US counter narcotics expert praises 'proud, dashing Irish cop' without whom cartel boss Daniel Kinahan might NEVER have been brought home to face justice

Published: 12:05, 18 August 2026 | Updated: 12:10, 18 August 2026 The fate of the Kinahan cartel was sealed in the summer of 2021 when two men who never met before shook hands in one of the US Treasury Department’s most opulent rooms. Before the late Assistant Garda Commissioner John O’Driscoll walked through the door leading into the Grant Room in the Treasury building, the then Head of Global Targeting for Sanctions had never heard of the Kinahans. And if sanctions were to be imposed, the quietly-spoken senior garda had to convince not only Greg Gatjanis but ultimately then President Joe Biden, that the Dublin crime lords posed a significant threat to the United States. Recalling how the late Assistant Garda Commissioner convinced him the Kinahans were an American problem, Mr Gatjanis told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We were a very small office for having such an enormous mandate, and the reasons I explain that is we had to be very judicious about where we put our resources. ‘We really had to make sure that every target we agreed to investigate was going to be a viable target. ‘I asked a colleague “what’s the connection [of the Kinahan threat] to the United States?”. He kind of lowered his eyes a little bit and said, “Well, the connection to the United States is rather small”. Greg Gatjanis and the late Assistant Garda Commissioner pose in the US Treasury offices ‘He [O’Driscoll] came in, and he cut a really impressive figure... really a dashing guy. You could tell he was a cop through and through. ‘He was a policeman. There’s no doubt about it. He was a proud policeman, a proud Irishman.’ First impressions aside, it was only when the late senior garda outlined the terror instilled by the Kinahan organised crime group that America’s then most senior sanctions bosses decided the Irish cartel should be targeted. Mr Gatjanis recalled: ‘He [O’Driscoll] almost had tears in his eyes. He said, “I’ve never seen Dublin terrified. I’ve never experienced that before. They [Kinahans] are having a profound effect on the people of Dublin and Ireland, because we’ve never had anyone as violent, as powerful, in our country before”.’ The former US sanctions boss had heard enough. ‘By the end of the meeting, we shook hands and I said, “Let’s get to work. If we can do sanctions, we’ll do sanctions”.’ Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.