The boxing-side of the story started in a small gym in Marbella and now it involves some of the most powerful criminal agencies from around the globe.

For years, Daniel Kinahan’s involvement in boxing has been debated – perhaps not nearly often or vigorously enough – but now the scab has been picked and the wound has been opened.

And it’s sore.

Kinahan is a wanted man, literally, and law enforcement agencies have united to hand over $5million to anyone who can help shut Kinahan and his alleged criminal network down. There’s a further $10m on offer for two other family members.

Daniel Kinahan became a significant player in boxing through his ties to MTK Global. Those ties were said to have been severed in 2017 – and that has been reiterated in an MTK statement this week – and then Kinahan was linked with new promotional force Probellum – who also issued a statement this week that he will apparently have nothing to do with them moving forwards, either.

We know he has advised Probellum fighters and we know he has helped various members from Probellum on their boxing journeys. The same can be said for MTK and their boxers.

Kinahan, by the way, has no criminal convictions, he has not even got a criminal record but there are a few people who want to speak to him about allegations that he’s a crime boss who has traded in guns, drugs and murder.

Those wishing to talk to him now include members of several US federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency [DEA], the Office of Foreign Assets Control [OFAC], the National Crime Agency in the UK and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation as well as the Irish police.

There’s not only a reward for Kinahan, but sanctions have been imposed for those dealing with Kinahan and his businesses in the USA.

It was all part of a ground-breaking and unprecedented joint announcement in Dublin this week 

Wendy Woolcock of the Drug Enforcement Agency said: “I stand before you as a member of the international law enforcement community pledging our continued commitment to relentlessly pursue, investigate and bring to justice members of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group, specifically Christopher Vincent, Daniel and Christopher Jr.” 

Gregory Gajjanis, of the US Treasury, said the Kinahan organisation could now be categorised alongside Italy’s Camorra, Mexico’s Los Zetos, Japan’s Yakuza and Russia’s Thieves in Law.

Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said: “The Kinahan Organized Crime Group smuggles deadly narcotics, including cocaine, to Europe, and is a threat to the entire licit economy through its role in international money laundering. Criminal groups like the KOVG prey on the most vulnerable in society and bring drug-related crime and violence, including murder, to the countries in which they operate.”

US businesses and financial institutions can no longer to work with the Kinahans and now the top brass at TV networks and promotional powerhouses can no longer say they didn’t know what they were doing or who they were doing it with. 

At this week’s Dublin news conference, Irish police commissioner Drew Harris added: “If you deal with the individuals who are sanctioned as part of the Kinahan crime gang, you are dealing with criminals engaged in drug trafficking and indeed as we have seen here, very tragically in Ireland and Spain, murderous feuds will resort to vicious actions up to and including murder…. If you are involved with this gang and their business, you are involved in a criminal network.”

Assistant commissioner John O’Driscoll said Kinahan’s influence was “destroying or attempting to destroy a sport that is so important to inner-city communities. The manner in which they have interfered in the sporting world has really provided more incentive, if we didn’t have enough, to bring about the downfall of this particular organised crime group.”

Kinahan, who apparently lives in Dubai, has not been charged, let alone convicted, with any of these alleged crimes, but there is now that $5million reward for information leading to the arrests of the three Kinahan family members. 

That almost inevitably means more for Kinahan in the USA than anywhere else. The sanctions imposed upon him and others in his group triggered a swift backtrack from Bob Arum, who previously called Kinahan ‘The Captain’ and ‘honourable’ to then say he wouldn’t deal with him any longer and he did not like some of the things Kinahan had apparently been doing in boxing.

“I’m a US citizen and the Treasury department does not take these steps lightly,” Arum said, to the Daily Mail, adding that he would respect the sanctions. “We are not going to deal with Kinahan or his people.”

It would be helpful to know who “his people” are, or were. Perhaps the Treasury and others will ask the question?

There are still plenty of dots to join but if amateur detectives on social media have been happy to trawl through old tweets and start to find patterns and relationships, goodness knows where the real pros are with it all.

Those who have campaigned ardently to have Kinahan removed from the sport, and indeed society, claimed a moral victory this week and that was understandable. Their accusations were agreed upon by the Biden administration in the White House. It doesn’t get too much more definitive than that.

The Irish journalists and but a handful of the boxing media emerged from the frustrating echo chamber with genuine credit, and there were far too few of them. They were the ones the Kinahan propaganda troops routinely rounded on, or who were ridiculed as being party poopers. After all, they weren’t the ones with expensive watches, making regular jaunts to Dubai in designer gear.

Many of these journalists had paid their dues in the media, starting on local publications and now had a national and, for some stories, international audience. Their wheels hadn’t been greased with the help of aligning themselves to companies that have for so long been said to have links to Kinahan.

For the record, again, Probellum has nothing to do with Kinahan and in 2017 Kinahan and MTK went their separate ways.

I’m not sure I will even mention Pakistan’s Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs here, either, the one who Tweeted that he had “met @Probellum on aligning vision on boxing…” with a picture of himself and Kinahan before Probellum denied that Kinahan worked for them. You could see how people would get their wires crossed.

By the way, no fighters have been alleged to have done anything or been involved with any criminal activity and you can sympathise with many to a degree. Not many boxers make a good living, even at championship level. Their careers are short and they need to maximise the return on their minutes and hours in the ring.

What many are referring to as a house of cards has not come crashing down yet, but it’s coming very quickly. Threads are being found and unravelled at alarming rate and even those who had very thinly-veiled past associations with Kinahan will be finding parts of their anatomy squeaking.

And how far does it go down… or up? Will there be any blowback on the media, broadcasters or anyone else who clearly has some kind of association with him?

People are watching very closely, the eyes of the authorities over an increasing amount of the globe are paying close attention to every link, every person, their assets, incomes and histories. 

Some in boxing have been paying close attention for years but they’ve found themselves mocked and derided by Kinahan supporters for not seconding their gushing praise about what a man he is.

But, of course, he’s been good to them. He’s needed fighters and people in the sport to infiltrate it. And of course they speak highly of him. They have been able to have opportunities and, dare one suggest, lifestyles, that they would have otherwise only been able to dream of with scarcely paying one due to the sport.

Some might talk about the opportunities he got for fighters, but by and large, if you’re good enough you will earn them. And it’s one thing getting opportunities. It’s another thing being able to take full advantage of them. Ask Jack Catterall.

By association or otherwise, wannabe fight managers, promoters and broadcasters whose careers were going nowhere have had their livelihoods salvaged or fast-tracked and so many have been seduced by power and fame.

Then there are the weasels in the boxing media who sold their integrity, traded their reputations and jumped on the bandwagon of faux journalism.

They will likely all get work elsewhere, when it’s all said and done. This isn’t a place for morals. If nothing else has been illustrated over the past, recent or otherwise, it’s that. 

Rats might jump from a sinking ship but some might double down on their stance, too.

“He was always good to me.”

“He gave me great advice.”

“Boxing wouldn’t be in such good health if it wasn’t for him.”

If only they could see it from the outside in rather than the inside out.

Those same lines were trotted out 40 years ago by those who took money from the millions Harold Smith embezzled from Wells Fargo banks in the early 1980s to launch one of the most outrageous boxing promotional stables in history.

“Harold always did right by me.”

“Harold paid me well, I don’t have any problem with him.”

Of course, there are blunt differences between Kinahan’s supposed ill-gotten gains and Smith’s.

Ironically and sadly, many who champion Kinahan’s support, help and advice are from working class communities, the same type of communities that authorities are trying to protect from drugs, weapons and murder.

Some think Kinahan’s a Messiah, a pied piper and Robin Hood rolled in to one. Oh dear. But in a sport where there is so little potential not only to make big money, but decent money, particularly without paying years of dues all-too many heads have been easily turned.

But they have been turned for a reason. Not only are blue-chip sponsorship opportunities in short supply unless your name is Anthony Joshua, but for too long unscrupulous promoters have been downright horrific in their behaviour towards fighters. Would a promoter or manager be so quick to cross one of Kinahan’s boys or girls? Who would pay Kinahan late, or threaten one of his fighters with court action on the night of a fight?

Kinahan’s likely put a stop to a type of harassment and bullying that was commonplace for too long, with fighters being used and manipulated. And there’s a difference here between hating the player and hating the game. Boxing not only allowed Kinahan’s power to stretch far and wide, almost unabated, it put the kettle on, turned down the sheets and welcomed him in. It’s not his fault that this sport is so lawless that you need next to no experience to be an advisor, a manager, a trainer and, dare I say it, a broadcaster or journalist. You could criticise the governance of boxing except for one thing, there is no governance. 

Boxing writer Kevin Iole wrote this week that one member of the Boxing Writers Association of America brought Kinahan’s name up to be given their Manager of the Year award. That award was named after Cus D’Amato because of his integrity as one who stood up to The Mob in his younger years. Times change, I guess.

I was subsequently informed that there were two other names given “serious consideration” – along with winner Eddie Reynoso – for the award this year and that Kinahan’s wasn’t one. 

A fortnight ago, a well-renowned boxing writer who has been in the sport for far longer than five minutes hauled me over the coals for going too lightly on Kinahan in my interview with Mauricio Sulaiman for this website. I argued that there was already plenty of assumed knowledge within the audience and said it was merely an exercise of giving Sulaiman enough rope to…

To which, the priceless reply came, “If you give Mauricio enough rope, he’ll hang someone else.”

It seems like you could say “That’s boxing” after almost every paragraph.

And the veteran writer has a point. Some may front this episode up and support Kinahan – even if the usual lot have been eerily silent – but some of the sycophants, backslappers, hangers on and enablers will scurry back to wherever it was they came from before they were given a blessing and an unlikely shot at the big time of being a somebody in this sport that, without “the right guidance”, they would have spent years floundering in.

Some may maintain Kinahan is a peripheral figure on the side-lines, others reckon he’s the “most important man in the sport.” In truth, he is neither but sits nearer at the top than the bottom. Bodybuilder/influencer Martyn Ford, who now fancies giving boxing a whirl, was pictured with Kinahan last week and in his Instagram post told his 3.9m followers it was a “no brainer” when he had a chance “to meet the most powerful man in the sport.” Ford added: “Anyone who knows boxing, knows just how integral this man is, and his passion for the sport, he works with every promoter in the game and literally every fighter I spoke with told me he was the man I needed to speak to if I wanted to be taken seriously.”

Well, it's certainly now become a very serious subject, in the UK, Ireland, Europe and in the USA. Ford, by the way, announced that he’d “signed an advisory deal with him [Kinahan].”  

Until Arum eventually spoke out this week – having previously already done business with Kinahan – no one in any position of power has objected to Kinahan, they’ve rolled over and allowed him to tickle their tummies. TV power brokers and executives, promoters, managers, they’ve all played the game of chance. Some might have done it through fear, others through naivety, others have just been sucked in, maybe by the ‘glamour’ of wealth and extravagance. 

Will these now-existing relationships be driven underground? Who will be affected? Are people being told not to ask about it at press conferences because powerful figures are afraid – if the awkward questions are asked – that they’ve been too complicit, or do they just want to distance themselves from the situation, and authorities, and move on? How can the sport try to uncover what’s been going on if the media is being silenced? It only makes those making the calls on questions look guilty of – at the very least – burying their heads in the sand.

When it eventually ends there will be an almighty mess and who picks up the pieces? The real boxing people will be left with the mess because this is the life we chose. We love the sport, we have a passion for the fighters and the good that it does to communities – yes, often inner-city communities – around the world. We so admire the skill and courage of those who take part, the guts required to step through the ropes and the exhilaration of a thrilling, evenly-matched contest.

And who should be the ones to scrutinise this whole situation? The journalists? A few in the seemingly moral minority can emerge with their heads held high but too many refuse to mention his name. The fighters? They are the ones he has been looking after. The promoters? They have been working with him. The former managers of the fighters who left them to join him? One of the places the buck could have stopped was with TV. Networks large and small, major promoters… They all could have done more. Too many blind eyes have been turned, because it hasn’t benefitted them to take a closer look, to peak behind the curtains and find out why there’s now a $5 million bounty for information that can help authorities put the squeeze on a group that global agencies took a break from sanctioning Russian oligarchs from to focus on. 

Kinahan is now listed as “an enemy of the state”, but will he still be allowed to be boxing’s “friend?”