Carl Frampton: Daniel Kinahan's boxing firm 'was good for me'

Carl Frampton is a former two-weight boxing world champion

Retired boxing star Carl Frampton has said a defunct boxing management company, co-founded by a man accused of leading an organised crime gang, "looked after me".

Daniel Kinahan co-founded the firm MTK.

The US government imposed sanctions on him after he and other members of his family were identified as leaders of the Kinahan organised crime cartel.

Up to $5m (£4.1m) is being offered for information leading to their arrests or financial disruption of the gang.

Mr Frampton, who has no involvement in crime, had already retired when the MTK management company was disbanded after the sanctions were announced.

Daniel Kinahan had previously been named in the High Court in Dublin as the controller and manager of the Kinahan gang.

Daniel Kinahan co-founded MTK Boxing which had links with many top boxers

Mr Frampton, a former two-weight world champion, was advised by MTK after he split from his former manager Barry McGuigan.

Mr McGuigan and Mr Frampton settled a multi-million pound legal case in 2020, with Mr Frampton saying he was "extremely happy" with the confidential settlement.

Speaking during the promotion for his autobiography, he said MTK was "good" for him.

He also said he had "no regrets".

'10 times more money'

Speaking to BBC Sport NI, Mr Frampton said: "I got a fair bit of grief about it and, look, people can say what they want but for me MTK were, when I had left the McGuigans, good for me.

"They had an advisory role where they got good deals off Frank Warren, as the first promoter at Queensberry [a boxing promotions company], and Bob Arum at Top Rank, when I had signed a deal with them as well.

"So, people get mixed up and talk about me being paid by MTK."

He added: "I was paid by the promoters that they got the deals with.

"So, I mean, at a point in my career and the court process and stuff was going on while I was still fighting... I was worried about things and I got, with MTK, the Josh Warrington fight off Frank Warren.

"So they done a deal with Frank Warren... I was a challenger in this fight, [got] 10 times more money than I got to fight Kiko Martinez in a government-funded fight in Belfast.

"So, I had a bit of security for my family and, I mean for me personally, MTK looked after me."

He also said: "I didn't have knowledge of anything, I was a boxer boxing, that was it."

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He concluded: "When you talk about the sanctions and stuff that happened after that, I was already a retired fighter then - so I was a boxer boxing, and that's all I was doing."

A week after the United States sanctions were announced against Daniel Kinahan and others, it was confirmed that MTK would close down.

A prominent Irish police officer told BBC News NI last year that many boxers had been exploited and preyed upon by the Kinahan gang.

Daniel Kinahan's lawyer previously told the BBC that he had no criminal record or convictions and the allegations about him being a crime boss were false and had no evidential basis.

In 2022, rewards of up to $5m (£4.1m) were offered for information on the gang

But law enforcement agencies in the US, Ireland, the UK and other European countries want to find Daniel Kinahan and some other members of his family and bring them before the courts.

For many years now, across the island of Ireland, there has been a major focus on the illegal activities of the Kinahan gang.

This has brought attention to the people suspected of being at the top of the organised crime gang all the way down to the destructive and devastating impact their illegal drugs supply network has had on individuals, families and communities in towns, villages and cities across the island.

What is the Kinahan cartel?

For more than 20 years the group has been responsible for importing tonnes of drugs and firearms around the world, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said.

The NCA added that the crime group was linked to more than a dozen gangland murders.

The US Treasury Department described the Kinahan cartel as one of the most dangerous in the world, comparable to crime organisations like Italy's Camorra, Mexico's Los Zetas and Japan's Yakuza.

According to Garda (Irish police) Commissioner Drew Harris, speaking in 2022, the gang is estimated to have made over €1bn (£836,590,000) globally from its activities.