Well that should be it then really. No way a monk would lie.
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Sounded like a weak enough case there on the lunchtime news.
Seems watery enough alright.
DPP will fuck it up anyway
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New Zealand with the rest of the super grass gang
Cops had it fucked before DPP got near it
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Back arse of Canada surely.
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What did they do or not do (allegedly)
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How Daniel Kinahan’s online nemesis is tracking him down from comfort of his home
Information uncovered by an army of anonymous internet sleuths is being pounced upon by security services on the trail of the organised crime boss
ILLUSTRATION: HAYLEY DALRYMPLE
John Mooney, Crime & Security Correspondent
Sunday October 30 2022, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
Arejay Woof has become one of Daniel Kinahan’s nemeses — in the virtual world. From the comfort of his home somewhere in the United States, Woof uses his laptop to scour the internet for open-source intelligence (Osint) on the leader of the Kinahan cartel.
This typically means examining social media and using a variety of online tools to collect information on Kinahan and expose those in the world of professional boxing once associated with him.
“This account remains anonymous, not only for my safety, but for the safety of those I love as well,” said Woof, a pseudonym used by a shadowy figure who agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity.
Woof and others like him form a disparate army of citizen activists determined to do their bit to pursue Kinahan and the top tier of his cartel, who are the targets of an international police inquiry. Some like Woof are IT professionals but others have been inspired by Bellingcat, the online investigative platform that has unmasked Russia spies and exposed war crimes in Syria using open-source information.
Woof was inspired to pursue Kinahan after becoming interested in boxing. “I had never really watched boxing before I just happened to catch the Joshua-Klitschko fight on TV and was hooked. I started following the sport and Daniel Kinahan’s name came up,” he said.
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The online activist was astonished by Kinahan’s influence on professional boxing given the allegations of his involvement in transnational crime.
“I eventually came across a US state department cable published on WikiLeaks. The cable sold me on the story,” he recalled, referring to a leaked diplomatic cable sent from the US embassy in Sierra Leone that named Kinahan as an international drug trafficker.
A reward of $15 million is being offered for information that helps bring key members of the Kinahan cartel, including Daniel Kinahan, to justice
Ever since, Woof has spent all his free time trawling through online company records, domain registrations and social media for information on Kinahan, which he posts on Twitter, much to the annoyance of the crime boss.
Internet sleuths like him receive no funding, do not have offices or researchers and do not seek fame, although they appear to enjoy the notoriety.
“I enjoy this kind of research a bunch. It can be like solving a captivating puzzle. I am not a journalist but I guess this is part of the attraction of doing investigative journalism,” said Countermole, an alias used by another internet sleuth.
Countermole was prompted to take action after watching The Regency: Discover the Truth, a 15-minute documentary made in 2020, about the paramilitary-style assault on a boxing weigh-in held at the Regency hotel in 2016. The film suggested that the attack was a conspiracy between a rival gang, the gardai and Fine Gael to win the 2016 election. It was a bizarre theory but it attracted more than 90,000 views in a matter of days before it was taken down over copyright infringement.
“I had read in a news article that nobody could find out who made the film. I am a fan of Bellingcat’s work and knew the same Osint research techniques might help figure out who was behind it. I thought it was worth bringing to the attention of the public and media. One thread led to another,” Countermole said. Countermole is now credited with exposing the names and identities of those who made and featured in the film using Osint tools.
“I took a screenshot of the face of the actor who played Kinahan and ran it through reverse-image search engines. I got one good result: a professional headshot of a person that bore a striking resemblance to the one in the film.
“This was key in finding who was behind it. The picture linked to an actor’s profile that listed his previous roles and associated info, which included the Regency film. This provided some search terms to work with. From there it was just some straightforward googling which eventually led to finding the name of the UK production company. Once you have a company name it’s easy to find information on its directors as the UK company listings are freely available and can be pretty thorough,” he explained.
Both Woof and Countermole are paranoid about protecting their identities. The cartel has been linked to 36 murders in Ireland, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands in recent years. The true figure may be higher, with victims vanishing without trace. Some murders in the Netherlands involved extreme violence, including decapitation.
As a precaution, they keep their activities secret and, when investigating websites linked to the cartel, both use software and online tools to disguise their whereabouts.
“Nobody in my life knows I do this, for the same reason I do it through an anonymous Twitter account — due to the subject matter it has potential risks and I do not have highly paid lawyers or a security team to back me up,” Countermole said.
Many of the revelations posted by Woof, Countermole and cyberactivists on social media have been published by newspapers but the security services have also gained further insights into the cartel as a result of their work.
“Every one of those accounts is continually monitored and trawled for information,” one of the garda involved in investigating the cartel acknowledged.
Kinahan is one of the few organised crime figures who cares about his reputation. He has sponsored numerous efforts to cast doubt on his involvement in organised crime. It is assumed that he financed the Regency film but also the publication of Blood Feud, an anonymous print-on-demand book that portrayed him in a sympathetic light. Kinahan also commands a small army of internet trolls who post favourable content on Twitter, WhatsApp and Faceboook.
Hence Kinahan and his cartel are very much aware of Woof and Countermole but he has been unable to stop them using his tried and trusted tactics of threats, intimidation and violence as he cannot identify them.
So the cartel and its affiliates have resorted to filing numerous complaints to Twitter using proxies citing invasion of privacy and copyright infringements.
Whoever files the complaints often cites privacy laws of the country pertinent to where the photograph was taken or file obtained, indicating the involvement of lawyers.
Woof has defended five complaints made to Twitter so far but is unsure how many infringement notices would be required to ban his account.
The same tactics, he says, have been used to ensure Kinahan’s entry on Wikipedia is toned down. The edit history section of the entry contains numerous edits as well, citing a “recognised right to privacy law” on “behalf of a representative”.
Other activists trained in computer forensics and hacking have used their skills to target the Kinahans and collect information.
The internal workings of the cartel’s communications network was identified in 2016 when a researcher discovered a security flaw in computer servers they operated in the Netherlands. The servers had been used by the cartel to send and receive emails via custom-made smartphones with PGP encryption — considered among the most secure systems.
“The Kinahans were using a home-grown encrypted phone network, which involved encrypted BlackBerry phones communicating with a custom email server for the group hosted in the Netherlands. Each phone was configured with a randomised email address and a corresponding PGP encryption key. A misconfiguration on the PGP key server revealed the list of the dozens of accounts created by the group over many months,” said the researcher who examined the server.
The data found on the server was later passed to the intelligence services, who used it to disrupt the organised crime gang’s activities without them even knowing. The breach was a significant event for the cartel as it enabled the security services to begin monitoring them.
More people are continuing to join the ranks of the disparate online group hunting the cartel from their offices and bedrooms though their work has become more difficult. The posting of a $15 million (€15.05 million) reward for information on Kinahan and his cartel has prompted the gang to go “offline” to avoid detection but Woof and his colleagues are not deterred.
They are still getting tip-offs from their legion of followers on social media and say their hunt for information will continue until Kinahan’s eventual arrest.
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Now is the time to buy shares in Fuscos
Woof etc are agents of the state
Be it Brit or yanks
Brilliant nevertheless
All about exposing those murdering drug cunts
So as when they’re taken out Joe Public won’t be shocked or disgusted
Brits did it for umpteen years
Hence the shoot to kill and Gibraltar killings etc
Sounds like they’ve very little actual hard evidence agsinst Mr Monk? A lot will rest of Dowdalls testimony?
It seems a half hearted enough effort at convicting him.
Nobody really wants an ordinary, decent criminal like Mr Hutch locked up.
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And how reliable could that possibly be
The claims of privilege are interesting. They must have had a tracker on car and car bugged. Once car goes over border that’s unlawful.
Would you get odds anywhere on a Hutch acquittal?
Surely 4/5 to 1. Would beef up the weekly €3 accumulator….
Probably be let down by Kilcoo or Ballygunner in any event…
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They’ve a way of getting where they need to on stuff like this. Id say he’ll get done.