Laurence Dollimore
AN Irish mafia member has been found dead in Marbella after falling from a hotel balcony.
Michael Cumberton, a prominent member of the Kinahan cartel, fell to his death from the yet unnamed hotel on Saturday.
It comes after the key figure in the gang’s Spain operation was warned from Ireland’s Gardai that he was under threat from dissident Republicans in 2016.
The younger brother of famed hit man Eamonn, Cumberton was warned that he was to be targeted after his brother murdered Real IRA man Michael Barr at the Sunset House Pub in Dublin in April 2016.
According to the Sun, Cumberton had been staying with head honcho Daniel Kinahan in his luxury Marbella apartment.
Kinahan gave Cumberton lodgings as a favour in return for his brother’s arrest over the Barr hit.
While Cumberton was a high profile target, Spanish police are treating his death as an accident.
He had been working closely with another Dublin drug kingpin who had taken over the cartel’s operations in Spain.
Sources told the Irish Sun that ‘he fell off a balcony, it is being treated as a tragic accident.’
The source added: “He had been staying in different parts of Spain with other cartel members and was a close associate of Daniel Kinahan… he was a player for the cartel in Spain and this will be a huge blow to their operation over there.”
