Drug lord Christy Kinahan is believed to have bought the ship to transport legitimate goods including cars and fruit along with contraband of guns and narcotics, the Irish Mirror reports.
Kinahan laundered his fortune - now believed to be more than €1billion through around 200 legitimate companies covering 11 countries, a report revealed last year.
It is understood the “Dapper Don” has now registered a ship in Liberia, West Africa, where is difficult for authorities to trace.
A source told the Irish Mirror: “Christy Kinahan doesn’t have to smuggle drugs across borders anymore because he spent millions buying his own container ship. The ship can go all over the world stuffed with drugs and guns but also carries legitimate cargo products too.
“He is the first criminal to buy one of these, with legitimate deliveries.
“This ship is almost as big as three football fields.
“But officers are finding it hard to pin down because there are so many of these same ships in ports across the world.”
Kinahan's cartel is said to be involved in a bloody feud with the Hutch family in Dublin, which has claimed 11 lives.
Police in Dublin fear the feuding could take over the city with justice dished out at "the barrel of a gun" and rivals ending up "in a shallow grave or killed at the side of the road".
The sheer scale of the Kinahans' money laundering was revealed in a report by Milan-based Transcrime last October. It stated: “Food-trading companies, bars and restaurants were set up in Ireland, Spain and the UK for laundering and functional purposes.”
Meanwhile, the High Court has given the green light for the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) to sell assets, including several cars worth €500,000, it says are linked to the Kinahans.
The agency's investigators have now set their sights on four homes believed to be linked to the Kinahans.
CAB had previously secured court orders freezing the assets – also including jewellery and motorbikes – which were seized following raids in different parts of the country last March.
The agency said the vehicles, linked to a dodgy car sales company, were used by the Kinahans as payment for services and for laundering money.
Earlier this month, Chief Superintendent Pat Leahy, in charge of policing the gangland feud in Dublin’s north inner city, vowed to break up the Kinahan and Hutch “mafia-style” gangs.
Mirror
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