The world is looking for the Kinahan drug lords. We found them
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After years in hiding, The Sunday Times has obtained images of Christy and Daniel Kinahan, leaders of the all-powerful Kinahan cartel, living freely in Dubai. They are some of the most wanted criminals in the world. So why aren’t they in custody?
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Guest: John Mooney, Investigative reporter, The Sunday Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Producer: Taryn Siegel.
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Read more: The world is looking for the Kinahan drug lords. We found them
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm Luke Jones. |
| 0:07.0 | There's definitely blood in the water and that smells it. |
| 0:13.0 | That left leg now of the very nature. |
| 0:15.0 | We were looking at footage taken inside the Coca-Cola arena in Dubai. |
| 0:21.6 | And there was an MMA fighting championship taking place. |
| 0:25.6 | John Mooney is an investigative Sunday Times colleague in Ireland. |
| 0:31.6 | What a way to start the evening. |
| 0:36.6 | That was attended by thousands of people, |
| 0:40.0 | all watching various martial arts, artists and boxers, |
| 0:45.2 | fighting each other, round by round, punch by punch. |
| 0:50.0 | And amongst that crowd, |
| 0:52.1 | we could see someone who is of interest to us. |
| 0:56.0 | He was a man who is in his late 40s. |
| 0:59.0 | He seemed to be having a good time. |
| 1:02.0 | He didn't look too concerned about anyone seeing him. |
| 1:06.0 | Elsewhere in the crowd, we soon found a man wearing a white Panama hat. |
| 1:13.5 | He was dressed very stylishly. |
| 1:15.8 | He was ordering drinks. |
| 1:17.6 | He was sitting in the VIP section very close to the octagon. |
| 1:21.3 | And he seemed to be surrounded by people, some of whom were bodyguards. |
| 1:28.3 | He didn't look at the waiters or anyone else when they were serving drinks to him. |
... |
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