Bellingcat's Financial Investigations Team is a group of researchers and volunteers who use open sources to investigate corruption, financial and organised crime.

This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here.

Bellingcat and The Sunday Times last week published photographs showing ex-UFC fighter Mounir “The Sniper” Lazzez with wanted cartel leaders Christy and Daniel Kinahan.

The images, captured during the 971 Fighting Championship in Dubai last June, mark the most recent sighting of the Irish narco-traffickers since the US government put multi-million dollar bounties on their heads in 2022.

At different points during the six-hour fight night, Lazzez, who ran the event at the Coca-Cola Arena, is seen talking to both crime bosses, who were seated cageside at opposite ends of the front row, on white sofas designated for VIPs.

Lazzez is captured with Daniel Kinahan in a since-deleted high-resolution image uploaded to a professional photographer’s website, and in a picture posted to Instagram by a spectator.

He is also visible in the official live-stream. About two hours in, Lazzez taps Christy Kinahan, the founder of the eponymous drug cartel, on the arm. Three hours later, he crouches in front of the 68-year-old while looking at this phone, before sitting on the arm of Kinahan’s chair.

Today, we reveal that Lazzez — an outspoken supporter of Daniel Kinahan — has business interests extending far beyond the world of combat sports.

Documents uncovered by Bellingcat link the 38-year-old to multimillion dollar shipping deals, orchestrated by companies in a secrecy jurisdiction, for crude oil tankers that were later sanctioned by the US government for helping the Iranian regime.

The firms that bought these ships were headquartered at an address used for registering offshore companies — including a separate firm that owned a Kinahan cartel-linked bulk carrier loaded with more than two tonnes of cocaine.