Episode 1280: Q&A Part 1 - The Monk's by-election bid and the Kinahans converting to Islam

It’s one of the great success stories in Ireland’s fight against crime -and now a new documentary will bring viewers behind the scenes at the Criminal Assets Bureau.From the birth of the Bureau in 1996 and its first cases to its modern-day targets. including Insta-gangsters who show off their bling, the Virgin Media series follows the growth of the CAB over 26 years and highlights some of its more colourful cases.Nicola Tallant chats to the CAB Bureau Chief Michael Gubbins about what it is like to be at the helm of such a celebrated agency. He reveals how, despite the passage of time, the Bureau hasn’t changed much in its work – still pursuing drug dealers and their ill-gotten gains.We hear from some contributors to the new documentary and discuss the future of the Bureau’s work chasing the dirty money. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

22 Mar 202231min

It was an extraordinary series of events. A high-ranking Sinn Fein official is outed as an informer in the employ of M15 and the Special Branch of the PSNI.On the steps of Stormont, Denis Donaldson admits his role as a spy within the Republican ranks – then disappears.Six months later an intrepid journalist Hugh Jordan tracks him down to an isolated farmhouse in Glenties in Donegal confirming that his whereabouts aren’t such a well-kept secret.Weeks later Donaldson is shot dead in the same cottage but mystery still surrounds what happened and why he remained there after he was discovered.Today I’m talking with Hugh Jordan about the case of Donaldson and a recent Police Ombudsman report which points the finger of blame at police and their failures to properly evaluate the threat to his life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

19 Mar 202243min

A haunting border crossing from Ukraine. People just like us leaving behind everything they know and everyone they love. And an unpredictable dictator with his finger on the nuclear button.So what is it like to stand and witness this brutal history in the making and to see the faces of women and children set in fear in the freezing temperatures of a land not too unlike our own.Today I’m talking to Irish Independent Ireland Editor Fionnan Sheahan who is just back from the Ukraine/Polish border where he saw first hand the never ending lines of human misery caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin.He tells me of a refugee crises like no other and of a population of middle class, educated families displaced forever by a neighbour with a dark soul. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

17 Mar 202247min

Mob boss Daniel Kinahan’s much anticipated interview due out this week has been shelved due to legal issues at the Anything Goes Podcast with James English.While the nature of the legal problems are unknown, Kinahan has already been hit with new court proceedings after he was named in a Proceeds of Crime Case against shamed businessman Jim Mansfield Jnr.For years Mansfield and his late father, Jim Mansfield Snr, denied rumours that they were linked to criminality but Junior is now locked up in Portlaoise prison, guilty of perverting the course of justice, and now he has been named along the biggest figure in organised crime.Today I’m talking with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about the court proceedings linking Ireland’s one time richest son and heir to the head of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

15 Mar 202234min

He is the first person to be jailed in relation to the brutal murder of teenager Keane Mulready Woods.Yet, despite pleading guilty to cleaning up and removing evidence from the scene of the killing at his home in Drogheda, father-of-eight Gerard ‘Ged’ McKenna will be a free man in just over a year.So, who is McKenna and what was his role in the shocking murder of the 17-year-old, whose dismembered remains were discovered in a sports bag, the boot of a car and on wasteland in the days and months after he disappeared?Nicola Tallant talks with Irish Independent journalist Robin Schiller who covered the sentencing of McKenna. He tells me about a chaotic crime scene, a disorganised clean-up and a phonecall from a gangland madman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

12 Mar 202231min

It’s a stark message to young people who believe that they are just having fun.But community worker Philip Jennings says that every recreational user of cannabis or cocaine has blood on their hands and his 'Think Before You Buy' initiative has been rolled out in schools across his native Blanchardstown in Dublin.Now, he is hoping for Government backing to bring his message further and to turn a tide of casual drug use, which he says is feeding into a cycle of gangland violence, intimidation and murders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

10 Mar 202237min

Cartel chief Daniel Kinahan is posturing again, with press statements, pictures and propaganda from an army of boxers under his control.And now he is teeing up a ‘world exclusive’ interview with podcaster James English, whose popular YouTube show has featured chats with a host of MTK boxers, many of whom have taken the opportunity to praise the drug boss.So what is going on with Ireland’s most wanted man and how has he managed to mingle between the world of organised crime and that of the sport of boxing?Nicola Tallant talks with Sunday World Deputy Editor Niall Donald about Kinahan’s rise as a boxing powerbroker and his attempts to sports-wash his criminal reputation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

8 Mar 202256min

They are the black-suited operatives whose role is to protect the President of the United States - and if Joe Biden’s plans to visit Ireland this summer come to pass they will be crawling around the highways and byways of the country to make safe his passage.But the Secret Service are no strangers to Ireland, and they have had a few bemusing encounters here in the past in scenes which would often be at home in an episode of Father Ted.Now, in her new book The Green and White House, journalist Lynne Kelleher brings together the incredible stories around the seemingly seamless visits of US leaders to their ancestral birthplaces in often rural outposts across Ireland.From the visits of Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, she tells about the hilarious run-ins of the secret service agents with bemused locals from Ballyporeen to Timahoe, the Aran cardigan which was almost central to a controlled explosion and a chatty hotel manager whose wry joke nearly sparked a major security scare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

5 Mar 202256min