Son of Irish crime boss admits gun plot to help father

By Emily Pennink, PA Old Bailey Correspondent

The son of a UK boss of the Kinahan organised crime group has admitted helping his father in a plot to amass an arms cache to dupe authorities.

Jack Kavanagh, 24, whose father is Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh, was extradited to the UK last month.

He had been arrested in May 2023 at Malaga Airport by officers from the Spanish National Police, as he was transiting from Dubai to Turkey.

On Friday, Kavanagh, from Tamworth, appeared at the Old Bailey and pleaded guilty by video-link from Belmarsh prison to two charges of conspiracy to possess a firearm and two offences of plotting to possess ammunition.

Judge Philip Katz remanded the defendant into custody to be sentenced on December 4th.

Last month, Irish national Thomas Kavanagh, 57, was jailed for six years for orchestrating the plot.

He had hoped that by leading the National Crime Agency (NCA) to a buried stash of 11 “fearsome” weapons, he could influence his sentencing in a multimillion-pound drug smuggling case.

Running the conspiracy from prison, Kavanagh enlisted the help of his son, as well as his brother-in-law, 44-year-old Liam Byrne, and associate Shaun Kent, 38, in the plan to deceive the NCA.

In May 2021, Thomas Kavanagh provided information to the NCA which led them to a field in Newry, Co Down, where two holdalls were unearthed.

They contained seven machine guns, three automatic hand guns, an assault rifle and ammunition.

The plot was foiled after the NCA uncovered incriminating messages on encrypted EncroChat which had been cracked by French counterparts.

Between January 2020 and June 2021, the defendants agreed to “acquire as many arms as possible” from the UK, Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Kavanagh had run the conspiracy from HMP Dovegate where he was serving a three-year sentence for possession of a stun gun and had been remanded on serious drug charges since March 2020.

Those charges related to smuggling “multiple kilos” of cocaine and cannabis into the UK for which he was sentenced in March 2022 to 21 years in prison.

In September, Kavanagh, Byrne, from Dublin, and Kent, from Liverpool, admitted two charges of conspiring to possess a prohibited weapon, and two charges of conspiring to possess prohibited ammunition, between January 9 2020 and June 3 2021.

Kavanagh and Kent also admitted conspiring with others to pervert the course of justice.

Byrne – who fled to Majorca after the events – was jailed for five years while Kent was handed a six-year prison sentence.

Kavanagh will serve his sentence consecutive to his jail time for previous offending.