Police forces all over Europe are on high alert after infamous crime boss Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch was freed from prison in Ireland after being acquitted of the murder of a rival gang associate.
Hutch, 60, walked free from Dublin’s Special Criminal Court yesterday following the not-guilty verdict for the 2016 Regency Hotel killing of David Byrne, an associate of gang leader Daniel Kinahan.
The kingpin from Clontarf, Ireland, silently left the court wearing a white shirt and suit jacket, with long hair and a bushy grey beard.
He had been held in Dublin’s Wheatfield prison for over a year since his 2021 arrest in Spain in connection with Byrne’s murder and was kept under the watchful eye of prison staff.
But security sources told the Mail they expected father-of-five Hutch to immediately flee the country upon his release.
The crime lord is believed to command a European property empire worth in excess of £10million, with potential boltholes in Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, London and Amsterdam, as well as properties in Portugal and further east in Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.
If he were to stay in the Irish capital, he would be a sitting duck amid the high likelihood of a Kinahan clan revenge attack – a prospect sources claimed was a ‘legitimate and a massive concern’ for gardaí.
Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, pictured leaving court, has been found not guilty of the murder of David Byrne, 33, at a boxing weigh-in event at Dublin’s Regency Hotel on February 5, 2016
Pictured: Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch is seen in 1999 (left) and in 2009 (right)
David Byrne (pictured) died after being shot six times at a crowded boxing weigh-in event at Dublin’s Regency Hotel on February 5, 2016, in what was one of the first deadly attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud
Two of Hutch’s associates were yesterday convicted on lesser charges relating to Byrne’s murder.
The Regency Hotel shooting that sparked a lethal gangland war
David Byrne was murdered on 5 February 2016 at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall, Dublin.
The organised armed attack took place during a weigh-in for an upcoming boxing match between Jamie Kavanagh and Antonio João Bento before the fight at Dublin’s National Stadium.
At least four attackers wearing masks, army style-helmets and flak jackets, stormed the building as well as two who were disguised as members of the Garda and armed with AK-47s at around 2.30pm.
An associate of the Kinahan cartel drug gang, Byrne, 32, was shot dead as he ran towards the lobby of the hotel.
It is believed that the intended target was Daniel Kinahan, the son of Dublin drug dealer Christy Kinahan, but he had left early.
Shooting happened at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall, Dublin
The attackers escaped in a Ford Transit van which was later found burnt-out.
On 18 May, 2016 Patrick Hutch, the brother of Gary Hutch, was charged at the Criminal Courts of Justice with the murder of David Byrne.
The trial of Patrick Hutch for murder and possession of firearms was later set for January 2018 at the non-jury Special Criminal Court and he was denied bail.
On 20 February 2019, all charges against Patrick Hutch were dropped and he walked free from court.
To date, nobody has been convicted of David Byrne’s murder, though two associates of Gerry Hutch were convicted of charges relating to his murder.
Pictured: David Byrne, who was shot dead in Dublin in 2016
But although the investigation into the hit is still ongoing, Hutch is not currently subject to any charge and can leave the country at will.
The crime boss was arrested in August 2021 at a restaurant in Spain’s Costa del Sol.
He was pounced upon by police following a five-month manhunt launched when a European Arrest Warrant was issued in his name in April 2021.
Hutch had largely managed to remain hidden from the public eye ever since the funeral of his brother Eddie – gunned down in Kinahan revenge attack – in February 2016, until his arrest.
Now that he is a free man, he will once again attempt to keep a low profile to avoid retribution from the Kinahan clan.
While in custody in Dublin, Hutch registered a new address of the Spanish arm of his real estate empire to a house in Lanzarote, confirmed by the Sunday World as 11 Calle Timple in Las Tias Palmas – a small whitewashed house a stone’s throw from the beach.
This suggests he may attempt to resume his life in the sun – though given the address of his Lanzarote HQ is readily available, it is unlikely Hutch will make an appearance there.
The Irish mafioso is also known to have properties in the Dutch capital – a location Amsterdam’s detectives claimed he visited in the weeks following Byrne’s murder.
In an interview with the Irish Sun, one organised crime investigator in Amsterdam said his officers were preparing for a gangland hit on Hutch.
‘It was previously suggested that he was in Amsterdam and our question was – if he’s here, who’s coming to take him out?’ the investigator said.
‘We are dealing with our own feuds but we have been kept informed of the situation in Ireland because it could come here.
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‘The Kinahan Organised Crime Group have connections in Holland and it’s entirely plausible they could dispatch contract killers to Holland if Mr Hutch decides to come to this country.
‘There may be a possibility the activities of this feud could lead to an assassination in Amsterdam,’ he concluded, adding that Dutch police will co-ordinate with the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.
In addition to his boltholes in Spain, the Canary Islands, Portugal and the Netherlands, Hutch is thought to maintain a string of properties further east.
An investigation by the Irish Independent in 2018 claimed Hutch maintains an ‘extensive property portfolio in Izmir and Kusadasi’ on Turkey’s west coast, as well as ‘residential developments’ in Hungary and Bulgaria.
Hutch claimed he built his property empire from savvy investments, but is thought to have made off with millions from a pair of cash robberies – allegations he has denied and has never been convicted of.
This leaves the kingpin with various alternatives for an escape to the continent.
But he will be forced to keep looking over his shoulder no matter how far he runs.
Kinahan’s international criminal organisation is likely to send assassins to pursue him around the world, while sources told Dublin Live that gardaí now want to charge Hutch with directing a crime gang.
The offence carries a maximum jail term of life, and would see police forces co-operate to track down, arrest and extradite Hutch back to Ireland if he is charged.
Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch outside the Special Criminal Court, Dublin, after he was found not guilty of the murder of David Byrne at a hotel in Dublin in 2016
Crime boss Daniel Kinahan is pictured. Gardaí are concerned the Kinahan clan will attempt to assassinate Gerry Hutch following his release from prison
Eddie Hutch (L) and Derek Hutch (R) were among several of Gerry Hutch’s relatives murdered in retaliation attacks following the murder of Kinahan clan associate Byrne
Chaos breaks out at a boxing weigh-in at Dublin’s Regency Hotel in 2016 as masked gunmen shoot David Byrne
Byrne’s body is pulled out of the Regency Hotel following his murder in 2016
Judge Tara Burns, who presided over Hutch’s acquittal yesterday, described the 2016 Regency Hotel attack as a ‘meticulously planned high-velocity assassination’ event carried out by a six-man hit team which killed one man – Byrne – and injured two others.
33-year-old Byrne died after being shot six times at a crowded boxing weigh-in event in what was one of the first deadly attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud.
Judge Burns said it ‘sparked mayhem on the streets of Dublin’ and resulted in a ‘series of callous murders’.
In the months following the February 2016 murder of Byrne, a string of Gerry Hutch’s associates – including his nephew and uncle Gareth and Eddie Hutch, were murdered in retaliation.
Another of Gerry’s nephews, Derek Hutch, was later shot dead in 2018.
Hutch, was later shot dead in 2018.
Garda sources added that there was a potential for a return to bloodshed on the streets of Dublin if another attack were to occur in the wake of Gerry Hutch’s acquittal.
Armed gardaí are now running patrols around Hutch’s associates thought to be potential targets of the Kinahan cartel as investigators attempt to learn Gerry Hutch’s next move.
Gardaí are also said to be concerned about the level of information surrounding their surveillance tactics which were shared during Hutch’s trial.
Sources said that these tactics had been honed over a number of years and they represented ‘a major part’ of the fight against organised crime.
As a result of information revealed during the trial, these strategies can ‘not be relied on as much’ now they have been shared, sources said.
