Key Kinahan lieutenant Seán McGovern’s surprise guilty plea this week has sent a strong message to cartel leaders that ‘there is nowhere to hide’, the head of the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau has said.

In an interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday, Detective Chief Superintendent Séamus Boland said the evidence against McGovern – who was previously named in the ­Special Criminal Court as one of the leaders of the Kinahan organised crime group – was ‘so phenomenal’ he had no choice but to enter a plea.

In his first comments since the senior gangland figure pleaded guilty to directing a criminal gang in relation to the murder of one man and the surveillance of another, Det Chief Supt Boland said: ‘You don’t enter a guilty plea unless you absolutely have no way out.’

McGovern was arraigned on the two charges on Monday and replied ‘guilty’ to both. He was the first person to be extradited to Ireland from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to face trial.

Detective Chief Superintendent Séamus Boland of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau 

The senior detective also said the war in Iran has led to a ‘change in dynamics’ in the Middle East, which has heaped further pressure on Dubai-based cartel boss Daniel ­Kinahan, his father Christy Sr and brother Christy Jr.

He noted the current environment in the Middle East is not good for anybody, ‘particularly people who may have nowhere to go’.

Det Chief Supt Boland said of McGovern’s guilty plea and the net tightening around the Kinahans: ‘It’s been a good week for everyone. These things take time, and from our perspective we have to be very measured about what we can say. But when you see such a ­significant case ending up with pleas being offered, it is a testament to the investigation and to the level of evidence that was being presented as well.’

He added the guilty plea is ‘an indication of where we are… the evidence is just so phenomenal’.

And it has given welcome momentum to the investigation team tasked with bringing the Kinahans – and other drug gangs operating in the country – to justice.

‘It is good for all of us because it frees us up to continue with ­similar investigations, as we have quite a number of similar investigations that we are pursuing.

‘Not all directly linked to the Kinahan gang, I should say, but we are gathering all of the evidence available with our absolute intention to be bringing very serious criminals who are well-known household names before the courts in the future.’

Sean McGovern, a key member of Ireland’s powerful Kinahan cartel who last week pled guilty at the Special Criminal Court to directing a criminal gang

Mr Boland said the Garda ­strategy is to pursue the leaders, rather than the footsoldiers, within organised crime groups.

‘We’re in a different space; for so many years the only people that risked being prosecuted for murders were the people caught at the time who were actively pulling the trigger, or due to forensics.

‘So we’ve moved into such a different space where you’re now seeing the people who are making the decisions brought to justice.

‘That message needs to get out to everybody coming up after them as well, that they will become the focus of everything we do.’

The senior detective acknowledges that targeting the top tier of criminal organisations would not be possible without close international co-operation.

He said gardaí have invested heavily in these law-enforcement collaborations since 2015. All of the current investigations being conducted by the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GDOCB) have an international dimension to them.

Investigators are in daily contact with police forces in other ­countries. And as a result, Mr Boland said, there is nowhere for criminals to hide.

‘We’re developing those relationships [to be] so much stronger, even out as far as South America in recent years.

‘There is nowhere for them to hide any more and we have had nothing but a positive experience with our colleagues in the UAE. They’ve proved to us if the evidence is there and we satisfy their own judicial processes, there is nobody who is safe in the UAE.’

Daniel Kinahan has been sanctioned by US authorities who have offered a $5m reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction

US authorities have also offered a $5m reward for Christopher Kinahan Jnr, who they have also sanctioned

Mr Boland said the recently appointed Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly is ‘a huge supporter of that relationship [with the UAE], having being over there himself, and we are going to continue to build on that’.

Commenting on how the war in Iran has changed the landscape for Irish criminals in the Middle East, the man leading the fight against organised crime groups said there is a pressure on them now that ‘was not foreseen’.

‘Here’s a man [McGovern] over here, whose partner and children are all still over there and he is getting locked up now – and he’ll be in custody here likely for a considerably long period of time. Of course that [war] changes lots of dynamics, even apart from how safe people might feel out there.

‘So of course it is adding to pressures, but from a criminal perspective so be it. But nobody wants to see what is going on out there.’

He added the threat posed by the Kinahan drugs gang to Irish society has been ‘very, very significantly reduced’. But he stressed the job of bringing the gang’s top leaders to justice is not finished.

‘There are groups who would have been facilitated by the Kinahans or worked with them who are still involved, but it is obvious to everyone their direct control of what happens in this jurisdiction doesn’t happen any more.

‘But from our perspective our work has not finished. We have had a goal from the beginning to totally dismantle that group.

‘They have created too much misery and damage to this society, so from that perspective our work has not finished.

‘We are absolutely determined to bring senior decision-makers who are responsible for all of the death and carnage that occurred on both sides before the courts, so that justice can be delivered.

‘We’re not there yet, but we are at a very advanced stage.’

There has been a remarkable shift in the country’s gangland landscape in recent years.

Ireland has moved from number 12 on the Global Peace Index in 2016 to number two a decade later. There have been no gangland gun murders in the country in the past 16 months.

Mr Boland noted: ‘I don’t know of any other country – and I think everyone in Ireland should be proud – that has managed to decrease their organised crime-related murders and murders by firearms to the level we have in a modern society.

‘It will be challenge to maintain that, but that is going to be our responsibility. That’s our focus all the time. That [no gangland murders in more than a year] is hugely significant and it’s something we set out to achieve.’

Recent successes, according to Mr Boland, can be partly attributed to how gardaí strategically went after criminals they knew to be capable of murder.

‘I remember conversations we were having at a senior level within AGS [An Garda Síochána], and the acceptance that we have to take out these gangs, concentrate our resources on those who are the most violent, and ensure we ­concentrate all our intelligence-led investigations to take these groups down.

‘I remember the discussions where we said strategically, “If we take out all of these individuals who are willing to order people to be murdered and lock them up, society will be safer.”

‘We anticipated this is what would happen. And we have a very strong, powerful legislative tool-kit which has been given to us by Government, particularly in relation to organised crime.’

Christy Kinahan Senior, known as the dapper don. Chief Supt Boland believes Kinahan knows the net is closing around him

And so far, the strategy has been working well.

‘It was crazy. There was one year we had 33 shot dead and it [the level of violence] became normal for people.

‘I had heard a quote that it is the first time since the 1960s that we’ve gone for 12 months without a gangland gun murder, and it’s been even longer now.’

The head of the Garda unit that is tasked with taking down the country’s most dangerous criminals said that the achievement is ­particularly significant, as it is not being successfully replicated in other countries.

‘It’s phenomenal because it’s not the same that is being experienced in other jurisdictions,’ he added.

‘So we are, as a nation, standing up to all of the challenges.

‘It’s not just the guards. We have fantastic collaboration with the Revenue Commissioners and in relation to the work we do here, it is almost hourly.

‘We’re in a good place in regards to processes and how to do our business, but the challenge is to keep it that way.

‘We won’t become complacent. We have to make sure that level of violence never returns to this jurisdiction again.’