Gangland figure Daniel Kinahan has been served with a summons seeking a response to a US court action in which he is accused of using a boxing company to launder drug trafficking money.
Mr Kinahan has 21 days to respond to the summons sent to him in Dubai, where he currently lives, in the legal action taken by US boxing manger Moses Heredia in a Californian court.
Mr Heredia has accused Mr Kinahan and MTK, the company he founded in 2012, of interfering with his contract with boxer and super-featherweight champion Joseph “JoJo” Diaz.
The manager claims that after Mr Diaz became a world champion in 2020, MTK offered him an advance of $100,000 (€81,500) in breach of his five-year contract with the fighter, signed in 2017.
He claims that Mr Kinahan and MTK are in breach of the US federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, otherwise known as the Rico Act, which is used by US prosecutors to take on organised crime but can also be used in civil legal actions.
Under the summons, Mr Kinahan must file his response or motion with the US District Court for the Central District of California or else face judgment being entered against him by default.
Claims against the Irish gangland member, who is regarded by the Garda as the head of the Kinahan organised crime group, are contained in a 32-page legal complaint filed this month.
Mr Heredia alleges that Mr Kinahan co-founded MTK as a “front business” to launder illicit proceeds from drug trafficking.
He claims that even though MTK has said it severed ties with Mr Kinahan in 2017, he is still “influencing and controlling” the company and that the “more boxers” signed under MTK allows the Kinahan organised crime gang to launder more money from drug trafficking.
The boxing manager, citing several law enforcement agencies, describes the Kinahan gang as “one of Europe’s largest drug trafficking and money laundering networks” and that MTK, which is based in Dubai and a British company, presents itself as the “biggest force in business of boxing.”
The complaint alleges that in September 2018 US immigration officials banned Mr Kinahan and about 26 other members of the gang from entering the US due to “narco-terrorism concerns.”
Mr Heredia claims that MTK is trying to expand its activities in the US and that it has in recent months signed “over eight US boxers and several dozens across the globe”. The manager claims Mr Kinahan continues to arrange boxing matches and to act in a management capacity to MTK.
The manager claims Mr Kinahan’s attempt to launder illicit proceeds from drug trafficking “through a seemingly lawful business” failed in 2016 with the Regency Hotel shooting in Dublin when an associate David Byrne was murdered during a boxing match promoted by Mr Kinahan.
Mr Heredia argues in his case that he signed his current boxer manager agreement with Mr Diaz in February 2017 and that he has won nine bouts, including his title fight, under this contract.
He claims that his company Heredia Boxing Management became aware that MTK signed a management contract with Mr Diaz through social media.
He argues that the $100,000 advanced paid by MTK to Mr Diaz caused the 28-year-old Mexican-American boxer to “mortgage his future away.”
The manager claims that MTK has sent threatening letters to declare Mr Diaz’s 2017 promotional agreement with another boxing company “null and void” and that it has engaged in a smear campaign on social media against Mr Heredia and his company.
In 2018 an Irish High Court judge stated that Mr Kinahan, who has no previous convictions, controlled an organisation involved in drug and weapons smuggling on a global scale.
Shortly before this, a Spanish police officer told a court in Marbella that Mr Kinahan had ordered the murder of gang rival Gary Hutch on the Costa del Sol in 2015.
