Police arrest Irish fugitive Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch in front of diners at Costa del Sol restaurant

This is the dramatic moment armed police pounce on fugitive as he prepares to order a meal at a Spanish restaurant with a female companion.

Footage released by the Civil Guard on Tuesday showed uncover police disguised as tourists walking up to Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch’s table as he dined in Fuengirola, Spain.  

The arrest happened at a packed restaurant as the 58-year-old Dubliner looked over a menu in the Costa del Sol resort on Thursday 12 August.

The police video started with officers wearing shorts and T-shirts approaching Hutch to detain him on a European Arrest Warrant before one showed him his ID card. 

He is currently in custody in Madrid and is facing extradition to Ireland to be charged with the February 2016 Regency Airport attack where Kinahan cartel associate David Byrne was killed.  

The veteran criminal was caught in a special operation by gardai and Spanish police who tracked the phones he was using on the run, according to DublinLive.   

Hutch, who was wearing black shorts, a green T-shirt and trainers, was then cuffed and led away to the restaurant toilet past shocked bystanders. 

He was forced to sit on a toilet seat as officers checked his personal belongings before analysing his driving licence against a passport he was carrying.

He was then escorted out of the toilet and through the restaurant again before being taken to a waiting police car. 

A uniformed Garda was clearly visible in the police footage as he was filmed walking up the street leading to a patrol car behind Hutch.

The footage showed the Garda participated in the fugitive’s arrest, although Spanish officers were the ones who cuffed him.

The restaurant where Hutch was held has not been named, although the video released by police showed it is near a clothes shop called Loca de Amor. 

It’s understood he used several burner phones, unregistered devices bought under a false name, while he was in the Costa Del Sol.   

Electronic surveillance of phone calls he made to and received from Ireland since he vanished in April formed a key part of the investigation into his location.   

Even though he used unregistered phones, gardai were still able to establish that he had control of the handsets.

They analysed phoned linked to associates in Ireland that he was in contact with when he was on the run. 

A specialist technical gardai then established the locations where the phones were being used, and the Guardia Civil then sent specialist hunters from the Madrid-based UCO unit to the area.   

The technology is so precise that the locations where phones are used can be pinpointed to just a few hundred yards.  

Nicknamed ‘The Monk’ for his clean living, he became involved in serious organised but insisted he never sold drugs, according to The Irish Mirror.  

He had received convictions between 1970 and 1983 but despite being questioned on many occasions over various crimes he was never convicted.

Gardai still believe he is the man behind the £1.7million theft from a Securicor cash in transit van in Marino Mart, North Dublin, in 1987.

They are also certain he masterminded the Brinks Allied depot robbery in Clonshaugh, in 1995, where they stole £3million.

Overall, investigators believed he amassed up to €40million from his criminal activities, and left the criminal underworld with cash and a large property portfolio. 

His brother, three nephews and two pals were killed at the hands of the Kinahan cartel, after his nephew Gary Hutch rose in their ranks. 

Daniel Kinahan refused to return money to Gary that he had invested in the cartel’s drug operations and a Hutch hitman was hired to kill Kinahan in Spain in 2014.  

Instead, innocent boxer Jamie Moore was killed and it was agreed €200,000 would be paid in compensation to the cartel for the error. 

But in September 2015, Gary Hutch returned to southern Spain and was gunned down by Kinahan hitman James Quinn. 

In retaliation, gunmen stormed the Regency Hotel in a bid to kill Daniel Kinahan at a boxing weigh-in on February 5, 2016, but instead his close associate Byrne was gunned down.  

Just three days after the killing, Gerry’s brother Eddie, a 58-year-old taximan, was shot, as well as friends Noel ‘Kingsize’ Duggan and Noel Kirwan. 

Gerry’s two nephews Gareth Hutch and Derek Coakley Hutch were also later killed in a feud which claimed 18 lives.

Hutch – who has been top of the Kinahan cartel kill list – has been fleeing across Europe over the past five years.    

A spokesman for the Civil Guard, confirming the arrested man was Gerry Hutch, and admitted he was held after disappearing from his initial bolthole in the Canary Islands in April.

The spokesman said: ‘Officers moved their focus to people in his close circle on the Costa del Sol which enabled us to discover he was living there and had a back-up network which was providing him with everything he needed to remain hidden.

‘He was finally located in a properly in the centre of Fuengirola and put under watch until he left the dwelling on April 12 and walked through the crowded streets of the resort to a well-known restaurant where he was held.’

Police said his hideaway was searched the following day.

The Civil Guard said in their statement: ‘The arrested man has been handed over to the judiciary ahead of his appearance at the Audiencia Nacional court in Madrid.’ 

He has his initial hearing before an extradition judge on Saturday. If he opposes extradition another hearing will take place in the coming months.