Serving prisoner admits part in Kinahan gang arms cache plot

By Emily Pennink, PA Old Bailey Correspondent

A serving prisoner has admitted his part in a plot to amass an arms cache to help the UK boss of the Kinahan organised crime gang.

On Wednesday, Peter Keating (43), from Clondalkin in Dublin, admitted two charges of conspiracy to possess a firearm and two offences of plotting to possess ammunition.

He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Keating entered his pleas by video link from Belmarsh prison in south London but is expected to be sent back to Ireland where he is already serving 12 years for directing a criminal organisation.

Judge Philip Katz KC said he would sentence Keating at England's Central Criminal Court on Thursday alongside Jack Kavanagh (24), from Tamworth, who pleaded guilty to the weapons and ammunition offences after being extradited from Spain.

Kavanagh was arrested in May 2023 at Malaga Airport by officers from the Spanish National Police, as he was travelling from Dubai to Turkey.

He admitted helping his father, Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh, in a bid to engineer a reduced jail sentence by duping the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

Thomas Kavanagh (57) had hoped that by leading the 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 also enlisted the help of Keating, his brother-in-law, 44-year-old Liam Byrne, and associate Shaun Kent (38).

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 handguns, 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, the Netherlands and Ireland.

At the time, Thomas Kavanagh was in 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 the weapons and ammunition plots.

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

Thomas Kavanagh was jailed for six years for orchestrating the plot which he will serve consecutively with his earlier jail sentences.

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