Episode 7 - Against the Ropes

Summary

Hot Money: Agent of Chaos - Episode 7: Against the Ropes

Release Date: December 21, 2023
Host/Author: Pushkin Industries & Financial Times

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Overview

In the gripping seventh episode of Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, reporter Sam Jones delves deeper into the enigmatic world of Daniel Kinahan, the chief operating officer of the now-collapsed German fintech Wirecard. This episode, titled "Against the Ropes," uncovers Kinahan's dual life as a high-profile boxing promoter and a figure entangled in international crime and espionage. As Jones navigates through layers of money laundering, sanctions evasion, and covert operations, he seeks to answer a pivotal question: Who is the real Jan Marsalek? And what does his secret life reveal about the powerful forces he serves?

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1. The Rise of Daniel Kinahan in Boxing

The episode opens with an exploration of Daniel Kinahan's ascent in the boxing world. Initially perceived as a legitimate businessman, Kinahan co-founded MTK Global, a major boxing promotion company based in Dubai. His efforts led to the organization of high-stakes fights, including the monumental bout between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

Notable Quote:

• [05:35] Quentin Mugg: "We have great confidence in Kinahan. We think he's very, very, very honest, very astute."

As Kinahan's reputation soared, his connections with influential figures like Bob Arum, a Boxing Hall of Famer, cemented his status in the sports world. However, behind the scenes, suspicions about the true source of his wealth began to surface.

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2. Unveiling the Money Laundering Network

Sam Jones introduces Quentin Mugg, a seasoned French police commander from Europol, who provides critical insights into sophisticated money laundering operations. Mugg explains how modern money laundering mirrors ancient systems like hawala, relying on trust and an extensive network of brokers.

Notable Quotes:

• [08:19] Quentin Mugg: "You know, instinct kicks in. You tell me that you imported €100,000 worth of shrimps, but what shrimp was that?"
• [12:02] Miles Johnson: "Before I'd heard about this, I'd assumed that modern money laundering was high tech... I was actually really surprised to learn that it's pretty old school."

The discussion highlights the depth and complexity of the shadow banking system, emphasizing that billions flow through these illicit networks, involving not just drug traffickers but also tax evaders, human traffickers, warlords, and sanctioned governments.

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3. Legal Challenges and Investigations

The spotlight shifts to Eric Montalvo, a former Marine turned attorney, who becomes suspicious of MTK Global's financial practices. Representing a disgruntled boxing promoter, Montalvo uncovers irregularities suggesting that MTK may be using fighters' accounts to launder money.

Notable Quotes:

• [17:08] Eric Montalvo: "When I started trying to understand the financials of what was happening, nothing made sense. No business can spend the amount of money in litigation..."
• [19:58] Miles Johnson: "For example, you could have a situation where a boxer makes, say, $500,000 in a fight, but the boxing company promoting them pays them $700,000."

Montalvo files a civil case in California, alleging that Kinahan used MTK to launder proceeds from drug trafficking. Despite MTK's strong denial, the investigation gains traction as further financial anomalies are uncovered.

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4. International Crime and Espionage Connections

As law enforcement intensifies efforts to dismantle Kinahan's operations, connections to international terrorism and sanctioned regimes, particularly Iran, come to light. Udi Levy, former head of Mossad's economic warfare unit, explains how Iran leverages criminal networks to evade sanctions and finance clandestine activities.

Notable Quotes:

• [31:15] Udi Levy: "They are giving suggestion to the Russian and other countries and North Korea how to circumvent the sanctions."
• [33:39] Udi Levy: "I think Iran is not alone. I think today is a new trend by some... it's related to drug trafficking."

The convergence of organized crime and state-sponsored espionage paints a complex picture of global power dynamics, with Kinahan's network serving as a pivotal link between drug trafficking and international terrorism.

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5. Law Enforcement's Strategic Response

In response to the escalating threat posed by the Kinahan-led super cartel, Irish law enforcement, spearheaded by John O'Driscoll, collaborates with international agencies to devise a multi-faceted strategy. Recognizing the limitations of traditional policing, O'Driscoll advocates for leveraging economic sanctions to cripple the cartel's financial infrastructure.

Notable Quotes:

• [28:20] John O'Driscoll: "From that day, it was part of our objective that we would acquire sufficient information to provide to the U.S. Department of Treasury..."
• [27:20] Miles Johnson: "John starts flying around the world, meeting with other law enforcement agencies, sharing information, discussing strategies."

This innovative approach aims to disrupt the cartel by targeting its access to financial resources, thereby diminishing its operational capabilities.

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6. The Brink of Collapse and Public Relations Maneuvers

As pressure mounts, Dubai begins to crack down on key members of the super cartel. High-profile arrests of figures like Ridouan Taghi and El Rico signal a turning tide. Facing increasing scrutiny, Kinahan launches a PR campaign to salvage his reputation, including the release of a dramatized film titled "Discover the Truth," which attempts to portray him as a victim of an assassination plot.

Notable Quotes:

• [26:22] John O'Driscoll: "They were corrupting the sport and that was operating at a global level."
• [22:04] Eric Montalvo: "I'm not going to not do what I have to do because I'm afraid that somehow shape or form, someone's going to want me dead because I'm complaining about what they're..."

Despite these efforts, Kinahan finds himself increasingly isolated as political and legal pressures mount, both in Ireland and internationally.

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7. The Unfolding Mystery and Season Finale Tease

As the episode concludes, Sam Jones hints at a tantalizing lead—a top Iranian spy arrested in Europe found with a red notebook filled with secrets. This discovery promises to unravel further connections between organized crime and international espionage, setting the stage for a thrilling season finale.

Notable Quote:

• [34:36] Udi Levy: "The Iranian from Quds Force agent will approach someone else to give them the mission."

Jones promises that the next episode will delve into this hidden nexus, potentially providing the answers to the season's central mystery.

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Conclusion

"Against the Ropes" masterfully interweaves the worlds of high-stakes boxing and shadowy criminal enterprises, revealing how figures like Daniel Kinahan operate at the intersection of legitimate business and illicit activities. Through meticulous investigation and compelling storytelling, Sam Jones exposes the intricate mechanisms of money laundering and the broader implications of international crime networks. As the episode closes, listeners are left anticipating the resolution of these tangled alliances and the true identity of Jan Marsalek.

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For those intrigued by the complex dance between finance, crime, and espionage, Episode 7 of Hot Money: Agent of Chaos offers a riveting continuation of Sam Jones's relentless pursuit of the truth.

Transcript

[Miles Johnson]

Foreign this is an iHeart podcast.

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[Pushkin Plus]

Just a quick note before we start today's show. You can listen to Hot the new Narcos ad free by becoming a Pushkin plus subscriber. Find Pushkin plus on the Hot Money show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus with your subscription. You'll also get access to ad free binge opportunities from Malcolm Gladwell's revisionist history, the Happiness Lab from Dr. Laurie Santos and tons of other top shows in the Pushkin network. Sign up in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus.

[Miles Johnson]

Previously on Hot Money. US Undercover agents made a connection between money launderers working for European drug traffickers and top level officials in Iran. It was part of a scheme to help the regime evade American sanctions and source heavy weapons. This time a whole new money laundering operation comes into view, invented by the man at the top of the Dubai Super Cartel, Daniel Kinahan. Back in Episode four, we left him living a life of luxury in Dubai. He just got married and business was booming as the super cartel joined forces to grow their trafficking operations across Europe. And Daniel, his new career as a boxing manager was about to take off. Remember back in Spain, he helped open a gym called MTK and signed up and coming boxers from Ireland in the uk he set them up in nice villas and hired the best trainers and arranged their fights. Unlike his father, Daniel appeared to like being a public figure to revel in the attention he got. He was living a dual life, enjoying the status of a top drug trafficker and the image of a high flying boxing promoter. It seemed to me that he thought boxing was his path to being accepted as a legitimate business. But something inside him meant he just couldn't leave the world of crime behind. Now it's 2020. Daniel Kinahan's in Dubai and he's taken his boxing promotion business there with him. He's working on the biggest boxing deal of his life. And if he pulls it off, it will catapult him to the very top of the sport. Hello there. I'm just after getting off the phone with Daniel Kinahan. That's world famous heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. He's a fast talking shaven headed 19 Stone Man Mountain. And on that afternoon he's even more excitable than usual. He posts on social media. He's just informed me that the biggest fight in British boxing history has just been agreed. Get up there my boy. Big shout out, Dan. He got this done two fight deal. Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua next year. The announcement, it stuns the world of boxing. After winning a world heavyweight title five years earlier, Fury's career has been in a slump. But since meeting Daniel Kinahan, he's made an epic comeback. He's beaten the previously undefeated and reigning WBC champion Deontay Wilder in this huge Las Vegas showdown. And that means Fury's upcoming bout against fellow British heavyweight Anthony Joshua. It's immediately billed as one of the biggest fights in the history of the sport. It's going to be an international extravaganza broadcast across the world. Pay per view sales and sponsorship are going to generate hundreds of millions of dollars. And Fury, he's crediting Daniel Kinahan with pulling the whole thing together. And Daniel's not only organizing these box office prize fights, he's also started to rub shoulders with royalty. Around the same time that Fury's fights announced, Daniel signed up as a special advisor on combat sports by a company belonging to the Prince of Bahrain. The press release describes him as an international boxing power broker. And shortly before that, Daniel shows up at a charity gala in Kazakhstan wearing a tuxedo. And sitting next to him is none other than Bob Arum, one of the most influential figures in boxing history. Aram, he's promoted Muhammad Ali and he's an inductee into the Boxing hall of Fame.

[Quentin Mugg]

We have great confidence in Kinahan. We think he's very, very, very honest, very astute.

[Miles Johnson]

He has great connections and now he's singing the praises of Daniel Kinahan.

[Quentin Mugg]

You know, I like to deal with guys, no nonsense, people whose word is their bond and that's what it's Been with Daniel.

[Miles Johnson]

But just as Daniel Kinahan's reputation as a boxing magnate starts to soar, some people are starting to look more closely at the source of his fortune. I'm Mars Johnson, and from the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries, this is Hot Money. Season two, the New Narcos Episode seven Against the Ropes the thing that first pulled me into this story was when a source told me, if you really want to understand the exploding European cocaine trade, you need to take a close look at a murder in a small Dutch town. And that led me to an Amsterdam murder broker, a Dublin safe house, the Kinahans, and then the Iranian government. For a while, the way this connection worked, it just wasn't clear. And then we found something. The thing that links these unlikely characters together is the mechanics and of sanctions evasion and money laundering. But if anyone can help me really understand how all of this works, it's a guy called Quentin Mugg.

[Quentin Mugg]

I'm a French police commander. I am currently working in Europol, which is the European agency for criminal police.

[Miles Johnson]

I first met Quentin after other police contacts told me that he was one of the best in the world at complex money laundering cases. He's got dark, floppy hair, a stubbly beard, and he talks with the unassuming calmness of a Gallic Colombo. He doesn't miss a trick. If you're trying to launder your drugs money in a shipment of seafood, he's the sort of guy who'll swivel around at the last minute and say, just one more thing.

[Quentin Mugg]

You know, instinct kicks in. You tell me that you imported €100,000 worth of shrimps, but what shrimp was that? Live shrimp, frozen shrimp, big shrimps, Madagascar shrimps. Then what was exactly in the container? You don't know? That's how it works.

[Miles Johnson]

Quentin, he lives and breathes this sort of stuff. And he's actually written a book about it. It's called Argent Salle or Dirty Money.

[Quentin Mugg]

So I started to pick up on this aspect of the job because essentially everybody wakes up for money, including the criminals, and I really started to enjoy it.

[Miles Johnson]

Quentin actually worked on part of the DEA's investigation into Iman Kabezi and ended up arresting a French associate of hers. He says there's one important reason why drug traffickers might end up working with someone like Kirbesi. Criminals and sanctioned governments, they've got a problem in common. They can't just freely move money around the international banking system. So both need to find more creative methods, methods that law enforcement agencies can't.

[Quentin Mugg]

Track and that is the beauty of it, to be honest, because basically this appeal for anonymity is something that the wool underworld has in common.

[Miles Johnson]

As the cocaine market in Europe has boomed, massive amounts of dirty cash have started to pile up. And to make their businesses work to pay suppliers in Latin America, pay henchmen, or buy a mansion in Dubai, the cartels, they need to keep that money from getting stuck. It's a critical logistical headache of being a drug trafficker. But moving billions secretly around the world, it's actually quite hard. Imagine a drug Trafficker has, say, $10 million in the Netherlands, and he would.

[Quentin Mugg]

Like that to be in Dubai. So now he's got a number of options. He could move it himself. Does that mean having some cash couriers taking the risk of being spotted at the airport? He could try to transform it into something else, maybe jewelry, watches, whatever. But again, you need to transport it. He could try to hide his tracks by converting that money into other goods, such as cars, and then ship them away. Get the cars somewhere in another country, sell them, justify the profit and take it away. But then you need companies, you need importex, but it's complicated. Or you can just pick up your.

[Miles Johnson]

Phone, pick up your phone and call a money broker. They're specialists who operate in a huge underground banking system and it's critical infrastructure for the underworld.

[Quentin Mugg]

So I would simply contact the money broker. The money broker would send me a money collector. That money collector will come to me, usually with a banknote.

[Miles Johnson]

It's pretty hard to feel comfortable handing over massive suitcases of cash to a stranger. So they've come up with a sort of verification system. The person picking up the cash, they have to show a serial number of a specific banknote to prove their identity.

[Quentin Mugg]

And within two or three days, I would have an equivalent amount of money in the country I want.

[Miles Johnson]

So it's sort of like a secret currency exchange service, but for major criminals. But the concept that took me a little while to get my head around is that the actual physical cash, it doesn't ever move, it stays in the same place. The networks have supplies of cash in different countries, in places like warehouses. And instead of moving it, they simply pay you out from the supply they have in the place you need it, minus a commission, of course. This works because people doing the reverse trade to you customers moving money in the other direction, they'll replenish the supply of cash from where you collected it at one of the network's de facto offices around the world.

[Quentin Mugg]

The most basic often comes in the form of a Little shop, the grocery stores, that opens late and sells very expensive apples. And then everybody goes, but how is it possible that it's still open? Well, that's a hint. Uh, there's a lot of them. Yeah, there's a lot of them.

[Miles Johnson]

Before I'd heard about this, I'd assumed that modern money laundering was high tech, using things like cryptocurrencies or complex financial instruments. I was actually really surprised to learn that it's pretty old school. Quentin says that this modern shadow banking system, it's similar to the principles of hawala networks that were used by Eastern traders from the 14th century.

[Quentin Mugg]

So the hawala system is basically a very ancient system that consists in. Is based on trust, and it's based on a network of hawaladars, people running this kind of informal network. It was used a long time ago. Even in the middle age, when you were traveling, you didn't want to wander around the roads with gold on you. So what you would do, you would make a deposit in the merchant who has agreement with his suppliers. Let's say, I don't know, it's the Middle East. And then when you would arrive there, you would choose a note and somebody would give you an equivalent amount of money based on trust.

[Miles Johnson]

I'm also just interested in the capacity of these systems because we're talking hundreds of millions, if not billions, potentially, of money. Is the liquidity that deep, that you can move that much money through this stuff?

[Quentin Mugg]

It's going to be a short answer. Yes. Wow, it is deep.

[Miles Johnson]

So there are billions of dollars circulating through these black market brokers, and it's not just drug barons who are using them. There are tax evaders, human traffickers, warlords, terrorist groups, and people moving money for sanctioned governments. There's a strange thing in Europe, and it's that the number of physical banknotes in circulation over the last decade, it's actually gone up. But the number of people paying for stuff with cash, it's gone down. And central banks, they can have a pretty hard time knowing where all of that physical cash has gone. In the UK alone, the bank of England, it believes that there's about £50 billion in cash in circulation, but it just can't be accounted for. No one knows where it is. And meanwhile, Quentin's seeing signs that the number of money brokers is going up.

[Quentin Mugg]

I've seen the commission drop. It's not a good sign, because they're asking for less and less money. That means that there are more and more competitors, and there is more and.

[Miles Johnson]

More money out There, like Quentin said at the start, everybody in the world of crime, they wake up for money. And over in the United States, one lawyer starting to dig deeper into the Kinahan money machine in the Middle East.

[Eric Montalvo]

Daniel Kinahan is living in Dubai. They're having a party in Dubai. They're getting away with, you know, a lot of stuff. It seems to be in Dubai. And he felt, I think, untouchable.

[Miles Johnson]

Eric Montalvo is an attorney in Washington D.C. and before getting into law, he served for 21 years as an active duty Marine in the U.S. military in the first Gulf War, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

[Eric Montalvo]

When I transitioned into the civilian community, I eventually started my firm in 2011 and I practice national international law.

[Miles Johnson]

And then one day in 2020, Eric got a call from a boxing promoter who was furious one of the promoter's most successful fighters was leaving. He'd switched to another promotion company, one called mtk. It's the company that Daniel Kinahan co founded back in Spain. And by 2021, MTK Global, like Daniel, is based in Dubai. MTK has become a major player in the boxing world. And this fighter, he wants to move over to them, but he's still under contract, so there's a dispute and the current promoter asks Eric to take on his case.

[Eric Montalvo]

Before this, I was not really a boxing litigator, if you will, like the boxing profession was not something that I intimately familiar with in terms of the. The business side. Right. You know, I'm a fan. I would watch a fight, you know, what have you. But I really had never got from a litigation standpoint into the back end of what was going on. So I really was in a learning curve on this.

[Miles Johnson]

Eric starts studying the contracts and MTK looks just like any other multinational company.

[Eric Montalvo]

On its face, it looked very legitimate and very powerful compared to even any US Company. No one could really compete with them. And they had endorsements from high level boxing professionals. Right. Bob Arum. So my first review of them was that they were a big professional boxing corporation international, and that I just had to hold them accountable for contract issues.

[Miles Johnson]

But then Eric comes across the name Daniel Kinahan. At the time, back in 2021, most of the boxing world had embraced Kinahan as a legitimate businessman. But Eric saw something else when I.

[Eric Montalvo]

Focused in on him. Obviously, I'm a former prosecutor, so, you know, that got my eyebrows raised.

[Miles Johnson]

Now there's a long history in boxing of people with, let's say, a colorful past. And initially Eric thought that the rumors around Daniel Kinahan would have no bearing on the contractual dispute. But as Eric started To look at MTK's business model, it seemed strange. One of the ways that the company was able to recruit so many financial fighters to its roster was by offering them hugely favorable terms, Terms that seem to defy financial logic.

[Eric Montalvo]

When I started trying to understand the financials of what was happening, nothing made sense. No business can spend the amount of money in litigation. You know, fighter bonuses, all of these things, when that money is not coming from fights.

[Miles Johnson]

For example, you could have a situation where a boxer makes, say, $500,000 in a fight, but the boxing company promoting them pays them $700,000.

[Eric Montalvo]

Where's that money coming from?

[Miles Johnson]

Daniel Kinahan had officially parted ways with MTK back in 2017. His links to organized crime had made it difficult to be the public face of the company.

[Eric Montalvo]

Everyone's paying attention to you, probably for good reason, so, you know, take a back seat, and you're no longer part of MTK. The problem is, is that Mr. Kinahan wasn't able to do that. He either loved the boxing game, loved the limelight, whatever it was, but he could not help himself. And so he was publicly coming out over and over again and participating in the fighting arena.

[Miles Johnson]

And as Eric digs deeper into MTK's finances, he discovers that the company seems to have found an innovative way of moving money around the globe.

[Eric Montalvo]

It became clear to me as a prosecutor that what they were doing is they were using the fighters as a way to move money through the system. And so preliminarily, what I see is that let's say they put a million dollars in the fighter's account. That wasn't for the fighter to keep. What it was was they would then take that money out a month or two later, and then it would go to a property or it would go to some other venture from the fighter's account. And these were typically new accounts. So the fighter would set up a new account, There would be a very significant amount of money coming in to the account, and then that money would leave shortly thereafter and go to pay for some other thing that's unrelated to the fighter or anything else. So that is money laundering.

[Miles Johnson]

Let's stop here for a moment, because what Eric claims is happening, using boxing to launder money, It's a pretty serious allegation. Up until now, most people have seen Daniel Kinahan's rise in boxing as an attempt to clean up his reputation. But maybe if Eric's right, it was more than that. The boxing and the crime they weren't two different worlds. They were part of the same thing. Eric's next move is to file a legal case in California for his client. It says MTK is, quote, overseen by Mr. Daniel Kinahan and that Kinahan started MTK to, quote, launder ill gotten gains from drug trafficking. It was part of a civil claim seeking compensation from mtk. MTK responds, it strongly denies what it called wild allegations. And it says MTK Global is not a front for a European drug cartel, does not engage in money laundering, and does not make money from the sale of illicit drugs. It also denied having any ongoing ties to Daniel Kinahan. We should also be clear that there's no suggestion that the boxes associated with MTK were involved in any criminal activity at the time. Eric's theory, it wasn't a popular one.

[Eric Montalvo]

Most of the people that were around me that knew what I was doing thought I was a little bit of a crackpot, right? Like, you know, what are you talking about? Like, first of all, MTK is legitimate organization. I mean, people were saying, as Bob Aron was saying it, the California Commission was saying it, everybody was like, you know, this Montalvo guy is crazy. And all of this stuff, you're going.

[Miles Johnson]

Up in this instance against people who at the time are seen as extremely dangerous, you know, like some of the most dangerous criminals in the whole world, people who are linked to multiple, multiple homicides. And I was just wondering what you were sort of thinking at the time about that part of it.

[Eric Montalvo]

I mean, in terms of my own personal safety or in terms of your own personal safety? Maybe I'm not, you know, the most normal person in the world, but, I mean, you know, I went to war at 20, right? I'm not going to not do what I have to do because I'm afraid that somehow shape or form, someone's going to want me dead because I'm complaining about what they're, you know, I just. If that's the case, I shouldn't be an attorney, right?

[Miles Johnson]

To start the US Legal case against Kinahan, they're gonna have to find him so they can serve him the papers. And finding a man who's been busy evading law enforcement agencies for years, it might sound a bit tricky, but Eric had a plan.

[Eric Montalvo]

When you're trying to be a legitimate businessman, you have to register your business. And so in Dubai, it's no different, right? They expect you to file the proper documents, etc. So once I saw he was in Dubai, I focused my efforts there. And if you look at palm islands, right? There's two of them.

[Miles Johnson]

They're two man made islands jutting out from the coast of Dubai, both engineered in the shape of palm trees so that each luxury property has its own waterfront.

[Eric Montalvo]

And if you have the amount of money that, you know, Mr. Kinahan has access to and you know, the pictures and everything else you see, it made sense that he was likely living on one of those islands.

[Miles Johnson]

So, Eric, he'd figured out where Daniel Kinahan was living in Dubai, and he'd hired someone to go and deliver the US court papers to his address. Now the next question was, how would Daniel respond? So Daniel's figuring out how to deal with this legal case against him. And at the same time, there are now signs that Dubai, once a paradise for European criminals, has begun to crack down. The first members of the super cartel are starting to fall. Ridouan Taghi, one of the guests at Daniel Kinahan's wedding and a notorious Dutch cocaine boss. He's arrested in Dubai and charged with multiple murders, and the Emirate agrees to send him back to the Netherlands to face trial. Another wedding guest, the Chilean trafficker known as El Rico. He's arrested in Latin America and extradited to the Netherlands, too. Daniel Kinahan's still safe in Dubai, but the pressure back in Ireland is starting to build. There's outrage in the Irish Parliament the day after Tyson Fury posts about Kinahan arranging the Joshua fight. Leo Varedkar, Ireland's T sir, the Prime Minister. He says he's taken aback by Kinahan's involvement, citing his chequered past. He asks Ireland's Foreign Ministry to talk to the UAE government about it urgently. Days later, the Prince of Bahrain dumps Kinahan as an advisor and Bob Arum announces that he's going to handle Tyson Fury's negotiations from now on, not Daniel Kinahan. Daniel's now on the back foot and he makes a kind of surprising decision. He launches a public relations campaign to save his reputation as a legitimate businessman. A bizarre film appears on the Internet called the Discover the Truth. And this isn't some cobbled together home video. It's a professional project. It's a dramatic reenactment of the assassination attempt against Daniel in 2016 in Dublin. It features a handsome actor playing him who's portrayed as the victim in the whole thing. When Daniel Kinahan arrived at the weigh in for Clash of the Clans, the first thing that he noticed was that there were no Garda to police the event. This was unnerving because Daniel was used to having his every move shadowed by police. Not only that, it's unlikely the film convinced anyone, but it showed that Daniel Kinahan was starting to get nervous. Back in Dublin, John o', Driscoll, the man in charge of Ireland's response to the Kinahan's wave of violence, he's been watching Daniel's rise in boxing with frustration.

[John O'Driscoll]

The sport of boxing, which is very important and I knew it to be so, having policed in inner city communities for many years, many kids were diverted from crime through an involvement in the sport of boxing. And here we saw the Kinahan organization potentially destroying that sport. They were corrupting the sport and that was operating at a global level.

[Miles Johnson]

John's been trying to come up with a plan, a plan to take the Kinahans down. But even if they build a bulletproof case, there's another problem. The Kinahans are in Dubai and Dubai has no formal extradition agreement with Ireland. John, he realizes something that no one.

[John O'Driscoll]

Entity, no one law enforcement entity could ever achieve any realistic success on its own in tackling one of these criminal enterprises.

[Miles Johnson]

So John starts flying around the world, meeting with other law enforcement agencies, sharing information, discussing strategies. He knows that back in 2010, police across Europe tried to stop the Kinahans with Operation Shovel, but the case had fallen apart. And John, he's determined that will never happen again. He needs a silver bullet. Then one morning, he's talking to a U.S. official when they mention something that John just hadn't thought about before. Something the US government has used to go after people in countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea, countries in which Western governments can't just go in and arrest people. Places like Dubai. What if, the official asked John, they put the Kinahans under economic sanctions. The Irish police, they may not be able to get close to the Kinahans in Dubai, but if the U.S. treasury put them under sanctions, that would cut them off from their money. The motive for being in crime in the first place.

[John O'Driscoll]

From that day, it was part of our objective that we would acquire sufficient information to provide to the U.S. department of treasury to encourage it to take on the Kinahans as a target for them to be placed on their list of priorities.

[Miles Johnson]

It was just an idea, but it was a radical one. A new tool to target individuals connected to European organised crime. John immediately gets to work. He needs to bring in as many international partners into the operation as possible. But to convince the US treasury to take action, the joint operation, it needs watertight evidence that the Kinahans have evolved into a global threat.

[John O'Driscoll]

Throughout the process, I would have been privy to the intelligence that we had gathered ourselves in Ireland and then other jurisdictions had gathered additional information. And bit by bit, the jigsaw was being put together in terms of establishing how significant, in fact the Kinahans were on the global stage.

[Miles Johnson]

Months and months pass with countless meetings between law enforcement agencies from different countries sharing the intelligence they've gathered on the Kinahans. And then the US side of the joint operation, they discover something pretty big. At the time, it was a closely guarded piece of highly sensitive information. John tells me it was something about how the Kinahans and other members of the Dubai super cartel had been laundering their money, about the money brokers that we heard about earlier in the episode.

[John O'Driscoll]

As time emerged and as the eyes of US law enforcement more generally were focused on the Kinahans, it was realized that the money laundering associated with that drugs empire involved the Kinahans utilizing organizations that may potentially have links to international terrorism.

[Miles Johnson]

As we're talking, as John's telling me this, I want to know what he means. Which international terrorists? Is it a group? Is it a government? When you say terrorist related activity, does that relate to any particular countries? John doesn't really answer this, so I ask him directly. The thing I'm thinking, the thing you might be thinking too, is he talking about Iran?

[John O'Driscoll]

Well, that would be a conclusion that would be reached primarily by the US authorities having been satisfied, having received initially information from the Irish law enforcement, UK law enforcement, and they then pursuing that line of inquiry would then have concluded that in fact there is potential, that there is a financing of activity that could be associated with their Iranian state.

[Miles Johnson]

John's saying it in a guarded way, but here's what it sounds like to me. It's the money, the money laundering, that's the connection between the Kinahans, the super cartel and Iran. And Udi Levy, the former head of the Mossad's economic warfare unit, he says the same thing. He tells me that Iran's money laundering channels are regularly used by criminal networks across the world as well as other sanctioned governments.

[Udi Levy]

The sanction caused the Iranian to be very creative to find, I think today the number one in the world how to circumvent the sanction, how to build very, very smart way to laundering money. They are giving suggestion to the Russian and other country and the North Korean how to circumvent the sanctions. They became so expert, they know very well how to do it.

[Miles Johnson]

And as we know, it's not just sanctioned Regimes that need to find secret ways of moving money around the world.

[Udi Levy]

No, the drug trafficking need the ideas and the way out to build infrastructure that nobody identifies. And the Iranian have today, I think the best infrastructure in the world to transfer money from one point to the other and that nobody will identify it. So not only that they are using the drug trafficking, but they even making the world, let's say more bad by allowing the cartels and the drug trafficker to use their infrastructure to transfer money.

[Miles Johnson]

I really haven't come across any evidence that the members of the super cartel are connected to Iran for ideological reasons. It's likely it was just business. The money laundering, it was a service, one that worked. But having access to new and sophisticated ways to move money, it made the rise of stateless drug traffickers like the super cartel possible. In this connection, could it be the thing that explains how the super cartel got involved in the assassination of Ali Muhammad? Udi says the Ali Muthamad assassination, it fits with a pattern he's seen of Iran using organized criminals to target their enemies abroad.

[Udi Levy]

I think Iran is not alone. I think today is a new trend by some, let's say intelligence forces that it's easier, sometimes cheaper to use drug dealers and criminals to make assassination. Because if they called, you cannot blame Iran, you can blame drug trafficking. It's something that related to drug trafficking. They are preferred to go to criminal and to drug dealers to pay them money, to give them guidance and to send them to the mission.

[Miles Johnson]

But I still have a big question. Is it possible to find out who in Iran worked with the super cartel to assassinate Ali Muhammad to solve this murder?

[Udi Levy]

Yes, but it will be a little bit difficult because they are not stupid in most of the cases. They are putting a buffer between themselves.

[Miles Johnson]

And.

[Udi Levy]

The last end. Let's say something like that. Let's say the Iranian from Quds Force agent will approach to someone, that he will approach to somebody else. And then he will approach to the third party and we'll give him the.

[Miles Johnson]

Mission to find someone buried deep in a shadowy hidden world where espionage and organized crime meet. It seems impossible. And then I came across a case. A top Iranian spy arrested in Europe found with a red notebook full of secrets. And perhaps inside that notebook we can find the answer. That's next time on our season finale of Hot Money. Foreign is a production of the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me, Miles Johnson. If you've got any leads or information about this story, you can email me@new narcosft.com. the series producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Rousselot is the associate producer. Fact checking is by Arthur Gompertz, engineering by Sarah Bruguer, sound design from Jake Gorski. Jeremy Warmsley wrote the original music. Our editor is Sarah Nix and the executive producers are Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Laura Clarke, Alistair Mackey and Breen Turner. This is an I Heart podcast.