TYSON FURY’S US promoter Bob Arum has admitted paying crime kingpin Daniel Kinahan around £3MILLION to help secure four fights.
It comes after Irish police said anyone involved with Kinahan was part of a criminal network destroying the sport — and the US placed a £3.7m bounty on the alleged drug lord’s head.
American Arum, the 90-year-old head of Top Rank, confirmed boosting the Irishman’s coffers through a shell company in Dubai where the wanted man is in exile.
Arum, a former lawyer, owned up to making four payments of around one million dollars.
One each for Fury‘s two most recent wins over Deontay Wilder plus the bouts with Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin, between 2019 and 2021.
But Arum insisted that Kinahan has no involvement in Fury’s WBC heavyweight title defence against Dillian Whyte at Wembley on Saturday.
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Arum has turned on Hoopoe Sports Agent’s Kinahan by suggesting rival boxing firms MTK Global and Probellum are part of his money laundering empire.
And pressure is growing on Fury, who enjoyed a lunch with Kinahan in Dubai in February and even once recommended him for Irish PM, to do the same.
Arum said: “Kinahan has kids and said he wanted to get out of that other stuff.
“He said to me, ‘Bob, I’ve done some bad things in my life. I admit that. But I’m not involved with that any more. I’m just trying to clean up my life.’
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“I wasn’t involved in any of the things he might have done before.
“There came a time we discovered he might still have been involved in some nefarious activities. That was enough for us.”
