Liam Byrne profile: Daniel Kinahan’s lieutenant in Dublin
Like a stereotypical London villain from the 1960s, Liam Byrne has travelled through life in a tight and violent group consisting of men he is related to or has known since he was a boy. Only a select few outsiders are accepted into the insular inner circle.
As a trusted lieutenant of the Kinahan cartel, Byrne has been arguably the most powerful figure in domestic organised crime for almost a decade. In 2016, his brother David Byrne was the single fatality at the Regency Hotel shooting that escalated the infamous Kinahan-Hutch feud. Liam Byrne is a central player in the feud.
Despite his power and status, Liam Byrne is something of an accidental mob boss, thrust into a leadership role by moves made by other men For many years he has had an opulent lifestyle. Though the last three years have been more challenging and his assets are now being aggressively pursued by the Cab, he remains at liberty and is not charged with any crimes. Byrne continues to traffic drugs and he is still a man of means – for the time being at any rate.Born on October 30th, 1980, Liam Byrne is the second youngest of six siblings – three boys and three girls – born to James and wife Sadie Byrne .
James Byrne sold one of his properties to his daughter, Maria, for €100,000 two years later. The Cab claims he sold another property, in 2015, for €80,000, though he claims he gifted it to Maria"for love and affection". Byrne and a large group of teenage boys from Crumlin and Drimnagh he ran with were supplied drugs in those days by Christy Kinahan, then an emerging drug dealer in the Irish context.
But the young Byrne and his associates kept themselves busy, sourcing drugs elsewhere on the Dublin market and selling them on. Leadership of the still very young but rapidly emerging criminal group passed to Freddie Thompson. While about 50 people were present and most would have known Byrne from the area, only Doyle and Donnelly would give evidence. The others identified by the Garda were simply too afraid of Byrne and his associates to give testimony.
Byrne first offered Doyle €50,000 not to give evidence, and told her she and Donnelly would be killed if she pressed ahead. She declined the money and persisted with her plans to testify. Following further threats from Byrne’s group, she was forced to leave her home after it was shot at. She was then the subject of a murder plot; an INLA gunman was lined up at one point to kill the mother of two to ensure her evidence could not be given.
As Byrne, then aged 19, settled into life in jail in the summer of 2000, the gang dispute among his associates escalated, with a series of beatings, drive-by shootings and pipe bomb attacks. Byrne and Thompson became regular visitors to Kinahan in Spain. They assumed the role of receiving Kinahan’s drugs shipments into Ireland and overseeing their distribution and debt collection, the latter with help from other contacts of Kinahan’s in Ireland.Thompson, though, had problems. He was embroiled in a second feud in 2007 and 2008, this time with the INLA in Dublin.
The Garda enjoyed considerable success during these years, striking against the Kinahan and Byrne drugs operation, with some seizures valued at more than €10 million. In May 2010, two eastern bloc over-the-shoulder rocket launchers were found along with an AK47, magazine, ammunition and cocaine valued at €700,000 in rented storage in Co Kildare. It was the first time rocket launchers sourced by gangland criminals had been seized by the Garda.
The gang’s operations were unaffected by losing two €1 million consignments of drugs on the same day or by the jailing, for 12 years, of the men caught while being paid to courier them. Back home in Dublin his family, including his uncle and veteran armed robber Gerry Hutch , tried to rescue the situation. The family brokered what they believed was a peace deal with the Kinahans; paying €200,000 in reparations for the shooting in exchange for an assurance the matter was resolved.
Before David Byrne was even buried, a member of the Hutch family – Eddie Hutch – had been shot dead in revenge. There followed a Kinahan-on-Hutch murder almost every month for the next six months. To date 19 people have died in the Kinahan-Hutch feud; all but two killed by the Kinahan side. Much of the detail of the Cab’s case against the Byrne organised crime group has emerged before now. However, The Irish Times has secured unpublished documents that offer fresh insight.
Among those who are non-members but have access to the group’s money are: Liam Byrne’s partner Simoan McEnroe, his sister Maria Byrne and his parents, James and Sadie. Darren Foster’s wife Jennifer Foster is also one of the seven non-members with access to the gang’s money, as is Anita Freeman, Sean McGovern’s partner. The final person of that status named is Kelly Quinn, partner of Regency Hotel shooting victim David Byrne.
Other men named by the Cab as members of the Byrne organised crime group are: Gregory McGovern , Windmill Road, Crumlin, who is a brother of Sean McGovern; Anthony McEnroe , Slievemore Road, Dublin, who is Liam Byrne’s de facto brother-in-law, and young Drimnagh foot soldiers Lee Gibson , Knocknarea Avenue, and Nathan Little , Lissadel Green.
Liam Byrne: the gangster’s house at 2 Raleigh Square in Drimnagh, Dublin. Photograph: Padraig O’Reilly While that price tag is very difficult to believe, aerial images of the property go a considerable way to explaining the estimate. While the view from above of the surrounding houses reveals modest homes with a small garden to the front and a much larger one at the rear, Byrne’s home has expanded into a mini-compound and the house has roughly trebled in size.
The Cab contends that Liam Byrne is a “trusted lieutenant of Daniel Kinahan and the Kinahan organised crime group”. With Liam Byrne as leader, the Byrne group is involved in “the importation and distribution of controlled drugs and firearms” in the Republic. And that means the Cab cannot confiscate the Kinahans’ assets. Cab orders can apply only to assets physically located in Ireland or assets accrued by criminals while they were tax domiciled in the State.
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