Kinahan thug caught placing tracker on James ‘Mago’ Gately’s car in ‘murder bid’

A CARTEL hit team placed a tracking device on the car of target James ‘Mago’ Gately, The Irish Sun on Sunday can reveal.

Our exclusive pictures show how the Kinahan crime gang put it under his motor.

International efforts are under way to extradite mob boss Daniel Kinahan, 46, and his lieutenant Sean McGovern, 42, from Dubai to Ireland.

And we can expose the extraordinary lengths the narco terrorist gang went to in a bid to kill one of their main targets.

The tracker placed on Gately’s car was part of a batch brought into Ireland from the UK by cartel enabler Martin ‘Casper’ Aylmer, 38, as the cartel waged war in 2016.

The devices were bought at a spy shop in the north-west of England for the sole purpose of being used to monitor their targets’ movements.

Once in Ireland, the tracker was passed to the hit squad run by Peadar Keating, 43 — hoping to land the €250,000 bounty on Gately’s head.

After receiving three of the devices, Keating’s associate Douglas Glynn, 38, travelled to Gately’s secret hideout in Belfast and placed the device on the target’s vehicle.

Our CCTV footage also shows a figure — which the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau later identified as Glynn — placing the tracker on the car.

The device, placed in the car in March 2017, was intended to help Estonian hitman Imre Arakas, 66, kill Gately.

But the plan ended in failure when Arakas was arrested by the bureau in April 2017.

Keating is now serving an 11-year jail sentence for directing the activities of an organised crime gang.

His home was searched a few days after the Arakas arrest. And Gardai discovered the code name he had given to Gately’s tracker.

They made the discovery when a number on the cartel chief’s phone matched the tracker number with the word DIE.

At the same time, officers discovered trackers had been placed on the car of Gately’s innocent partner Charlene Lam.

And they also established that the cartel had targeted Jason Bonney — later convicted of being a getaway driver in the killing of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel.

Tracking error

But the gang placed the tracker on an innocent neighbour of Bonney’s before it was later recovered.

It was one of the last times in the feud that the cartel had used tracking devices as part of their efforts to kill someone.

The last murders committed by cartel hit teams were back in January 2018, when Derek ‘Coakley’ Hutch and Jason ‘Buda’ Molyneux were shot dead.

Although Gardai are now monitoring other feuds in the capital, they have yet to uncover any use of tracking devices in the current feuds in the city.

New tactics

Instead, the criminal gangs have increased gun attacks on homes, petrol bombings and violent assaults.

An investigator told The Irish Sun on Sunday: “Tracking devices were widely used by the Kinahan organisation when they were targeting their enemies at the height of the feud.

“They were far more organised than the current crop of young criminals, who are very reckless.

“The devices used in the Gately murder bid were all coming from the UK. But they haven’t been seen in a long time because all of the hit squads are in jail.”

As part of our revelations on the tactics once employed by the cartel, we can also reveal new details about one of the men who helped them target Noel ‘Duck Egg’ Kirwan in December 2016.

On that occasion, a tracker was also used to monitor the innocent grandfather’s movements before he was killed by a cartel assassin in front of his terrified partner just three days before Christmas.

And gym owner Michael Crotty, 42, became the latest cartel associate to be convicted over the murder earlier this month.

He received a two-year sentence after he was convicted of buying a €20 top-up for a phone used by cartel chief McGovern.

Low-level associate

The Special Criminal Court heard that the phone — topped up using the payment made by Crotty — was used to coordinate the murder.

Although Crotty was regarded as a low-level associate of the cartel, we can reveal how he forged a friendship with McGovern three years before the grandfather’s murder.

The pair met when McGovern — who is wanted for the murder of Mr Kirwan — travelled to his gym in Cashel, Co Tipperary, to train.

At the time, McGovern was using gyms outside the capital over fears he could be targeted by rivals at gyms in Dublin.

Goon used

A senior source told The Irish Sun on Sunday: “Crotty was simply being used by McGovern and his gang, but he didn’t realise it. There were rumours that McGovern was looking to invest in the gym and that’s why they became close.

“The two of them went way back before the Kirwan murder and that’s why Crotty was roped into this criminal enterprise

“He thought that he was just ­getting a suspended sentence for buying the credit and he was ­crying when he realised he was going to jail.”

In a victim impact statement to the court, Mr Kirwan’s daughter Donna told of her pain.

‘Robbed us’

She said: “I do not have much to say about this man other than if he was in any way sorry for his part in my father’s murder, he would have plead guilty when he was charged.

“Your friends did not only take our father’s life, you also robbed us of ours.

“We are the ones who will serve this sentence, not you.”

Cartel associates Jason Keating and Martin Aylmer are already serving sentences for their role in the killing.

Cartel leader Declan ‘Mr Nobody’ Brady due is to be sentenced next month for his role in the murder.