating — also part of Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh’s inner circle — outside the hideout of Hutch ally James ‘Mago’ Gately, 35.
Keating was captured outside Gately’s bolthole in Belfast in the north after CCTV was recovered by the PSNI’s Reactive and Organised Crime Department. The PSNI swooped on the bolthole in April 2017 after they received intelligence from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau that a Kinahan cartel hit team had travelled to Belfast to place surveillance on the senior Hutch associate. Over the course of the investigation, the book also reveals how Keating labelled a tracker placed on Gately’s car as ‘DIIIIII’.
It was found after a raid on Keating’s home a few months after Imre Arakas , 65, was arrested in April 2017 over the plot to kill Gately. In the raid, Gardai recovered a Nokia mobile phone, four iPhones, two laptops, four iPad devices and an encrypted PGP BlackBerry. When examining the BlackBerry, investigators recovered the image of a message sent to another encrypted device.
The image provided details of five trackers, four of which were used in the plan to target Gately. Some of the trackers were placed on the cars of innocent members of Gately’s family. But also within the image was a message: “Can you keep that in ur phone for me mate just in case my phone breaks.
” It was clear Keating was determined to keep a record of the trackers being used by his hit squad. For the investigating Gardai, the name was a clear indication that this was the tracker placed on Gately’s car that would ultimately lead to his killing. And the central role Keating played in the plot to kill Gately — who had a €250,000 price on his head at the time — is also revealed for the first time.
When Gardai uncovered the plot to kill the Hutch gang member on April 4, 2017, the PSNI moved to seize all CCTV images from the target’s hideout in the centre of Belfast. Once examined, they made a number of startling discoveries from the previous month. Among one of the first CCTV images identified was the one of Keating , all in black, walking outside the apartment block during his scouting mission on March 28, 2017.
Further images obtained from the apartment block’s CCTV system on March 30 captured the moment when Keating’s associate Douglas Glynn attempted to place a tracking device on Gately’s Toyota Avensis at 10.27am before he was disturbed by a security guard. Forced to leave the complex, Glynn, 38, who used the code-name ‘Oscar’, returned to a Peugeot van to await his next opportunity.
It arrived at 11.12am when Glynn gained access to the car park as another vehicle was exiting. The hit team moved quickly and parked their van at the entrance, preventing the shutter from closing.
Glynn got out, walked to Gately’s vehicle and placed the tracker underneath as Keating looked on. During that day, the cartel hit team spent around 30 minutes outside the complex before driving off. Glynn is serving a six-and-a-half-year jail term for his involvement in the failed attempt to murder Gatley.
He is a convicted drug dealer and is also serving time for distribution of ammunition. Alongside the discovery of the hit team in Belfast, Gardai had also obtained surveillance footage of Keating’s crew at Dublin Airport . They obtained the footage in March of that year after receiving intelligence that a VW Caddy van had been parked on Level 1 at the airport.
When checked against the list of vehicles being used by senior cartel figures, it was quickly confirmed that the vehicle, which had a bicycle in the back, was registered to Keating. The Garda team kept a watch on the vehicle and at 5.40pm, Keating arrived.
This was the same van that was later spotted in Belfast after the CCTV footage of Keating was recovered by the PSNI. When Keating and his associates returned from the north on March 30, the surveillance operation against Gately continued. At 9.
15pm that night, a GNDOCB surveillance team identified Keating’s Volkswagen Caddy parked across the road from the Tesco store in Fairview, north Dublin. Keating was monitored talking on his mobile before he left the area at 9.40pm and returned home.
The next day, March 31, Gardai established Gately had attended the Criminal Courts of Justice in Parkgate Street earlier that day. As their investigations at Dublin Airport continued, other CCTV images showed Keating and a senior cartel figure travelled to Birmingham on Aer Lingus flight EI3264 before returning the same day. Investigators believed the flight was arranged to finalise plans for the transport of the Peugeot van to Ireland.
Once the van had been seized in April, an examination turned up a booking form in the name of a UK national, nicknamed ‘Chunk’, who was suspected of being a member of ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh’s UK outfit. Also recovered by investigators was a Garmin sat nav. It showed a location labelled as ‘Home’ — it was Gately’s apartment in Belfast.
The device had been in and around Gately’s apartment before returning to Dublin. Keating is currently serving an 11-year sentence for directing the activities of an organised crime gang and is also wanted in the UK on weapons charges..
