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Crime World Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Part 2)
When the Criminal Assets Bureau was set up in 1996 after the brutal murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh was its first target.
A known drug dealer and with a string of convictions, Bomber was then running a lucrative business along with his cousin Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh. They were dealing whatever they could get their hands on and making a pretty penny as a result.
Hatchet would be shot dead in Marbella in 2014, a hit understood to have been sanctioned by Kavanagh and organised by his then business partner, Daniel Kinahan.
But when David Byrne took a bullet meant for Daniel at the Regency Hotel in February 2016 — it changed everything and cemented a blood bond between Kinahan and Kavanagh that would set them in the sights of international law enforcement.
Now, in a Crime World special, we reveal the rise and spectacular fall of Bomber's empire and why he became one of Ireland's most-feared mob bosses.
Crime Word Podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Soundcloud.
Read more
- Crime World Long Read: Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh - from low-level dealer to Ireland's most-feared mob boss (Part 1)
- Episode 109 - The brutal murder of Emer O'Loughlin in a mobile home in Galway
- Episode 108 - How the Prison Services are controlling Ireland's most notorious criminals
- Episode 107: How Spanish cops failed to take down the Kinahan's reign in Spain
- Episode 106: The gangland fall-out from the EncroChat phone hack
- Episode 105: What has changed for the Kinahan Cartel since the U.S. sanctions?
- Episode 104: The cold case murders that have haunted Northern Ireland
- Episode 103: The Lithuanian gang who flooded Ireland with heroin through their network of slave dealers
- Episode 102: The life and crimes of Kinahan cartel crony Johnny 'Cash' Morrissey
- Episode 101: What's next for the WAGS of the Kinahan Cartel?
- Episode 100: The Kinahan Cartel's partnership with Scotland's most-feared mobs
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