THE boxing supremo who helped catapult Daniel Kinahan to the top of the fight game has admitted he regrets his dealings with the drug baron and said: “If you did the crime, you’ve got to do the time.”
Bob Arum said he was “not shocked at all” over Kinahan’s arrest in Dubai on Friday — but insisted it should have happened years ago.
The veteran of the professional sport also explained that the $8million he paid to Kinahan — who was a close advisor to heavyweight champ Tyson Fury — were part of contractual obligations which his company Top Rank Promotions lived up to.
Arum, 94, spoke exclusively to The Irish Sun as Kinahan languished in a hellhole prison over the weekend ahead of his extradition to Ireland.
The boxing hall of famer — who once promoted Muhammad Ali — told us: “I was in the US Attorney’s office. And so I really regret that I was involved, even though not in his activity, with somebody who was violating the law constantly by dealing drugs.
“And you know, that doesn’t make me feel good, personally.”
He continued: “I’m not shocked at all by his arrest.
“He should have been arrested a while ago. Why he wasn’t, I don’t know.
“I think that now somehow with the situation with Iran and the United Arab Emirates, they decided to arrest him and send him back to Ireland.
“But they should have done that two years ago.”
Mob boss Kinahan is wanted for directing the activities of a criminal organisation between 2015 and 2017 as the cartel waged war against the Hutch gang and family on the streets of Dublin.
Gardai have linked a tranche of encrypted messages to Kinahan, many of which were sent from his Dubai bolthole where he fled to from Spain’s Costa del Sol seeking refuge from law enforcement.
When told about this, Arum said: “That’s terrible. But as far as I was concerned, we only acted appropriately as far as the business he did with me. What he was doing otherwise, I wouldn’t know.
“And if he was doing the things that they now say, then he should be punished for it, no question about it.
He should have been arrested a while ago. Why he wasn’t, I don’t know
Bob Arum
Arrogant Kinahan plotted a rise to become a major power-broker in professional boxing in a bid to paint himself as a legitimate businessman while cops dismantled his cartel’s activities in Ireland.
Kinahan became a close advisor to boxing heavyweight Fury — who was co-promoted by Arum’s Top Rank Promotions in the US — as he made a comeback into the ring. Fury has no involvement with crime.
FIRST CONTACT
Arum first came into contact with Kinahan in 2019 as part of the deal to get Fury, who was unaware of Kinahan’s criminal connections, on their books in early that year.
And he flew to Dubai himself to meet him before they later rubbed shoulders at an event in Kazakhstan.
Arum told The Irish Sun: “I met him in his office. He had a big office in Dubai. And in a restaurant.
“He had told us, we believed and he must have wanted to believe, that his criminal past was behind him.
“And now he was involved in boxing to clear his name for his children.”
DEAL PRAISE
Fury’s camp had previously agreed to a two-fight deal against UK rival Joshua in 2020 — with the Gypsy King praising Kinahan for getting the agreement “over the line” but it ultimately never materialised.
The Irish Sun repeatedly warned Arum in a series of interviews with our reporter across a three-year period — 2020, 2021, and early 2022 — that Kinahan was steeped in crime.
However, Arum’s dealings with him continued as part of Fury fight deals, handing over $8m to the gang boss.
Kinahan was paid $2m for brokering each of four Fury bouts — the second and third fights against Deontay Wilder, as well as contests against Otto Wallin and Tom Schwarz.
Fury travelled to Dubai where he was pictured with Kinahan in February 2022.
But less than two months later, Kinahan’s influence in boxing came crashing down when the US Government placed a $5m bounty on his head, sanctioning him and other senior members of the billion euro transnational drugs and arms trafficking cartel.
TIES CUT
Arum cut total ties with him, but explained the relationship had broken down just before then.
He told us: “We had a contract with him. And we lived up to the contract. The fact that he was a major gangster, we were told he was no longer a major gangster.
“We disagreed sometimes, like you usually do.”
Arum also added that the professional boxing game is a better place without Kinahan.
The rise of Kinahan — who grew up in the Oliver Bond flats in Dublin’s south inner city — in the sport came after years of trying to make it.
He co-founded MGM in 2012 in Marbella, Spain with friend and ex pro Matthew Macklin, who has no involvement in crime.
Kinahan’s MGM and Frank Warren, one of British boxing’s biggest names, went on to co-promote a planned fight night called Clash of the Clans.
But it was the weigh-in for that event on February 5, 2016 — at which Kinahan had planned to step out into the spotlight — that sparked all-out war on the streets of Dublin.
We had a contract with him. And we lived up to the contract. The fact that he was a major gangster, we were told he was no longer a major gangster
Bob Arum
The Hutch gang stormed the Regency Hotel in a bid to kill Kinahan, who escaped with his life, but instead blasted his close pal and senior lieutenant David Byrne to death.
Kinahan fled to the UAE as an army of cartel hit teams and middlemen were recruited to wage the most brutal campaign of murder and violence Ireland’s gangland scene ever encountered.
MGM rebranded to MTK Global before relocating its headquarters to Dubai.
From 2020 onwards, Kinahan began stepping to the fore of boxing once more.
GROUNDLESS CLAIMS
As part of this, an online book, a rap video and so-called ‘documentary’ all made false and groundless claims about the State and the gardai.
He was later sued by Moses Heredia, a boxing promoter ripped off by the Irish thug via his boxing firm.
A US court later ruled that Kinahan’s MTK Global stole one of Heredia’s top fighters, Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz Jnr, with no defence offered, and awarded $10m in damages.
Egomaniac Kinahan previously released a statement in 2021 claiming he had “dedicated” himself to boxing for 15 years.
Referring to where he was raised in Dublin’s south inner city, a community his gang flooded with drugs, he said it was “a deprived area with serious levels of poverty, of crime, of under investment”.
He said: “Boxing is a working class sport for which I’ve had a lifelong love and passion.”
He claimed “a long pattern of throwing innuendo and baseless accusations” were aimed at him.
The narcissist added: “People need to ask themselves — if he has done the things he has been accused of, why has he not been arrested and charged?”
