Three Kinahan gang members who stockpiled a weapons cache for UK police so that gang boss Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh would receive a lighter sentence on drug smuggling charges have been given sentences totalling 17 years.
The conspiracy by Kavanagh and his lieutenant Liam Byrne was uncovered after encrypted messages revealed their efforts to buy guns, explosives and a grenade launcher as part of the ruse.
The senior organised crime figures were sentenced at the Old Bailey in London this morning.
Thomas Kavanagh (58), who directed the plot and is the Kinahan gang’s main operative in the UK, was handed down a six-year sentence. This is consecutive to the 21-year jail term he is currently serving and half of the sentence imposed today will be served on licence.
His brother-in-law Liam Byrne (43), the head of the crime group’s Dublin operation, was sentenced to a total of five years, half to be served in prison.
Liverpool man Shaun Kent (38), who acted as Kavanagh’s messenger in the conspiracy, was jailed for six years.
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All three men had admitted to conspiring to possess firearms and ammunition between 2020 and 2021 as part of a plot, while Kavanagh also pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.
A significant security operation involving police marksmen and costing £30,000 was in place at the Old Bailey in London yesterday to bring Byrne and Kavanagh from the high-security Belmarsh Prison to court.
This morning the three defendants watched proceedings via video link from custody as their sentences were handed down by Judge Philip Katz.
The judge said Kavanagh “pulled the strings” of the conspiracy from prison and that “fearsome firearms” were gathered for his benefit.
The prosecution described the conspiracy as organised crime “at a high-level” and that Thomas Kavanagh was at the apex of this, giving instructions to his subordinates.
Kent and Byrne were also played “leading roles” in the criminal enterprise and were “big cogs in the machine”.
Their messages showed failed efforts to purchase 40 handguns from the Netherlands as well as a rocket launcher, grenades, and machine guns from a Manchester criminal.
‘Bomber’ Kavanagh was the only member of the conspiracy not to use an encrypted device but directed the operation from prison through another inmate who then passed information onto Shaun Kent.
As the gang’s efforts to obtain guns were proving unsuccessful, Kent relayed Thomas Kavanagh’s annoyance to his associates.
“He will end up cracking heads mate. Feel like they’re not helping,” Kent informed Liam Byrne.
In one text thread from May 2020, Byrne, who used the alias ‘Thai-Live’, was involved in purchasing two handguns from a Liverpool based criminal.
He inquired about Glock handguns and an MP5 Heckler and Koch sub-machine gun, and when the transaction was complete, he told the seller: “Lovely thank you very much for that.”
The gang also had disagreements about the method of transporting 14 firearms from Dublin to Northern Ireland.
The EncroChat server was taken down by French authorities in 2020 but the prosecution said it was inevitable that the gang continued to progress their plan.
Kavanagh later entered a guilty plea to the drug smuggling charges and arranged a meeting with the NCA to tip them off about a weapons cache hidden in Northern Ireland.
Investigators later received an email containing a map with an X marked on a field in Newry, Co Down, and instructions on where to locate the firearms cache.
In total, 11 weapons were found in two holdall bags, including Scropion and Uzi machine guns, an assault rifle, and semi-automatic handguns.
The prosecution said that Kavanagh informing to the NCA “was the final step in executing what he hoped proved the success of the criminal enterprise in fooling the authorities”, but it failed.
In 2022, Thomas Kavanagh was given a 21-year prison term for drug smuggling.