Gardaí seek info from Kinahan Cartel partner turned supergrass after Dubai extradition

Irish investigators targeting the Irish mob will be eager to know what information Daniel Kinahan’s former wedding guest has on his fellow Super Cartel members and how their massive cocaine deals are made.

The Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau this week formally linked up with Italy’s Anti Mafia Investigation Directorate to target crime gangs involved in drugs and money laundering.

But Imperiale’s role as an international cocaine broker with contacts across the world means investigators from several other countries also want their chance to quiz him.

The Italian mafia boss turned State witness demonstrated the damage he can do to the underworld with the news of 100 arrests as police moved against a gang who used his services

A ‘Ndrangheta-linked gang based in Lombardy who supplied drugs, sourced through Imperiale, to crime gangs in Milan was hit with dozens of arrests earlier this month.

Imperiale told how he had to use the gangs when he decided to move drugs into the Lombardy market, according to reports in the Italian media.

A highly sophisticated network was set up that moved the cocaine on trucks in consignments of 200 to 330 kilos from ports in The Netherlands down south to Italy.

The news last year of Imperiale’s decision to co-operate with investigators sent shock waves through the top levels of international crime gangs.

Imperiale and another accused arrested in Dubai, Bruno Carbone, made the offer to switch sides, it emerged at the Naples Court of Review last December.

He has promised to tell the Neapolitan Anti-Mafia magistrates everything he knows from over 20 years in the Neapolitan Camorra.

Agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration as well as Dutch police and the Italians all have an interest in information that Imperiale can give them.

Dutch police are currently investigating whether lawyer Inez Weski was a link between her client Ridouan Taghi and Raffaele Imperiale, according to RTL Nieuws last week.

Like Imperiale, Taghi was also a wedding guest of Daniel Kinahan in 2017 at the Burj Al Arab hotel and is on trial in The Netherlands for a series of gangland offences including murder.

It is claimed Taghi left Imperiale in control of millions of euros and it is alleged attempts were made to move the cash following Taghi’s arrest.

Gardai welcomed members of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia at the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau in Dublin to formally join the Operational Network.

“First established by the DIA in Italy, the network now involves over 40 international police forces across 35 countries collectively targeting top level, mafia-style organised crime groups that pose both a global and European threat,” said a garda media post.

Gardai from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau will travel to Europol headquarters in the Hague for meetings next week.

The Operational Network was set up in 2018 and included police from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.