Tessa Fleming

And what does his fall mean for others still at the very top of the cartel?

I'm Tessa Fleming and today on the IndoDaily I'm joined by Irish independent security correspondent Robin Schiller as we examine one of the men at the centre of Ireland's bloodiest gang war and what this case reveals about how the Kinnaghan cartel truly operated.

Robin, Sean McGovern, he's known as Knife.

He's been in court this week for his sentencing hearing.

We had the successful process of the extradition and all of that.

So maybe just remind us how we got to this point and why he's being sentenced, because it's been a long road.

So this is, as I said, a sentencing hearing.

We're hearing major evidence in this case.

And a lot of it has to do with encrypted messages.

And we've also heard details of tracking devices used by McGovern and placing Kinahan rivals under surveillance and all of that.

It seems to have been a very elaborate and a very sinister kind of modus operandi which was being played out.

So maybe talk to me about what the court has been hearing about the operation itself and in particular those encrypted messages.

McGovern is understood to have been a significant force behind the Kenan gang's violent campaign, and he's been linked to other attacks and other attempted targetings.

Talk to me now, and I know you mentioned him, James Mago Gately, who he was and McGovern's role in his attempted murder.

How was that planned to have James Gately killed?

How did that go wrong for them?

After that plan, that botched plan of the attempted murder of James Gately, there was messages being traded on this encrypted messaging platform.

Talk to me a little bit about that and what we can gleam from them.

I suppose when you're talking there about encrypted messages and tracking devices and surveillance and a hitman coming over to take out Gately, I mean, it's such a sophisticated operation and I suppose it really shows how deeply that kind of sense of bloodlust and that revengefulness really goes in the Kinahan gang.

I suppose...