This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here.

A key leader of the Kinahan cartel who is wanted by authorities around the world and has been living in hiding in Dubai for a decade has just had his Emirates residence permit renewed.

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A Bellingcat and The Sunday Times review of public immigration records from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has revealed that Christopher Kinahan Jr, the son of cartel founder Christy Kinahan, was issued with a new visa less than two weeks ago. 

This is despite his status as a sanctioned individual who is the subject of a $5 million reward from the US government for information leading to his arrest. 

Our analysis has also exposed the residence statuses of the crime gang’s other sanctioned leaders who remain at large in Dubai. The records include previously unknown companies where the cartel members are purportedly employed.

It comes after Christopher Jr’s older brother Daniel Kinahan lost his final appeal in Dubai last week to prevent being extradited back to Ireland. He is the second key figure of the crime group to be apprehended in the Emirates following his high-profile arrest in April.

The Kinahan Organised Crime Group is a $1.5 billion transnational network involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and arms smuggling. Investigators have connected it to Iran’s intelligence services and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.

The cartel’s senior leadership – Christy Kinahan, 69, and his sons Daniel, 49, and Christopher Jr, 45, their cousin Ian Dixon, 36, along with associates Sean McGovern, 40, Bernard Clancy, 48, and Johnny Morrissey, 66 – was sanctioned by the US government in 2022.

The UAE reportedly banned the Kinahans from doing business in the wake of the sanctions and the Emiratis also claim to have frozen €200 million in Kinahan assets. However, our findings suggest the cartel is still doing business in the Emirates and its leadership has repeatedly engaged with immigration authorities in the years following the sanctions.

The visa records were accessed through publicly available UAE government websites. We entered data contained in the US government’s sanctions notice, including the gang members’ ID or passport number, birth date and nationality, to view their immigration files.

Action in Dubai

Six of the seven key cartel figures who were sanctioned by the US in 2022 lived in Dubai. Cartel lieutenant Sean McGovern was extradited to Ireland in 2025 and jailed in June.

Daniel Kinahan awaits extradition from Dubai.

Online Immigration Records

Our open source review of immigration records shows two members have active residence permits. The other two have expired permits.

Chris Kinahan Jr

Active Permit

Christopher Kinahan Jr’s residence permit was renewed on July 20 for a two-year period. His previous visa had expired in December 2024. The new residence card lists his employment as “sales officer” at a company named Island Star Tourism.

Bernard Clancy

Active Permit

Bernard Clancy’s most recent two-year residence permit was renewed in January. Like Christopher Jr, Clancy’s stated profession is “sales officer”, but for a company named Al Matn Goods Wholesalers LLC.

Christy Kinahan

Expired Permit

Ian Dixon

Expired Permit

Records for Christy Kinahan and Ian Dixon show the residence permits associated with their available passport numbers have expired.

Christy Kinahan

Expired Permit

On his most recent visa, which expired on April 1, Christy Kinahan’s listed employer is OSA Management Consultancies DWC LLC. This firm is based at the same Dubai address as CV Aviation Consulting Services DWC LLC, another company reportedly linked to the cartel.

Ian Dixon

Expired Permit

Dixon’s employer listed on his most recent visa was Hoopoe Sports LLC, one of the firms sanctioned by the US for being “owned or controlled” by Dixon.

Christy Kinahan

The UAE imposes a fine for each day a person stays in the country after their visa expires. A Dubai government portal shows Christy Kinahan owes the equivalent of more than USD $1,000 for an 81 day overstay.

Ian Dixon

Dixon, whose residency expired in 2024, owes more than USD $11,000 for an 852-day overstay.

Sanctioned

Christy Kinahan

Dubai

Expired Permit

• 81 days overstay
• Fine: ~$1,000

Chris Kinahan Jr

Dubai

Active Permit

• Renewed: Jul 2026
• Island Star Tourism

Bernard Clancy

Dubai

Active Permit

• Renewed: Jan 2026
• Al Matn Goods Wholesalers LLC

Ian Dixon

Dubai

Expired Permit

• 852 days overstay
• Fine: ~$11,000

Daniel Kinahan

Dubai

Sean McGovern

Dubai > IRE

Johnny Morrissey

Spain

Chris Kinahan Jr

Dubai

Active Permit

Bernard Clancy

Dubai

Active Permit

Christy Kinahan

Dubai

Expired Permit

Ian Dixon

Dubai

Expired Permit

Christy Kinahan

Dubai

Expired Permit

Ian Dixon

Dubai

Expired Permit

*Bellingcat searched the Dubai government’s identity and foreign affairs portal by inputting data about the cartel’s leadership that was contained in the US government’s sanctions notice. Searching the gang members’ ID or passport number, birth date and nationality returned a “Unified Number”, a unique identifier assigned to every UAE visa holder. This number, when entered with the other identity information on a UAE federal government portal, returned the visa holder’s current status, history and file number.

Roy McComb, a former deputy director of the UK’s National Crime Agency, told The Sunday Times it was preposterous to suggest that the UAE did not know the visa status of the cartel members in Dubai.

“How is Christy Kinahan in the UAE unlawfully and the authorities there are unwilling to take appropriate action? The Kinahans are not an unknown entity, they are at the very apex of organised crime,” he said. “For the UAE not to know their residency status beggars belief.”

David Haigh, a British solicitor who was imprisoned on fraud charges in Dubai and now assists victims of abuse in the region, said it was clear the cartel must be paying off officials. “If someone is living openly there for a long period of time with that level of heat, that to me shows there’s been corruption involved,” he said. “If they were using false passports to enter Dubai, that’s a serious federal offence.”

The passport details publicly listed in the US sanctions provide an unprecedented glimpse into the timeline of the cartel leadership’s visa history, giving an overview of their initial entry and exit to the Emirates.

The records show that four of the six key gang members had entered the UAE long before the 2016 attempt on Daniel Kinahan’s life in Dublin and the ensuing deadly feud that led to the cartel’s full relocation to the UAE.

Related articles by Bellingcat

Europe

Poster Boy: Sanctioned Kinahan Cartel Lieutenant Found Playing Padel in Dubai

A passport number for Christopher Kinahan Jr is linked to short-term UAE visas issued as early as September 2013. A passport number listed for Daniel Kinahan, searched in combination with an alternative sanctions-listed date of birth that is not his real one, returned seven short-term UAE visas between 2013 and 2015. It is not known what name this passport was under, but Daniel Kinahan has reportedly held illegitimate passports in the past.

A short-term visa for details associated with Ian Dixon first appeared in 2015. Authorities allege that Dixon acted as a trusted lieutenant to Daniel Kinahan by helping move bulk cash across Europe, arranging payments and keeping tabs on money owed by a narco-trafficker. In June, we revealed that Dixon was the poster boy for a padel club in Dubai, where he has been captured playing the racquet sport on webcams. 

The earliest visas found for details associated with Sean McGovern and Bernard Clancy were from March and April 2016 respectively, the months after the 2016 attack in Dublin.

All key members of the group, with the exception of crime boss Christy Kinahan, gained residency in the UAE using Irish passports. The cartel founder’s British passport number is linked to his immigration file; both to his latest residence permit and four previous temporary visas. Records show the first visa associated with this passport was issued in February 2007 – the earliest known instance of Christy Kinahan entering the UAE. Another was issued in November 2009, and then two more in 2017. 

However, details for an Irish passport under one of Christy Kinahan’s aliases (“Christopher O’Brien”) return 31 separate records on the UAE’s visa inquiry portal between 2014 and 2017. Bellingcat confirmed this passport number was associated with the name Christopher O’Brien after discovering both in corporate documents for a now-defunct Hong Kong firm that was incorporated in February 2014. This suggests Kinahan may have been using a false passport to travel to and from the UAE in addition to traveling under his authentic document. A man was jailed in 2023 after admitting he supplied “fraudulently obtained genuine passports” to criminals, including Kinahan.

One short-term UAE visa issued for “Christopher O’Brien” ended on August 19, 2015. Posts on LinkedIn three days later showed Christy Kinahan – wearing black-framed glasses and named in the posts as “Christopher O’Brien” – surrounded by Iranian and Turkish businessmen in a high-rise company office in Ankara. These images, discovered by Bellingcat in posts under the name of the managing director of a now-defunct Turkish investment company, have since been deleted.

According to the Dubai government, employment-based residence visas are valid for two years and must be obtained by a company on its employee’s behalf. The employer is required to apply for a work permit through the UAE’s Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization. The employee must pass a fitness test before their employer can apply for the residence permit.

The company names on Clancy and Kinahan Jr’s residence permits, Al Matn Goods Wholesalers and Island Star Tourism respectively, match existing firms in Dubai. However, Bellingcat was unable to confirm whether these entities are the same as the ones listed on the residence permits. It is also not known why Clancy’s residence permit only includes his first and middle names (“Bernard Patrick”) while the other cartel members’ visas used their full names. 

The firm named on Christy Kinahan’s permit, OSA Management Consultancies, is listed as an aviation consultancy on a Dubai government registry. In addition to sharing an address with cartel-linked firm CV Aviation Consulting Services, UAE company data accessed on Horizons, a platform created by Washington DC-based nonprofit C4ADS that aggregates public records, shows that both firms also have the same business licence number and date of incorporation, suggesting OSA may be a newer name for the same entity.

The managing director of Island Star Tourism told Bellingcat on the phone that Christopher Kinahan Jr was working as “commission-based staff, not in-office staff”. He confirmed he recognised Christopher Kinahan Jr’s name but said he had never met him. Asked how the company name appeared on his visa, he said “I don’t know”. He said if the UAE had any problem with Christopher Kinahan Jr, it would “not give permission”.

Al Matn Goods Wholesalers and OSA Management Consultancies did not respond to questions from Bellingcat.

The UAE foreign ministry has been approached for comment.

Connor Plunkett, Peter Barth, Beau Donelly and John Mooney contributed to this article. Scroll-driven interactive by Connor Plunkett and Miguel Ramalho. 

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.

The post Welcome to Dubai: Kinahan Cartel’s Visas Revealed appeared first on bellingcat.

This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here.

Every Friday evening, the brochure says, players can compete to win cash prizes in one of the world’s fastest-growing racquet sports. The padel club in Dubai’s west is the picture of modern wellness culture: climate-controlled courts, a private sauna and ice bath, and one-on-one coaching. The promotional image shows a bearded man in mid-swing, eyes locked on the ball. He wears matching activewear and a golden tan. The poster boy for padel is a talented player who once finished runner-up at an international tournament. He has also spent the past decade living in the shadows.

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Ian Thomas Dixon is a key figure in the Kinahan cartel, the Irish organised crime group that authorities say has evolved into a US$1.5 billion transnational network involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and arms smuggling. Investigators have connected the cartel to Iran’s intelligence services and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Its feuds with rival gangs have been linked to at least 18 murders across four countries.

Dixon, 36, along with the Kinahan Organised Crime Group’s senior leadership – Christy Kinahan, 69, and his sons Daniel, 49, and Christopher Jr, 45 – was sanctioned by the US government in 2022. Authorities allege the Irishman acted as a trusted lieutenant to Daniel Kinahan, who is said to manage the cartel’s vast drug trafficking operation by helping move bulk cash across Europe, arranging payments and keeping tabs on money owed by a narco-trafficker.

Bellingcat and The Sunday Times can today reveal how Dixon’s racquet sport hobby has left behind a digital trail that led to the most recent footage of him since those sanctions were imposed – the first time he has been pictured publicly in almost a decade. This investigation also uncovers the alias Dixon has used in Dubai and exposes the first open source links to an underworld associate who was recently extradited from the Gulf state and jailed in Scotland.

It comes as cartel leader Daniel Kinahan awaits extradition to Ireland after his arrest in Dubai on foot of a warrant issued by Irish authorities. The arrest, in April, followed an extensive policing and diplomatic effort from international law enforcement.

In March, investigations by Bellingcat and The Sunday Times exposed the first photographs of Daniel Kinahan and his father in years and also revealed that the cartel’s “friend”, former UFC fighter Mounir Lazzez, was connected to US sanctions against Iran.

The latest findings give an unprecedented glimpse into the recent activity of a key cartel associate who, until now, has largely flown under the radar.

Family Ties

When cartel founder Christy Kinahan moved to Spain after his release from an Irish prison in 2001, it wasn’t long before his new home became a hub for the gang. His sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr, soon followed him to the Costa del Sol – as did their younger cousin, Dublin native Ian Dixon.

From the late 2000s onward, Dixon worked for businesses linked to the crime family in the south of Spain. One of these was The Auld Dubliner, a pub in Estepona that reportedly served as a base of operations for the cartel. In 2010, the pub was raided and temporarily closed by authorities as part of Operation Shovel, a years-long multi-national police investigation into the cartel’s drugs and arms-trafficking activities.

Dixon would also work as a trainer at MGM Marbella, the boxing gym co-founded by Daniel Kinahan that would go on to represent some of the biggest pro boxers in the world. The company, which was renamed MTK Global, shut down after the US sanctions on the Kinahans were imposed in April 2022.

In 2016, Dixon was arrested by Spanish police investigating the murder of Irish criminal Gary Hutch. The previous year, Hutch had been gunned down while out for a morning jog in a gated community on the Costa del Sol.

Dixon was released without charge, and another Kinahan cartel associate was later sentenced to 22 years for his role in the murder. The killing sparked a feud between the Kinahans and the rival Irish Hutch gang  that resulted in at least 18 deaths. 

Dixon and other key Kinahan members fled to Dubai in the wake of the deadly feud.

Ian Dixon has no known convictions. But his alleged role in the Kinahan Organised Crime Group was laid bare when the US sanctioned him. Authorities said Dixon managed finances and moved bulk currency for Daniel Kinahan and also kept tabs on the debt owed by a narco-trafficker. 

The sanctions notice also said Dixon controlled Hoopoe Sports LLC, a Dubai firm that listed a number of pro boxers among its clients and reportedly received more than $4 million for bouts involving former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. Boxing promoter Bob Arum told Yahoo Sports the money was for consulting fees owed to Daniel Kinahan.

Dixon lived in an exclusive gated community in Dubai, according to the 2022 sanctions notice. Online listings show that properties like his Spanish-inspired villa are worth up to $2.7 million.

Passion for Padel

Padel is an increasingly popular racquet sport from Mexico best described as a combination of tennis and squash. According to the sport’s governing body, it has more than 17.5 million weekly players across 150 countries and the UAE, where Dixon lives, has the second-highest number of padel courts in Asia. It was on these courts in late 2024 that Dixon played in the master final of the Asia Pacific Padel Tour (APPT).

APPT rankings show Dixon registered for the tournament under the name “Ian Thomas”. Like his cartel leader relative Christy Kinahan, who used his first and middle names as an alias on his Google review profile, Dixon had dropped his surname.

Finding a Fugitive – How we Located Dixon

Bellingcat found the padel club promotion showing Ian Dixon after running images of the cartel associate through a publicly available facial recognition search engine. Among the results was a link to a graphic designer’s online portfolio, which included the advertisement for the padel competition. The original photo had been posted on the sports club’s Instagram page in late 2023, with the caption: “Elevating fun, one swing at a time!” Dixon was not named.

We searched for additional open source evidence and located online profiles for a 36-year-old Irish padel player named “Ian Thomas” who had taken part in a number of matches in Dubai in recent years. One profile shows he played 16 ranked matches between September 2024 and April 2026 – the most recent being the week after Daniel Kinahan’s arrest. But the accounts did not include profile pictures.

Bellingcat searched for footage showing the padel events and venues listed on the profiles. It returned multiple social media posts and live-streams clearly showing Ian Dixon at the same events where “Ian Thomas” was registered as playing. Dixon can also be heard speaking with a Dublin accent and at one point is seen with a close relative of Daniel Kinahan.

Dixon and his doubles partner played four games over the December 13-15 weekend, eventually placing second after losing in the final. The Irish cartel associate is captured on film after the match receiving a silver medal and commemorative racquet.

The Asia Pacific Padel Tour was held a month after senior Kinahan cartel figure Sean McGovern was arrested in Dubai on foot of an Interpol red notice. McGovern was extradited to Ireland last year and earlier this month jailed for 24 years for directing the activities of a criminal organisation in relation to murder and attempted murder. 

The tournament was live-streamed to YouTube via webcams set up on two courts. Dixon was captured throughout the three-day event, both playing on the court and mingling with others in the background. The hour-long male amateur final, which Dixon lost, is viewable in its entirety.

Dixon also posed for photos during the tournament, but it appears he did have some reticence about appearing on social media. In two images from a different padel event hosted at the same venue a few months later, Dixon’s face had been covered. However, a third photo was not edited, confirming that it was Ian Dixon.

Kingpin in the Crowd

Among the people Dixon was seen with at padel events in Dubai was Stephen Jamieson, a Scottish criminal who was recently jailed for his role in a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking operation.

Dixon greeted Jamieson with a fist pump during the Dubai APPT tournament in December 2024 on the day the Irishman played in the amateur final.

Dixon was also pictured with Jamieson at a family day padel event just weeks before the Scottish criminal’s arrest. (Bellingcat is not publishing details of that event to protect the identity of family members.)

Jamieson, who has multiple convictions, was extradited from Dubai last year and is serving a six-year prison sentence in Scotland on organised crime and drug charges. The case against him was built around intercepted messages he had sent via the defunct encrypted communication network EncroChat – a network the Kinahans have also used – to direct drug shipments.

The Sunday Times reports today on the Kinahan cartel’s deeply entrenched links to organised crime in the UK, where it is known to control much of the illicit drug market. It said the footage showing that Dixon and Jamieson know each other could indicate an underworld connection, since cartel cadres do not associate with rival operations.

Three of the seven alleged key Kinahan cartel figures have been arrested since the US sanctions were imposed. Johnny Morrissey, arrested in Spain in 2022, was later bailed and subject to a travel ban. Sean McGovern was jailed earlier this month and Daniel Kinahan awaits extradition to Ireland after his recent arrest in Dubai. Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly, of Ireland’s police force, recently said the investigation into the Kinahan cartel was ongoing and that authorities were continuing to focus on the other members of the gang.

Ian Dixon did not respond to questions from Bellingcat.

Connor Plunkett, Peter Barth, Beau Donelly and John Mooney contributed to this article. 

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.

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The post Poster Boy: Sanctioned Kinahan Cartel Lieutenant Found Playing Padel in Dubai appeared first on bellingcat.