FAT’ Freddie Thompson is hiding out in England under threat from the Kinahan Cartel for pocketing cash he was supposed to collect on behalf of the crime organisation. The Dublin thug left Ireland shortly after his release from prison earlier this month.
It is believed Thompson travelled to Alicante and collected money owed to him by other criminal figures based there, but has since gone to the U.K.
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It is understood he has been in London and Birmingham since returning from Spain.
He’s believed to be in Birmingham at the moment and is afraid to return to Dublin,” said a source.
The Sunday World has learnt that some of Thompson’s former associates in the Kinahan Cartel fell out with him over money and he now fears they will come after him as a result.
“Thompson’s crew were supposed to collect money for the Kinahans in Ireland, but the Kinahans got word that they were pocketing some of the cash,” said a source.
Thompson is also believed to have been isolated by two former close associates who wrongly suspected him of giving information to gardai which led to the two major drug seizures.
Another man who survived a number of assassination attempts has also been leading a whispering campaign against Thompson.
Thompson was extradited from Amsterdam to Ireland in May 2014 on charges of violent disorder, following an attack on a man in Morrissey’s Pub in Cork Street in January 2013.
He served a 15-month sentence over the brawl and was released earlier this month. Gardai visited Thompson in Mountjoy a day before his released and told him they had intelligence there was a credible threat to his life.
He was released from prison a few days early to give him time to get out of the country.
While Thompson fell out with the Kinahan Cartel, his cousin Liam Byrne still remains close to the gang. Byrne met up with Daniel and Christy Kinahan Jnr on a recent visit to Dublin for a boxing event.
Gardai believe Byrne and his associates are key links in a chain of drug and weapons shipments into Ireland for the Kinahan mob.
The fact that Thompson was previously close to the Kinahan Cartel offers him little protection. The gang are believed to be responsible for murdering their former associate Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh in the Costa del Sol last year and his brother Paul Kavanagh in Drumcondra, north Dublin, earlier this year.
Criminal figures including Christopher ‘Git’ Russell were among those who owed money to the gang. Russell had been repeatedly targeted by Hatchet and Paul Rice over the debt, but the Kinahan operation learned Russell had been paying back the money.
Tallaght criminal Rice was once a key figure in the cartel, but sources say he fears he will be whacked ever since Hatchet was gunned down in Spain last September.
Sources say Rice had been under serious pressure from the cartel to force Paul Kavanagh to pay back what he owed or else he would be killed. He has been laying low since Paul Kavanagh’s murder, only occasionally returning to Dublin.
