Thomas Kavanagh ‘ran criminal empire from fortified mansion’
54-year-old Thomas Kavanagh, originally from Dublin, was described by the agency as the “top man” in the UK for the Kinahan organised crime group, which operates in Ireland.
Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh ran a criminal empire from a fortified mansion packed with weapons including knives, baseball bats and swords, the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
The 54-year-old, originally from Dublin, was described by the agency as the “top man” in the UK for the Kinahan organised crime group, which operates in Ireland.
He lived with his family in a “luxury gated fortified mansion in Tamworth, Staffordshire, complete with reinforced doors and bullet-proof glass”, said Matt Horne, deputy director of investigations for the NCA.
“It’s from there we say that he ran his criminal empire.
“When my team raided that property in January 2019 following Kavanagh’s arrest at Birmingham Airport they found the property packed with weapons, which included knives, baseball bats, swords and an illegal stun gun for which Kavanagh has previously been given a three-year jail sentence.
“On top of that we found significant amounts of cash totalling around £35,000, but that was in various denominations, and bundles of notes were hidden throughout the house in bags and drawers, even shoved down the back of the sofa.
“The currencies we recovered included Arab Emirates dirhams, US dollars, euros and sterling.”
He said Kavanagh and his two co-defendants, Daniel Canning, 43, and 39-year-old Gary Vickery, “considered themselves to be untouchable”.
The trio were sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to a drugs conspiracy and money laundering.
Canning also pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm and ammunition.
“Their organisation was able to organise, import and distribute drugs worth many millions of pounds into the UK through their connections overseas, their transport infrastructure, which they used again and again to import drugs into the UK on an industrial scale using legitimate hauliers but also front companies to hide their activities,” said Mr Horne.
“Their international criminal operation spanned continental Europe and the UK.
“Countries of Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Ireland and the West Midlands of the UK all feature in the evidence in this case around their criminal activities.
“These three men were undoubtedly very significant players and in many ways we assess that they considered themselves to be untouchable, seeking to protect themselves through the use of encryption and also using coded communication methods to try to hide the true meaning of their criminal conspiracies.”
He said that at the “top of this organised crime group” was Kavanagh, also known as Bomber.
An NCA officer said there were “various different rumours” as to where Kavanagh got the nickname “Bomber”, but it was “quite well documented that that is a nickname which is attached to him”.
Mr Horne said: “It’s the NCA’s assessment that Kavanagh is a high-ranking member of the Kinahan organised crime group, also known as the Kinahan Cartel, an Irish criminal network involving drug supply, firearms and money laundering and associated violence, particularly in Ireland.
“He was effectively the group’s top man here.”
Kavanagh was arrested at Birmingham Airport on January 12 2019 as he returned from a family holiday to Mexico.
The NCA estimates that the crime group have imported £30 million of drugs into the UK and is seeking to strip the defendants of assets acquired through criminality.
“We already have restraint orders over the house in Tamworth and Vickery’s property in Spain,” said Mr Horne.
“We’ve also seized a substantial amount of cash, high-value goods including watches, jewellery and luxury clothing from Kavanagh.
“We will be seeking the forfeiture of all these items under the Proceeds of Crime Act.”
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