Davin Flynn
This is arsonist Davin Flynn, who is the Kinahan Cartel’s top lag in Mountjoy Jail and who is now in control of the prison landings where mob members are held.
Ironically, Flynn was jailed for setting fire to a ‘head shop’ after telling a judge he held a grudge over the drug related death of a sibling.
But the Dubliner, who claims to have turned his back on drugs after the death of his brother, now leads the mob at their B Wing stronghold in Mountjoy.
Flynn is listed as the top man among feuding Kinahan associates and even enjoyed a prison visit from his pal Daniel Kinahan as he served his time behind bars.
Prison sources say that every new prisoner who wants to join cartel associates on the landings at Mountjoy now has to seek permission from him.
Flynn went on the run after the blaze destroyed Nirvana – which was one of Dublin’s most successful head shops – in 2010.
Despite later claiming he did it because he hated drugs, officers believe that the Kinahan gang were delighted when the fire shut down the Nirvana head shop in 2010 as it was eating into their profits.
Flynn fled the country as a massive investigation into the fire began and he is believed to have hidden out in Spain. He only handed himself in to gardaí after two European Arrest Warrants were issued.
Flynn was jailed last year for the massive blaze that caused €1million worth of damage to the Capel Street shop.
Defending him, Michael O’Higgins SC, said that Flynn had decided to overcome his own heroin problem when he saw what the drug was doing to his brother.
Judge Martin Nolan remarked that he held a “grudge” against the shop as it may have sold some of its produce to his brother Liam, who died more than a year after the blaze.
The court heard that Flynn, who has 65 other convictions, was seen on CCTV with another man before the blaze that forced homes to be evacuated and which closed down Capel Street for days afterwards.
Five units of the Dublin Fire Brigade had to be called to quell the blaze and firefighters recovered almost €500,000 in cash from a safe at the neighbouring head shop, Souvenir Seeds Store.
Nirvana was one of Dublin’s most popular head shops and sold the now illegal drug ‘snow blow’ from a hatch up until 4am or 5am.
The CCTV showed Flynn carrying bolt cutters, going through a side gate to the back of the Nirvana premises.
The owner of the shop, 64-year-old Jim Bellamy, who had a chain of head shops, was targeted again in an attack when his Killiney home was hit by a grenade. The grenade exploded when it was thrown through the window of his home.
He was later jailed for two years and fined €100,000 for illegally importing Viagra-like products. The pensioner admitted selling the drugs between 2008 and 2010 and the court found that his company, Harmony Products, had no licence to sell the product.
The court heard that Harmony Products had amassed ‘substantial assets’ over the years and had €1.3 million in assets.
Flynn has been running the B Wing at Mountjoy Jail since the feud between the Hutch and Kinahan factions kicked off.
Mountjoy was traditionally a Hutch controlled prison, but became a cartel jailhouse since the feud ignited, with many of those allied to the Hutch faction moved to different prisons for their safety.
Earlier this year, a coup attempt by associates of the Hutch faction was quelled by the mob, who got word that there was a plan to injure a number of them and force them off the landings.
Prisoner Mark Allen, serving a nine-year sentence for falsely imprisoning father of one Ciaran Noonan in 2011, was moved to Wheatfield after the plot was uncovered.
Other Hutch associates were also moved and joined prisoners including Derek ‘Del Boy’ Hutch who was transferred to Wheatfield after an attempt on his life earlier this year.
Three wings in the prison, A, B and C, are now effectively in the control of inmates heavily aligned with the Kinahan faction.