Today’s briefing:
— The geopolitics of a fugitive
— How to visit Romania for free
— Europe’s best and worst spies…
Your Insider’s briefing:
— The geopolitics of a fugitive
— How to visit Romania for free
— Europe’s best and worst spies…
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}.… aaaand we’re back.
If you’re ever lucky enough to visit Ireland, there’s a good chance a local will quip that “a bird never flew on one wing.”
It’s an ol’ saying traditionally used as a light-hearted justification for ordering another drink — and honestly, who am I to argue with old traditions?
But this one’s now on my mind because a rather darker little birdie just flew home on a government jet to Ireland overnight, and that man (Daniel Kinahan) is dripping with intrigue. Shall we?
 | Managing Editor Jeremy Dicker |
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Number of the day
$59B
That’s the size of Germany’s trade deficit with China the first half of this year, with exports to China down 12% (YoY), while imports from China are up another 9%. Watch for whether these numbers further harden Berlin’s position on Beijing’s overcapacity.
Sham rock
That’s Daniel Kinahan right there.
With the sun hanging low over Dublin, a government Falcon 6X touches down under heavy security at a nearby military airbase. The engine cools. The doors open. And out steps one of the world's most wanted men — in a black hoodie.
Sounds like a Guy Ritchie set-piece — starring Nicolas Cage? — but it just happened overnight, and it's dripping with international intrigue (💅), starting with...
The fugitive
An Irish gangland nepo baby, Daniel Kinahan (49) is now the alleged boss of one of Europe's biggest cocaine suppliers, with links to Colombian and Mexican cartels, the Italian mafia, and even Hezbollah!
How? Kinahan has allegedly used the Shia Islamist group's informal hawala (banking) network to pay his LatAm suppliers, with Hezbollah’s hefty commission helping arm it against Israel. The Kinahans also seem to have paid the occasional favour, like the 2015 assassination of a dissident wanted by Hezbollah's Iranian sponsors.
Anyway, Kinahan had to flee amid a brutal gangland feud with the rival Hutch family, culminating in a brazen 2016 attempt on his life at Dublin’s Regency Hotel! And that's how he ended up in...
The gilded cage
Kinahan lived the Emirati expat dream for a decade: Palm Jumeirah villas, private schools for the kids, and a flashy 2017 wedding at the Burj Al Arab that doubled as a summit of Europe's top narcos. Even after the US hit him with a $5M bounty in 2022, Kinahan still rolled around town with enough confidence for open-source online sleuths to casually pick him out at MMA nights.
And that's how Dubai became his gilded cage: leaving would mean gambling on some other new safe haven, while staying meant trusting that this same cage could still protect him from extradition. And it did, until...
The reckoning
Two things really screwed Kinahan in the end. First, the optics: as online sleuths kept pinging this most-wanted fugitive out in public, the UAE faced more scrutiny as a hub for transnational crime and sanctions evasion. That reputational cost led to...
Second, new legal architecture. Once the Emiratis decided this guy wasn't worth it, they negotiated a formal extradition treaty with Ireland in just 10 months!
By the time investigators alleged the Kinahan outfit was helping Iran dodge oil sanctions, he was already cooked — in April, Emirati cops arrested him within 48 hours of Irish authorities lodging their formal request.
So now, back in his Irish homeland for the first time in a decade, Kinahan faces a single charge of directing a criminal organisation, with the trial likely to stretch well into next year. If convicted, he's looking at life behind bars.
Intrigue’s Take
Behind the ego and the cinema, there are several big messages playing out here.
One clearly comes from…
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Intrigue’s Take
Behind the ego and the cinema, there are several big messages playing out here.
One clearly comes from Ireland itself: if a small-medium European power can spend a decade building the legal and diplomatic scaffolding to pluck one of the continent’s biggest alleged cocaine brokers out of a Gulf safe haven, it suggests a bit of patience and paperwork can still win. And yay for that.
But the credibility of that message still really depends on the credibility of another message the Emiratis are sending here: they didn’t suddenly feel outrage over Irish drug feuds. Rather, they might now be recalibrating the terms of their legendary hospitality: the UAE’s colourful gallery of oligarchs, warlords, and cartel bosses can still lay low there, but that safety is clearly now conditional on their presence not becoming a broader diplomatic or reputational headache. The same year the US put a bounty on Kinahan’s head, the FATF money-laundering watchdog pushed the Emiratis on the feared “grey list”, jeopardising the hub’s entire ease-of-business branding. And sure enough, just as the Emiratis finalised that extradition treaty with Ireland two years later, FATF removed them from that feared grey list.
But then zoom out, and a third and final message that emerges is probably also the most important: Kinahan is finally getting his day in court, not so much because of good policing or even clever diplomacy, but because interests simply aligned. The cost of protecting this guy finally exceeded the cost of handing him over. It was a cold transaction. And one of the factors that drove those costs up was really the steady drip of open-source exposure: Bellingcat and others repeatedly placing a sanctioned, multi-million-dollar bounty target right there in public view.
So maybe the message for the rest of Dubai’s colourful characters is less “leave”, and more “just watch MMA from the comfort of your Jumeirah villa couch”?
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Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇮🇷 IRAN — Hormuz still on hold.
The regime in Iran is now signalling it’s in the “final stages” of a new shipping-route arrangement with neighbouring Oman, though warns full Hormuz reopening still hinges on the US making major concessions: unfreeze assets, lift sanctions, withdraw forces, end the blockade, and halt all hits on Iran’s proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc). (Guardian)
Comment: Iran now seems to sniff opportunity in the air, aided by President Trump’s own public hunger for a deal, plus public debate around the depth of DC’s own munitions shortage. Against that backdrop, there’s little surprising about the regime now dialling its demands up to 11. And unless Trump can pull a rabbit out of a hat (amid reports he’s running out of both rabbits and hats), the mullahs seem intent on making him the second US president to lose key elections (midterms) over failures in Iran.
🇷🇺 RUSSIA — Kicked out of Syria?
Syria’s foreign ministry says it’s now allowed Russia to regain control of Hmeimem air base and Tartus naval base. Under the agreement, Syria will administer the civilian portions, while Russia and Syria will jointly run the remainder as ✌️training centres✌️. (AP)
Comment: Those sassy air quotes are because Putin is happy for the Syrians to slap whatever they want on the label, so long as he regains access to Russia’s only port on the Mediterranean (plus one of Russia’s rare warm-water ports anywhere). The reality is Syria’s new rulers also need to manage this branding carefully, given Putin’s own decades of support for the Assad regime and its atrocities.
🇮🇱 ISRAEL — Bibi ditches Trump plan.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has turned down President Trump’s latest 15-point plan for Gaza, insisting Israeli forces won’t withdraw until Hamas disarms completely (the IDF still holds ~60% of the Strip). (CNN)
Comment: Nobody likes a told-you-so, but darnit, we flagged our doubts back when Trump first made the announcement. It’s hard to see Bibi ever making (or being seen to make) any concessions on this front, let alone while he’s lagging in the polls ahead of October’s elections. Plus Trump’s own midterm challenge will increasingly distract DC ahead of November.
🇲🇲 MYANMAR — Proof of life.
Myanmar’s military rulers have dismissed a renewed call from ASEAN to release Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader ousted in the 2021 coup. Interestingly, however, the junta has now released four proof-of-life photos and allowed a Red Cross visit. (FT $)
Comment: As always, we ask why now? And wouldn’t you know it, but Myanmar’s dictator just returned from a big visit to Thailand, which has long called for a “calibrated re-engagement” with Myanmar. So it all looks like a well-planned PR campaign to appear more palatable to foreign powers still sitting on the fence: Thailand is hosting these guys, who are themselves now heeding calls around Aung’s wellbeing, so maybe let’s all just hold our nose and normalise ties?
🇹🇷 TURKEY — Mind if I join?
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey have announced a new NATO-style defence pact, with an attack on one seen as an attack on all. It builds on last year’s initial Saudi-Pakistan deal, with Egypt rumoured to be next. (BBC)
Comment: They’re all varying types of US allies, just as the US shows reluctance (Europe) and/or inability (the Gulf) to protect its friends. So absent a credible US umbrella up above, this kind of horizontal matching will only become more common. But this particular new alliance trio will soon face some familiar tests, like a) Houthi drones just hit a Saudi Aramco refinery, and b) Iran is already warning this new alliance won’t make the rival Saudis any safer. Plus, will Turkish and/or Pakistani deterrence be able to succeed where US might has frayed?
🇨🇴 COLOMBIA — El Tigre takes the sash.
Replacing the populist-left Petro, hard-right outsider Abelardo ‘El Tigre’ de la Espriella has taken the oath of office in front of Spain’s King Felipe VI, Argentina’s Milei, Ecuador’s Noboa, Chile’s Kast, and FIFA’s Infantino (who should really resign rather than swan around like a world leader). The US has signalled support by pledging $1B in security aid (pending Congress) and welcoming Colombia into Trump’s Shield of the Americas. (Al Jazeera)
Comment: There was plenty of symbolism in Tigre’s decision to take office in Cali rather than the capital, Bogotá — it’s a show of force, signalling his intent to reassert control in Colombia’s volatile southwest. Channelling his inner Bukele, he’s now pledging to bomb cocaine labs and build mega-prisons, but we’ve long flagged that Colombia is hardly an El Salvador, which is 1/54th the size, and with a criminal landscape 1/100th as complex. Colombian armed groups have already responded with two bombs nearby.
🇷🇸 SERBIA — Zelensky drops in.
Ukraine’s Zelensky has made his first official visit to Belgrade, receiving a full honour-guard welcome from Serbia’s Russia-friendly Vučić. (Le Monde)
Comment: Trade and aid talk aside, it’s really a PR win for Ukraine: even the most Putin-friendly states can be brought around. But it’s not just PR: Zelensky also wants to keep his critical Danube export bypass humming given all the wartime disruption to Ukraine’s traditional Black Sea export hubs. As for Vučić? He still remains the ultimate balancer — EU candidate by day, Russian-energy client by night. Hosting Zelensky with pomp (while refusing to join sanctions on Putin) shows how far he’s willing to lean West for practical gains without fully burning the Moscow bridge.
🇹🇼 TAIWAN — Internet shutdown drill.
Taipei has deliberately throttled its own internet for the first time as part of an attack simulation on Taiwan’s telecoms infrastructure. It comes as Taiwan’s cabinet prepares to increase the democracy’s defence budget by 16%, crossing the $1T line. (Reuters)
Extra Intrigue
🤣 Your weekly round-up of the world’s lighter news
A Serb has fallen asleep on a Danube floatie and woken up in Romania.
A Brisbane beagle has ended up in emergency after eating 1kg of jelly snakes.
A Canadian legislator has read out prompts from the AI that wrote his speech.
Someone has returned a book to a Welsh library, 116 years overdue.
And not to be outdone, an Aussie library just got a return, 150 years overdue.
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Spies of the day
Courtesy of L’Express
Ranking secret services is a bit like reviewing restaurants you’ve only ever seen through the front window.
But France's L'Express magazine just did it anyway, convening a jury of 60 current and former spooks from 25 nations to rank Europe's intelligence agencies, from top (Britain's MI6) to bottom (Slovakia's SIS).
Of course, the caveats almost write themselves: these agencies are black boxes by statute, with any glimpses only ever what's available via swap or snafu. Plus how do you compare (say) Germany's cerebral BND, which loves a good seminar, to Ukraine's SBU, which loves a good car-bomb-for-Russian-war-criminals.
Still, the ranked vibes feel accurate in our experience:
The Brits get points for their long-term moles in tough targets
The French stand out for their sheer global reach, and
The Dutch earn that sweet sweet bronze for some serious cyber skills (plus Rotterdam Port is an intel goldmine).
But why poor Slovakia in last? The jury dunked on its intel agency not just for all the reported Moscow links, but also its leadership: political appointee Pavol Gašpar has zero intel experience and rolls around town in a yellow sports car and flip-flops!
Today’s poll
Why do you think the UAE seems happy to host shady individuals?
Our last poll: What do you think this Fifa plan is mostly about?
[Facing mounting opposition, Infantino ditched his private equity plan last week]
⚽ Raising money for football's development (3%)
⚖️ Democratising football (2%)
💸 Greed (95%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (1%)
Your two cents:
💸 L.O: “If it was about democratising football, they'd be supporting local clubs and reducing ticket prices so the average person can actually go see a game.”
💸 E.H: “Congratulations! This must be a new record for your most one-sided poll 😂”