Low-profile kingpin amassed €100m fortune - The Irish Times - Wed, May 26, 2010

Low-profile kingpin amassed €100m fortune - The Irish Times - Wed, May 26, 2010: "MAN at the centre of the Irish-led international drug trafficking and money-laundering network targeted yesterday has drug and money laundering convictions in Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Christy Kinahan (53), has had Irish addresses at York Street and St Teresa’s Gardens in Dublin’s inner city, as well as at Cabra, Phibsboro and Fairview, all on the north side of the city. He is not a household name, but is well known in media and policing circles and has been regarded for some time as perhaps the biggest wholesaler of illicit drugs for Irish crime gangs.
He has amassed a personal fortune of well over €100 million in the last decade through drug-dealing and investing and laundering the proceeds of his crimes.
Regarded as one of the cleverest Irish criminals involved in the international drugs trade, he speaks several foreign languages, including Dutch and Spanish. During a prison term in the 1990s he studied for a degree course in French and refused temporary release so he could complete it.
In March 1987 he was jailed for six years after pleading guilty to possessing heroin valued at £117,000. He told the court he was a heroin addict and was trying to turn his life around by studying in prison. In March 1998 he was jailed for four years after he was found in possession of £16,000 in stolen travellers’ cheques.
Kinahan, a separated father of three, also has convictions for forgery and for possession of cannabis. He served at least one of his sentences in the State’s maximum security prison in Portlaoise. He was released from his last prison sentence in 2001 and is believed to have left for Spain within months"