Gang's elaborate gun plot shows sinister links between Liverpool and Irish cartels

Liam Byrne pictured after being returned to the UK following a National Crime Agency investigation
-Credit: (Image: NCA)


A Liverpool man admitting gun offences in collaboration with leading international gangsters is the latest indication that Merseyside's underworld has connections with Ireland's. This week Shaun Kent, 38, admitted an elaborate gun plot along with Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh and Liam Byrne, from Dublin.

Kavanagh, 57, and Byrne, 44, are said to be high-ranking members of the notorious Kinahan Cartel - an Irish crime syndicate forged in Dublin but now with links all over the world. The three men's scheme, which was uncovered by the National Crime Agency (NCA), plotted to create a fake arms cache and plant them in Northern Ireland.

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However, the men plotted for Kavanagh, who is currently facing a lengthy prison term for trafficking and cannabis, to lead the NCA to the weapons in the hope law enforcement would commend him and reduce his prison term. But the plot was rumbled and Kent was arrested in Liverpool while Byrne, who is Kavanagh's brother-in-law, was extradited from Spain.

The men all admitted the offences put before them on the eve of a trial. They will be returned to the Old Bailey in October for sentencing. All three men can expect to serve significant prison sentences. The plot is the latest that ties together Merseyside's and Dublin's underworlds.

The Kinahan Cartel is led by Christy Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr. The men are currently at large and are believed to be in Dubai. In April 2022, the United States' State Department announced $5m rewards under the Narcotics Rewards Programme for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Kinahan family members.

However, it's believed the crime syndicate for decades have been involved in significant drug trafficking, bringing huge consignments into Europe before distributing to their various partners. One of these partners is believed to have been the Huyton Firm - a leading Merseyside gang led by Vincent Coggins that was finally toppled in 2020.

It's previously been reported that the Huyton Firm, based out of Stockbridge Village but who also controlled the surrounding territories of West Derby, Croxteth and Dovecot, forged links with their Irish counterparts to flood the streets of Merseyside with drugs.

Much of the two organisations' work was conducted in secret, very rarely being dragged into the light. However, there have been other times when violent, bloody events involving Liverpool-born criminals have been carried out in the public's eye.

Liverpool-born David Hunter was one of two men who stormed Dublin bar Sunset House and shot dead Michael Barr. Hunter, dressed in a boiler suit and wearing a Freddie Krueger-type mask, murdered Mr Barr inside the busy bar in April 2016.

He was linked to the murder after police found his DNA on a mask in the back seat of the killers' getaway car. Irish media suggested that the cold blooded murder was part of an ongoing feud between the Kinahan Cartel and their rivals the Hutch gang.

The Dublin-based crime groups fell out several years ago and since then a number of people have been murdered in the turf war. The role played by Liverpool-born Hunter in the gangland shooting has highlighted the links between Liverpool and Irish crime gangs.

Liam Cornett in a Bentley in Monte Carlo
Liam Cornett in a Bentley in Monte Carlo -Credit:Liverpool Echo

In 2020 the ECHO revealed how Liverpool drug boss Liam Cornett was heavily linked to the Irish drug gang, who are also known simply as 'The Cartel'. In December 2019 Cornett was jailed for 26 years for heading up a wholesale drugs operation, flooding the UK with cocaine, heroin and amphetamines.

The ECHO was told that the well known north Liverpool criminal struck up a successful relationship with the Irish gang while in Spain, who agreed to supply him with Class A drugs. Sources previously told the ECHO 'The Cartel' supplies many of Liverpool's gangs with class A drugs due to the attractive business proposals. It was previously claimed the Irish offer a share of the profits but penalise Liverpool bosses if the drugs are seized by authorities.

The relationships between Ireland and Merseyside aren't new however and aren't linked specifically to the Kinahans. In 2013 Preston Crown court heard a drug gang led by former soldier Peter Clarke was exporting drugs to Ireland. Clarke, a former weapons' instructor in the army, used a network of couriers to drive the drugs over to the Republic.

They then headed to Northern Ireland where they were met by criminal contacts. Clarke, from Liverpool, was jailed for 16 years after pleading guilty to drug and firearms offences. The Southport based gang was jailed after a covert surveillance operation by the North West Regional Crime Unit.

One of the more recent pieces of technology that would have connected criminals both in Merseyside and Ireland was the encrypted messaging platform EncroChat. However, the technology would also prove for many to be their downfalls after European law enforcement hacked the platform in the early months of 2020.

Thomas Kavanagh's arms cache ruse
Thomas Kavanagh's arms cache ruse -Credit:PA

The Huyton Firm, including boss Coggins, was one of dozens of Merseyside criminals entrapped by the investigations into the technology, which was used by thousands of criminals worldwide to traffic drugs and weapons. It can also now be reported that Kavanagh, Byrne and Liverpool man Kent were also foiled following the hacking of EncroChat.

Kavanagh is said by the NCA to be a high ranking member of the Irish network involved in drugs supply, firearms and money laundering, and acted as the figurehead of the organisation in the UK. He lived with his family in a fortified mansion, complete with reinforced doors and bulletproof glass, in Tamworth in Staffordshire from where he ran his criminal empire, the NCA has said.

In 2020 he had been in custody facing a lengthy jail term for trafficking cocaine and cannabis into the UK. He hatched a plot to fool the NCA and secure a reduced sentence by pretending to help them uncover an illicit stash of weapons.

He enlisted the help of his co-defendants and they amassed a haul of 11 firearms, including three Skorpion submachine guns, three Heckler and Koch, an Uzi submachine gun and ammunition from the UK, the Netherlands and Republic of Ireland.

Kavanagh had hoped the ruse would lead the NCA to commend him for helping them and look favourable to the court. Kavanagh had first approached the NCA in December 2020. He went on to claim in an interview in April 2021 that he had intelligence about an arms cache of between 10 and 20 weapons, said to have come from Holland.

Through his solicitor, he provided a map with instructions and X marking the spot in Newry, Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland, assisting the NCA operation, went to a farmer’s field where they found buried, just beneath the surface, two holdalls containing the guns and ammunition.

Some of Thomas Kavanagh's weapons cache
Some of Thomas Kavanagh's weapons cache

At the time, the NCA said the guns were in good condition and ready for use. Having reviewed the EncroChat data in greater detail, the NCA concluded Kavanagh’s tip-off was a put-up job and withdrew its co-operation.

The plot draws striking similarities to that of Liverpool gangster John Haase, who in 1995 was believed to be an informant of the highest quality to police and customs officials when he drip-fed information to his handlers about an "awesome array" of weapons while awaiting sentence for heroin charges.

The weapons, which had in fact been planted by Haase and an associate, were used as a bargaining tool to have their sentences slashed for the heroin plot. The very judge who sent Haase down for 18 years for the heroin plot wrote a letter to the then Tory Home Secretary recommending a royal pardon. However, Kavanagh and his associates weren't so lucky.

In March 2022, Kavanagh was sentenced to 21 years in prison at Ipswich Crown Court. NCA investigators had linked Kavanagh and others to large scale drug shipments worth around £30m at UK street value, as well as movements of cash and firearms.

Appearing before the court this week, Kent, Byrne and Kavanagh admitted two charges of conspiring to possess a prohibited weapon, and two charges of conspiring to possess prohibited ammunition, between January 9 2020 and June 3 2021. Kavanagh and Kent also admitted conspiring with others to pervert the course of justice.

Worryingly for the crime syndicate, this week the head of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau confirmed that the Kinahans are “no longer the primary organised crime group in this jurisdiction,” DublinLive reported. It's believed the guilty pleas of the three men will continue to close the net further around the remaining members of the organisation, marking the beginning of the end for the most senior figures.