Ghost, an Australian-run encrypted messaging platform, has become the latest secretive messaging system favoured by organised crime gangs to be infiltrated by international law enforcement. Though few people had heard of Ghost before this week, it is now clear criminals all over the world were using it to plan their activities.
And in the fallout since its demise was confirmed on Tuesday, fascinating insight has emerged into the state of play in Irish-organised crime. It is now confirmed the Kinahan cartel is neither the primary gang selling drugs in the Republic, nor the key player moving drugs on to the island of Ireland.
Another nugget to emerge from the infiltration of the supposedly secure Ghost messaging platform is that Irish gangland criminals were among the earliest, and most enthusiastic, adopters of the new technology.
Criminals who came from modest beginnings on the streets of Clondalkin, Ronanstown and Ballyfermot, and who ran local drugs operations in those Dublin suburbs, are – in a global context – at the vanguard. They embraced Ghost, clearly believing it could keep them one step ahead of law enforcement.
More Irish criminals were using the platform than organised crime in any other country in the world, with the exception of Australia where it originated. Just more than 8 per cent of the devices, about 100 in all, being used to access the Ghost platform were operating in Ireland.
One of the Irish gangs now under investigation as a result of the platform’s infiltration operates out of Ballyfermot and is known as “The Family”. It is now the biggest importer of cocaine and heroin into the Republic and the biggest wholesaler of drugs in Ireland. It is led by a group of men, including brothers from Ballyfermot, in their 40s.
They have been well known to gardaí since the 1990s and some have served lengthy prison sentences in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe for their role in previous multimillion-euro drug deals. Some of the biggest drugs and cash seizures in the Republic over the past four years have been linked to The Family.
[ How ‘The Family’ Dublin drugs gang got snared in encrypted platform infiltrationOpens in new window ]
The group has displaced the Byrne organised crime group in domestic drug dealing. The Byrne group, based in Crumlin, Dublin, ran the Kinahans’ Irish operation for almost two decades. But it was crushed by the intense Garda focus on it when it became so heavily involved in the Kinahan-Hutch feud from 2016 to 2018.
And while the Kinahan cartel – still headquartered in Dubai – remains a major player dictating how cocaine moves from South America into Europe, it has outgrown the Irish market, probably because it no longer has the Byrne group to distribute its drugs here. And that means The Family gang is now at the forefront of controlling drug-smuggling routes into the Republic and how those drugs are distributed once they arrive here.
The Family was one of four Irish drugs trafficking gangs using the Ghost platform – to communicate among themselves and their contacts at home and abroad – when the platform was infiltrated by Australian and European law enforcement.
On Monday, a 32-year-old man described as the architect and administrator of Ghost – and who was selling access to it for about €3,000 per year – was arrested at his home in Sydney. Described as a computer nerd who is introverted and socially awkward, he loves karaoke. It is alleged he ran the Ghost platform from a bedroom in his parents’ house, where he lives. The only obvious sign of wealth beyond his role working in a legitimate family business was a $300,000 high-end Mercedes.
The Garda, FBI, Canadian Mounted Police and France’s National Gendarmerie were involved in the takedown of the system with Australian Federal Police, while the authorities in Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden also became involved.
Each country’s police force will now gather the intelligence available from Ghost that relates to its criminals and investigate them. Transnational criminal investigations will also begin into different groups co-operating with each other from locations all across the globe.
Det Chief Supt Séamus Boland, head of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, said yesterday that the “covert phase” of the investigation into the four Irish gangs using Ghost was now complete. This involved a flurry of Garda activity, including 33 searches in Dublin and surrounding counties, since the weekend, that resulted in 11 arrests.
Cocaine valued at €15.2 million was seized along with €350,000 in cash, €320,000 in cannabis, €100,000 in heroin and some cryptocurrency. One of the four Irish gangs was effectively promoting the Ghost system in Ireland, acting as agents for it and trying to expand its use in the Irish criminal fraternity. Some 126 mobile phones had been seized in Ireland from suspects this week and it appears 42 of those were being used to access Ghost.
Det Chief Supt Boland said the data – text messages, often in coded language, as well as photographs and videos – sent by the Irish criminals via Ghost would now be analysed and further arrests and seizures were very likely to follow.
“We’re extremely satisfied with the level of investigations and the quantity of evidence we have gathered at this stage,” he said. “The next phase for us will be crucial and all of that will become apparent at a later stage.”
Though he did not name names – or even monikers – Det Chief Supt Boland said one of the four Irish drugs gangs effectively snared in the Ghost investigation is now “the primary organised crime group” in the drugs trade in Ireland. That gang, according to sources, is The Family drugs gang from Ballyfermot that was once aligned to the Kinahan cartel.
Speaking at an event in Dublin on Wednesday where the Garda outlined the results of the Irish operation related to the takedown of Ghost, Det Chief Supt Boland was asked to clarify his remarks. He was specifically asked if he was talking about the Kinahan cartel as it was assumed by many to be the largest gang in Ireland.
“I can assure you the Kinahan group is no longer the primary organised crime gang in this jurisdiction or impacting on this jurisdiction. Our organised crime landscape is much more fragmented at this stage,” he said.
“But the primary organised crime gang that’s impacting on this jurisdiction in relation to cocaine and heroin trafficking was targeted in this investigation.”
