Gangster paradise Dubai

Playground for influencers and gangsters alike: the famous luxury hotel Burj al-Arab (r.) in the nighttime skyline of the Emirati metropolis Dubai

Perhaps crime boss Daniel Kinahan, who has now been extradited to his home country of Ireland, would still be living unmolested in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) today if he had celebrated his wedding in a small circle in 2017. Instead, he had also invited international guests such as Ridouan Taghi - from the Dutch so-called Mocro Mafia, now imprisoned for life -, Ricardo Riquelme Vega (former drug trafficker in Chile, now also in a Dutch high-security wing) and Raffaele Imperiale (formerly associated with the Campanian Camorra Mafia, now a key witness for the Italian justice system) to the big party in the famous skyscraper Burj al-Arab. Kinahan at least valued discretion; posting pictures of the celebration was strictly forbidden for security reasons. However, that would not have been necessary because among those invited was an informant from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the agency responsible for prosecuting drug criminals. He later reported in detail about the gangsters present and was even able to present a secretly recorded video.

The men formed a kind of cartel that, according to a later assessment by Europol analysts, was at one point responsible for a third of Europe's cocaine trade. Seeing them together in the same room was probably an incredible stroke of luck for the DEA investigators. Nevertheless, the term “super cartel” coined at the time is not entirely accurate, as Raffaele Imperiale said years later. Rather, it was a rather loose association of business people who shared investments and risks as needed and then acted separately again: "We depend on each other, but at the same time we are also competitors."

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