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Dublin Live
National
John Hand

Son of Kinahan gangster Liam Byrne returns to social media with scrubbed Instagram

The son of Kinahan gangster Liam Byrne has made a return to social media and said: "I'm still here."

Lee Byrne sports over 50,000 followers on Instagram, but he had deleted the profile at the end of April.

Now it has emerged the 24-year-old, who has no criminal convictions, has reactivated it.

Read more: Dublin Airport chiefs can't guarantee queue chaos won't happen this weekend

But he has scrubbed the page, deleting numerous snaps he has previously posted globetrotting to the likes of Dubai and the United States as well as posing in designer clothes and alongside plush cars.

The Dublin native has also previously posed for pictures beside Premier League stars Dele Alli, Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

And he regularly caught up with his close pal and Ireland ace Troy Parrott, documenting it on the page.

But now only one picture remains of him on the platform, which shows him roaming the streets of London.

Lee Byrne (Instagram)

Posting a selfie to his story this week, Lee wrote: "I'm still here."

The young man has lived in the UK with his family for a number of years after his father Liam Byrne moved the family there.

Liam fled Ireland after becoming a major target for gardai from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.

But now Liam, 41, is in the sights of the British authorities with the National Crime Agency investigating his activities.

Liam, whose brother David was blasted to death in the 2016 Regency Hotel attack, is believed to have travelled to Dubai some months ago after becoming spooked by any investigation into him.

Cartel boss Daniel Kinahan, his father Christy Snr and Christy Jnr along with close associate Sean McGovern all still reside there, despite the US Government sanctioning them in April.

Liam's brother-in-law Thomas "Bomber" Kavanagh - the number two in the Kinahan cartel - was caged for 21 years earlier this year following an investigation by the NCA which established he oversaw a €36million drug smuggling operation.

In the Criminal Asset Bureau's successful case against Liam in 2018, the High Court accepted submissions that he was at the "very top tier" of organised crime in Ireland.

It established that he headed the Byrne Organised Crime Group, which was the Irish branch of the Kinahan cartel.

CAB claimed: "The target of this investigation is the Liam Byrne Organised Crime Group. This group is aligned to the Kinahan Organised Crime Group and is involved in the importation for sale and supply of controlled drugs into this jurisdiction.

"The investigation has uncovered a system of money laundering used by this group."

Read more: Secret wife of crime lord Christy Kinahan has died

Read more: Kinahans stuck in Dubai and can't escape, gardai say

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