The Jig Is Up For Daniel Kinahan

Shady, bad for boxing, an evil of biblical proportions. If you thought these were but a few of the comments the United States boxing writers had about Daniel Kinahan, the freshly US-sanctioned head of the Kinahan Organized Crime Group(KOCG), you would of course be wrong.

These comments were reserved for Al Haymon,a man who never participated in any crimes and was one of the most respected businessmen in the music industry before he got involved in boxing. Where he apparently committed the unspeakable crimes of reducing the percentages boxers paid to managers and promoters while eliminating needless middlemen and getting better pay and treatment for boxers. The cad!

Why Daniel Kinahan, who prior to the US sanctions was named as the head of the murderous Kinahan Cartel in an Irish High Court, received a vastly different reception from the boxing media. Let us have a look at a small sample of what writers in the US had to say about Kinahan…

What a scathing indictment!

When Mike received pushback from a Twitter user about his seemingly gleeful reporting of Daniel Kinahan’s involvement in the purse for Billie Joe Saunders in his fight against Canelo, Mike Coppinger responded with his traditional rational insight that really shows his professionalism.

But Mr. Coppinger is not even the worst example of figures who were willing to ignore or dismiss Daniel Kinahan’s known role in leading the KOCG. I just like shitting on him for being so willing to be a mouthpiece for bad actors in boxing.

There was no shortage of stooges willing to either whole-heartedly support Kinahan or at least play pretend and not ask too many questions. Something that was evident when Kinahan started a press push to reform his image by getting notable figures to make public statements about how great of a guy he was to work with. Such as this gem from Bob Arum;

Kudos to Bob for at least acknowledging that there were some questions about Kinahan’s background. Although I do not think setting a standard akin of, “Well, as long as he doesn’t shoot someone when I’m in the room it will be fine.” is the best policy when dealing with reputed drug cartel leaders.

The above clip was taken from an IFL TV interview. IFL TV is a UK outlet co-founded by Kugan Cassius that from the beginning was funded by MGM Marbella. That was the original name of MTK (Mack The Knife). Yes, one of the UK’s most watched boxing outlets was started with the help of Daniel Kinahan. Which likely explains IFL’s willingness to be part of the shill parade for Daniel.

Also notable is that the above clip came out shortly after the purported owner of MTK Global Sandra Vaughan, identified on Companies House filings as Alexandra McClumpha, had said that Daniel Kinahan had no involvement in any business with MTK fighters. Arum’s statements called MTK’s claims into question which then caused Sandra to scramble to “clarify” the role Daniel Kinahan played in the MTK universe as an “advisor” to fighters.

MTK would reverse positions against a month later when they announced a partnership with Daniel Kinahan and KHK Sports out of Bahrain. That seems like an awful lot of interaction with someone who supposedly had no connection to their business. But the entrance of MTK into this story brings us to the next chapter.

The Useful Idiots

One of the most interesting aspects of the Daniel Kinahan case is how sloppy they are at pretending that their front companies are not front companies. You would think that people engaged in the business of trafficking narcotics and money laundering would be a bit more savvy in covering their tracks. But perhaps being ensconced in the United Arab Emirates for years left Kinahan with little choice but to use the same people that have always swirled around his universe.

Take for instance, Sandra Vaughan. In announcing that MTK was enacting a total ban on Irish media, Sandra claimed that she was the sole owner of MTK and Daniel Kinahan was no longer involved with the company. What Sandra never explained is where she got the money to buy MTK given that just a few short years prior her previous business, a subsidiary of Fake Bake USA, went into bankruptcy over debts. You can use Google to find out about Sandra’s ties to the narcotics world. While never implicated in any crimes, she sure has been around some interesting characters in her life.

But I am not here to regurgitate information you can find anywhere. No way, Buster Brown! I am here to give you knowledge you can’t find anywhere else. And I am not even talking about how an MTK manager, Anthony Fitzpatrick, was found during a raid on a house now shown to have been claimed by the Kinahan cartel over an investment debt. This was in 2019 when Daniel Kinahan was claimed to have NO INVOLVEMENT AT ALL with MTK’s business affairs. I guess Kinahan is just a big fan of shared office space.

And it is that love of office sharing that leads us to this little sliver of information that should see the world of MTK Global Promotions collapse if there is any competency in the various European police forces involved in this case. Let us go now to an excerpt from US Treasury Department’s press release.

Ducashew General Trading LLC (Ducashew) is a UAE-based business management consulting company. Ducashew was designated for being owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, Daniel Kinahan. Daniel Kinahan runs Ducashew through various individuals and is involved in its financial and business management. US Department Of The Treasury

Now for most the mention of Ducashew will be nothing more than another factoid to include in their stories regarding the companies Kinahan is using to cover for his narcotics trade. But I am not most writers! Something my bar bill reminds me of all the time.

For Ducashew triggered the bud of a memory soon brought to full bloom by my compatriot @arejaywoof. As we had run across that name before in our interest in the Daniel Kinahan story. Full disclosure, I only showed Arejay where to search for UAE company information, all the rest of the legwork was his doing. I just wanted to demonstrate that I am not some Johnny-Come-Lately to the Kinahan saga.

Well is that not a stunner? Somehow Sandra “Daniel Is Not Involved” Vaughan decided to register MTK Global in the UAE using the same address as Ducashew Consultancy did a month earlier. That sure is a wild coincidence that MTK Global was in unit B and Ducashew which we now know to be a front company run by Daniel Kinahan was in unit A.

In 2019 Sandra Vaughan claimed to have sold MTK to Ronan Cruise, her longtime business partner and, according to sources, brother-in-law. This is where the claimed division between MTK and Daniel Kinahan becomes even harder to believe as the listed licensed manager for both companies had been changed to Khalid Abdulrahman Mohammad Aljassmi.

What is not known is if Khalid Aljassmi is the same person as Khalid Al Jassmi who was appointed as MTK Global’s Brand Ambassador back in 2018. Even if that is not the case, MTK Global’s continued claims that they have no association is starting to stretch the bounds of credulity.

The world of Daniel Kinahan is full of people who have spent years talking about how great a friend he was or defending him as never being convicted that are suddenly saying they had no involvement with him. Such as Probellum who despite using a trademark owned by MTK Global also claim to have no association with Kinahan. But Probellum is also full of people who are associated with Kinahan such as Sam Jones who has spent the last two days scrubbing all the posts of his where he called Daniel Kinahan a great friend and attacked journalists for writing stories about Kinahan. Then there is this little incident…

Why it’s just the sports minister of Pakistan referring to Daniel Kinahan as negotiating on behalf of Probellum. And the woman in these photos is none other than Sandra Vaughan. My how the world twists and turns. Sandra went from running a company that had absolutely no involvement with Daniel Kinahan to showing up in photo ops with him.

There is also current MTK Global CEO Bob Yalen who was voted into International Boxing Hall of Fame recently who is claiming that Daniel Kinahan has had no involvement with MTK since 2017. Bob Yalen was hired to be the CEO of MTK Global in October of 2018. Yet here is the very same Bob Yalen sitting beside Daniel Kinahan at a charity auction in Kazahkstan in 2019. That seems like an awfully long way to fly to hang out with someone you do not do any business with.

Why Should The US Boxing World Care?

It is inevitable that when a story like the US sanctions on Daniel Kinahan hits that there will be a select few individuals who try to be edgy and suggest that the head of an international drug cartel having influence over several top fighters should not be of concern to US boxing fans despite the fact that Daniel Kinahan was named as an advisor to several US based fighters.

For we only need to go back to the beginning of this story to see why it should be of great importance to US boxing fans. It was Bob Arum who started the attacks on Al Haymon’s character with suggestions that he was operating outside the law.

And these insinuations have been a staple of writers who love to jockey for position at Top Rank events when they would repeat the various unfounded claims of Arum in covering Haymon or Premier Boxing Champions in their stories. Yet when Bob Arum openly campaigned for Daniel Kinahan who was named as the head of the KOCG by the Irish High Court they said nothing. Outside of a few US writers like the always upstanding Jake Donovan and others like Tim Bissell this story garnered no interest from boxing outlets.

This story is likely only at the beginning although I’m sure there are those that wish it were already over. But as it develops there should be some serious questions as to why the US boxing media were so quick to vilify an honest businessman and then be completely disinterested when the leader of a murderous drug cartel was openly moving into the sport.