The table where the world shares cocaine is in Dubai

Malaga / BarcelonaOn one side of the table, the Irishman Daniel Kinahan; on the other, the Dutch-Bosnian Edin Gaçanin, alias Tito; opposite, the Moroccan Ridouan Taghi, and at one end, the Italian Raffaele Imperiale. They are talking in a private room with sea views at the luxurious Burj Al Arab in Dubai. The pandemic has not yet arrived. They control the most important cocaine cartel in the world and feel untouchable. Impunity. Each one fulfills their role. The Irish manage the routes and distribution to various European countries. Gaçanin is the broker, the logistics and financing of the operations. Imperiale transports cocaine to the Italian Camorra. Taghi, the visible face of the Mocro Maffia, supervises the entry of drugs through Dutch and Belgian ports. Power in capital letters. The drug business was decided in Dubai.

And it continues to happen. The emirate continues to be a refuge for the main criminal organizations in the world, especially European ones. "The bosses used to be at the port of José Banús, in Marbella, but now they are in Dubai. You have to be in Dubai because that's where the business is divided," explains a high-ranking officer of the National Police. But impunity has ended. In part. Of the four diners, except for Kinahan, all have ended up arrested, although not all have been extradited to the countries looking for them to be judged. Gaçanin still cannot be tried in Rotterdam.

The Kinahan clan exemplifies very well the mutation in the drug business. At the beginning of the new millennium they settled on the Costa del Sol to control the arrival of cocaine in Europe and launder money, but police pressure in Marbella and the opportunities offered by the United Arab Emirates led them in 2016 to settle in Dubai. In 2022, after the United States offered a reward of 5 million dollars to each of its leaders, they disappeared from the public sphere. Until a few weeks ago, The Sunday Times published photographs of the clan's father, Christy, and his two sons, Daniel and Christoper, at a martial arts event in Dubai. The Kinahan clan remains very much alive and uses the emirate as a hub, according to the US Treasury Department. Dubai authorities allowed the extradition of Sean McGovern, the right-hand man of the Kinahans, in 2024. In this way, he became the first person that the United Arab Emirates extradited to Ireland. Dubai, however, has not yet dared to extradite anyone from the clan with the surname Kinahan.

The origins

Dubai is a city artificially built between the desert and the sea. At the beginning of the century, it went from being a settlement to becoming a global financial center. "People came from all over the world to do business, to build a new life. This welcoming attitude began to favor criminal groups. They didn't ask where the money came from, they didn't create many bureaucratic obstacles," explains Fatjona Mejdini, director of the South Eastern Europe Observatory. In 2006, a report from the Council of the European Union already warned that "Dubai appears to be a place used for money laundering of profits from all sorts of criminal activities, including drugs".

Dubai's expansionist ambition also led to the introduction of long-term visas years later, residence permits for foreigners of five and ten years aimed at attracting investors and entrepreneurs. But they also attracted drug traffickers. Furthermore, this long-term visa model has been consolidated with the so-called golden visas, long-term permits designed precisely for investors. However, Mejdini explains that not all emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates have opted for a policy of turning a blind eye to crime. "The reluctance to report people with criminal problems has been a problem only for Dubai," she adds. A case demonstrates this: Franz Chopia is a well-known Albanian criminal who operated mainly in Belgium. He wanted to hide in the United Arab Emirates, but on a trip, he ended up in the wrong place. He landed in Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai. Automatically, his extradition was processed.

Dubai's leniency also made the city attractive to politicians accused of corruption. For example, former Nigerian governor James Ibori took refuge there, as did the Gupta brothers, who were closely linked to the corruption of the Zuma era in South Africa. The reluctance to pursue high-net-worth criminals has been compounded by frequent hesitations to accept extraditions to other countries.

The recurring emirate

However, each time, judicial and police investigations have increasingly pointed to Dubai. Two agents from the National Police of Fuengirola explain that it is common for the drug traffickers they are investigating – and who know at all times where they are moving – to travel once a month to Dubai to see their bosses. "The main ones are in the Emirates," they assure. References to Dubai in phone taps are constant. The Mossos d'Esquadra have also conducted investigations that have led them to Dubai, according to sources from the Catalan police. For example, last year, the Mossos, together with the National Police and the Serbian authorities, caught the Vračarci clan, a Serbian mafia very active in cocaine trafficking. One of the arrests was made in Dubai. A few years ago, in 2022, the Civil Guard dismantled a cocaine cartel that was bringing the drug through the port of Barcelona. The Spanish police stated at the time that the mafia was controlled from Dubai.

According to Mejdini, all this has led to Dubai facing increasing pressure from other countries. "And they have changed course," he states. The change has been particularly noticeable in recent months. They have extradited, for example, fifteen Albanian citizens who were involved in drug trafficking and who the Albanian authorities were looking for. However, the international analyst points out that often the second or third in the chain of command are extradited; the big fish remain untouchable. "It seems they are giving in to the pressure. And increasingly, we are seeing more and more cases of criminals being deported from Dubai. Now, whether this is something that will continue or if this is a strategy of handing over some small fish to contain the pressure, I don't know," Mejdini doubts. There are indeed some drug lords who have ended up being extradited from Dubai, such as Raffaele Imperiale. There have also been arrests of American traffickers, such as Roberto Carlos Álvarez Vera, from Ecuador.

In fact, since 2020, Dubai has not been the dreamed paradise for criminals. The pressure has increased especially from 2024 onwards, but there are cases of all kinds. Edin Gaçanin, the important Bosnian narco, was also arrested in Dubai, but has not been handed over to the authorities of his country. Despite arresting him, the Dubai authorities released him on bail in January 2023, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Now, it is not known where he is. On the other hand, Othman el Ballouti, a Belgian drug trafficker of Moroccan origin considered one of the main responsible for cocaine trafficking through the port of Antwerp, was indeed arrested and extradited in 2025 by the Emirati authorities. Taghi himself, one of the visible heads of the feared Mocro Maffia, was also arrested in a Dubai mansion and subsequently handed over to his country's police.

Dubai's foreign policy shift has already had positive consequences for the emirate. The FATF (Financial Action Task Force) placed Dubai on its blacklist in 2022, as they considered it to have deficiencies in the fight against money laundering. This further attracted organized crime and drug trafficking. "Dubai's reputation was growing as a place where you could invest freely and no one would ask you about the origin of your money. And, most importantly, you'd have good lawyers. So it would be very unlikely you'd be extradited," recounts Mejdini.

Various police and judicial sources explain that lately cartels have realized that it is as important to make money selling drugs as it is to move and launder it once earned. In this regard, police sources point out, the fact that Dubai has also had an opaque policy on money laundering for years has also favored the arrival of mafias to this emirate. Finally, in 2024, Dubai was removed from this blacklist, indicating that it had corrected some of its deficiencies.

It is still too early to assess how Dubai's change of course in pursuing cartels will cause drug lords to seek new refuges. In parallel, there is already various information, including from the Reuters agency, suggesting that some of them are considering fleeing Dubai due to Iranian bombings. What had been their safe haven, their trench, until now is now also at war.