Revealed: Christy Kinahan Snr planned African escape with stunning Dutch partner

The Sunday World can reveal the ‘Dapper Don’ purchased luxury properties in capital Harare amid plans to relocate his family there from the United Arab Emirates.

Kinahan, along with his partner Nessy Yildirim, planned to base themselves in Harare, where they had already chosen and bought properties to meet their needs.

Kinahan Snr hoped to go from Irish mafia boss to a global cocaine powerbroker in a move that would have made him of equal importance to the Colombians who control the production and price of the drug.

However, a deal to buy a fleet of Egyptian military planes followed by the devastating US sanctions levelled against Kinahan Snr and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jnr last April put paid to the African dream.

Yildirim has been with Kinahan since he was based in Spain and is his long-term partner. She is of Turkish origin but is believed to have met him in the Netherlands, where he spent a lot of time since 2000.

It is understood the couple have two children but that the Godfather has at least eight children with four different women, including a number of adult offspring living in Ireland.

Kinahan married Jean Boylan, the mother of Daniel and Christopher Snr, when he was addicted to heroin and starting out in a life of crime. He later separated from her but between spates in prison often had his sons living with him in Tallaght.

He had another relationship with a south Dublin woman and had a child with her as well as two others, a son and a daughter, with another Irish woman before he left first for the UK and later Europe.

There he married his second wife, Dutch native Jacqueline Kallenbach, who died earlier this year after a short illness.

Their marriage only lasted a few years and they had no childrenbut Kinahan Snr went on to have a relationship with a Belgian woman before settling down with Yildirim.

Reporters from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists discovered that Kinahan posed as a humanitarian aviation consultant and, with Yildrim’s help, tried to buy a fleet of planes known for short take-off and landing capabilities.

In July, the Sunday Worldwas revealed how the Kinahan gang were moving cocaine across Africa in air ambulances.

It emerged how the cartel had bought off officials for use of landing strips and took control of the key transport route to Europe, making the Irish gang second only in importance to the Colombian Cartels.

The Irish mafia had effectively taken control of Africa’s lucrative ‘cocaine corridor’ – one of the main routes for importing drugs into Europe.

After the drugs landed in the southern part of Africa, the Kinahan gang would use ‘air ambulances’ to move the cocaine through the continent to ports where it could be shipped into Europe.

Now the news organisation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), have published details of how, Christy Snr, attempted to pull off a series of multi-million-euro aviation deals while posing as a legitimate broker.

According to the leaked documents, a Dubai company linked to Kinahan tried to purchase as many as nine used de Havilland Canada DHC-5 Buffalos from the Egyptian air force in 2020.

It is claimed he also attempted to do lucrative deals in Africa and Latin America and even explored buying an Antonov An-26 turboprop in Venezuela.

Emails show Kinahan pushing for the formation of a company in Singapore so that it could negotiate the Egyptian deal.

In late 2019, Kinahan explained in an email that he wanted the company website to “create a smoke and mirrors illusion that we are bigger and better than a mere start-up company”. ​

It is claimed Kinahan also tried to establish a home and a business hub in Zimbabwe, but was forced to abandon his plans after being denied permanent residency.

ICIJ reveal how Kinahan attended an aviation conference in 2019 at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El Sheikh

The gathering was hosted by the World Food Program and the now former Egyptian minister of civil aviation, Lt. Gen. Younis el-Masri. Shortly after the conference, the Dubai aviation company linked to Kinahan, made inquiries about buying aircraft from the Egyptian military.

A company representative wrote to Egyptian defence attaché in Abu Dhabi, Brigadier Hisham Nabil Monir, about buying up to nine DHC Buffalo military transport planes for as much as $8 million.​

In March 2020, the attaché sent the company technical information related to the Buffalo and gave “the Egyptian Air Force’s approval” for a field inspection at the Almaza Air Force base, in Cairo.

The ICIJ write that company representatives kept Kinahan – who used the name ‘CV DXB’ – updated in text messages.

They write: “By December 2020, Kinahan and his associates seemed confident that a deal for the purchase of the nine aircraft would go through, and they said they were transferring millions of dollars to cover the cost, records show.

According to an account appearing under the letterhead ‘Christopher Vincent Business Broker’, Kinahan and his business associate met in January 2021 with a Dubai-based lender Ltd, to finance the purchase of the Egyptian aircraft.

“In the meeting, [Kinahan’s associate] said the deal ‘would be in the region of $20 million,’ according to minutes.

“...Kinahan agreedthey could probably come up with 25 percent. But they were not sure about 50 percent, the minutes show.

“A [Dubai lender] representative said she was confused by the deal and would need a lot more detailed information before proceeding any further, according to the minutes.”​

However, the deal fell through and screenshots from a WhatsApp conversation in September 2021 show Kinahan notifying his team that the deal was off.

The ICIJ write: “He declared that ‘the Buffalo deal is now officially closed.’