Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch: the ghost of the mafia that continues to chase his enemies

Hiding under a black baseball cap perched on a scruffy wig and surrounded by 800 mourners, it still cut an unmistakable figure.

Gerry Hutch, the Monk, was one of the most recognized men in the Irish underworld.

And when this photo was taken, he had become the most persecuted.

Days earlier, a beaten team had turned a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel into a bloodbath, triggering a total war between the Kinahan and Hutch organized crime gangs.

The retaliation had been swift and brutal.

Three days after the murder of David Byrne and a failed attempt to kill Daniel Kinahan, a squad of cartel hits hit the Monk’s beloved older brother, Eddie, a 59-year-old innocent taxi driver and father of five children.

While standing outside the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sean McDermott Street in Dublin looking at the coffin inside, Gerry Hutch knew that he was not just saying goodbye to his older brother.

It would be the last time they would see him on the streets of the north of the city where he became one of Ireland’s most cunning criminal chiefs.

In the 1,545 days that have passed since this photo was taken in February 2016, several of those who appear alongside him, including his nephew Gareth and his close friend Noel Kirwan, have lost their lives in the dispute.

Gareth’s father, John, died of natural causes, while a fourth brother, Patsy, narrowly survived the cartel’s attempts in his life.

Hutch’s closest friend Noel Duggan was also shot dead on his way in.

But as each new grave was excavated, the Monk has remained as elusive as ever in his cave.

The Kinahan cartel continued to search for him and placed huge cash rewards on him.

They have tried to put people in his heart of the city center against him in an attempt to get clues to his whereabouts.

He managed to disappear from the face of the earth, along with one of the other main targets of the Kinahans, the most feared hitman of the Hutch mob, who was also blown away.

There were rumors that Hutch fled north of the border, to Turkey, to continental Europe, or even to his old vacation home in Lanzarote, where he survived a previous assassination attempt in 2015.

But they are still just rumors.

For his enemies he has become a ghost of the mafia. And as a ghost, it has haunted them.

Since the bloodlust of the first days of the dispute, the weapons have been silent. Gardai has had great success putting the hitmen behind bars. Others are in cemeteries.

But from the wings, Hutch has continued to pull the strings of a different type of enmity: a cyber propaganda war.

Social media accounts that sources believe are run by the criminal mastermind once have been relentlessly attacking the Kinahan organization.

Last week, an account of the murders he allegedly committed was published online.

Publications often label associates and family members of those killed in an attempt to spark dissent in the ranks.

The campaign has sought to bridge the gap between Byrne’s organized crime faction, caught up in Dublin’s street war, and its Kinahan masters, exiled in luxury in Dubai.

You risk creating new and deadly enemies for the Cartel. The kind of enemies that could finish the job the Hutch gang started in the Regency.

Cyberwarfare also has another purpose for Gerry Hutch from his exile. While Daniel Kinahan escaped with his life from the Regency Hotel, he lost something precious in the attack.

Kinahan’s dearest wish remains to be respected in the boxing world he adores.

But when he fled for his life from the back of the Regency, he left the dream he had built with his organization MTK in ruins.

A strange rap song released a few weeks ago tells the story of the attack and is clearly influenced by the Kinahan story itself referenced.

His lyrics lament the fact that Daniel was “within 24 hours of becoming legitimate.” That’s what he feels the Hutches took from him. It took MTK years, and Kinahan walked away from him, rebuilding it.

But only this week, Daniel’s rehab continued when boxing legend Bob Arum touted him as the best man to stage what would be one of the biggest fights in sports history: a € 100 million clash between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

More than four years after the Regency, he’s back on the brink of becoming a legitimate boxing heavyweight again.

But as you get closer to your target, you still need to look over your shoulder at the ghost of your old enemy.

In affidavits from the Criminal Assets Office sworn in to the Superior Court in March last year, Gerry Hutch and Daniel Kinahan are identified as leaders of the two factions in the dispute between Kinahan and Hutch. Despite the calm in the murders, no one really believes this is over.

Those who know him and those who have followed his career say that Gerry Hutch could never forgive or forget the day he followed his brother’s coffin on Sean McDermott Street about 1,544 days ago.

One said: “That day it was broken, broken and dangerous. It was as if his remaining humanity was that day. He will not forgive or forget until he breathes his last breath. “