A former top executive at a fight firm co-founded by Irish gangster Daniel Kinahan will host a boxing event at Dundee’s Caird Hall this weekend.
Leisure and culture bosses have been urged to explain their dealings with promoter Sam Kynoch, ex-group managing director of MTK Global, the management agency forced to close a year ago due to US treasury sanctions against members of the Kinahan crime group.
Mr Kynoch, from Perth, held the senior role with MTK for around 18 months before setting up his own company in August 2018.
Playing With Fire
On Saturday he will stage a bout between the city’s IBO Continental champion Paul Kean and Commonwealth title holder Louis Greene.
The event – titled Playing With Fire – has been promoted on the Dundee City Council website.
Mr Kynoch is a former corporate lawyer who has been pictured in the past with Dubai-based mobster Kinahan.
In October 2021, Kynoch Boxing Promotions entered into a multiple-year deal with Probellum – another company that has disappeared off the boxing map since being linked to the cartel boss last year.
‘Worryingly complacent’
Scottish Conservative shadow community safety minister Russell Findlay, a former investigative journalist, said: “Since the Kinahan sanctions were imposed just over a year ago, the response in Scotland has appeared to be worryingly complacent.
“All public officials have a duty to ensure that Scotland is not a safe haven for this cartel or their proxies and I would urge the council to set out what enquiries and actions it has taken in relation to these events in Dundee.
“This drug gang’s links to Scottish boxing have been known about for almost a decade so there can no longer be any excuses that people are unaware.”
Mr Kynoch did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
We previously reported that city leaders were under pressure to explain why Probellum – whose trademark was registered four years ago by MTK Global – was allowed to co-promote a boxing event at Caird Hall last year alongside the former Perth Railway Amateur Boxing Club fighter.
Boxing boss denies link
Following that event, Mr Kynoch issued a statement insisting any suggestion of his continued involvement with Kinahan is “false”.
He said: “Upon establishing Kynoch Boxing in 2018 I severed ties with MTK Global – the boxing management and promotion business which ceased operations last month…Any inference that I remain linked to MTK Global or any individuals linked to MTK Global are false.”
Mr Kynoch added that he was “satisfied” there was no connection between Probellum and the Kinahan cartel.
And he said: “False claims which look to undermine years of hard work are hard to stomach…”
Mr Findlay has raised what he described as “significant links” between Mr Kynoch and the Kinahan’s’ Marbella gym with the National Crime Agency and police.
What do leisure bosses say?
A spokesperson for Leisure & Culture Dundee said: “Due to confidentiality reasons, we cannot provide comments on individual bookings.”
Members of the Dubai-based Kinahan group are wanted over offences including murder, firearms and drug trafficking.
US officials announced sanctions against them last year and said Daniel Kinahan “is believed to run the day-to-day operations”.
Mr Kynoch set up MGM Scotland in Glasgow in 2015 as a “sister gym” to MGM Marbella in Spain, which was founded by Kinahan and his then-partner, friend and former boxing champion Matthew Macklin.
Two years later, MGM Marbella rebranded to MTK Global and the Scot was appointed as the new group managing director following Macklin’s departure from the company.
MTK Global signed a host of world class fighters including Tyson Fury, Josh Taylor, Carl Frampton and Billy Joe Saunders before its demise.
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