Murder of Derek Coakley Hutch outside Wheatfield Prison in Dublin was ordered by woman Kinahan drug-cartel member.

The latest murder in a gang feud that has claimed 14 lives in less than two-and-a-half years was believed to have been ordered by a woman.

Small-time criminal Derek Coakley Hutch, 27, nephew of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch – leader of one of the gangs - was shot dead as he sat in a car near Wheatfield Prison in Dublin after going there to throw drugs over the perimeter wall.

The Irish Sun has reported the killing was most likely ordered by a woman who is an integral part of the Kinahan gang, the other criminal group in the feud led by Christy “The Don” Kinahan and his son Daniel.

The paper reports that the woman is one of those insisting the Kinahan murder campaign against the Hutch family be continued, despite its high toll on the cartel’s worldwide drug-trafficking business.

A source told the paper, “There are a few key individuals who are determined to pursue this to the end and she is definitely one of them…It was her idea that Coakley be killed and if she has her way, this will continue until virtually every male member of the Hutches is dead.”

Coakley Hutch’s murder on Saturday happened a day after his mother Noeleen — who is not involved in crime — had been awarded €28,000 in a Dublin court over an unrelated traffic accident.

He had accompanied her to court, despite being handed an official garda warning about a threat to his life before Christmas.

The lopsided feud – with the Kinahan side murdering 12 including two innocent victims, and Hutch associates killing just two – started in September 2015 with the murder in Marbella, Spain of Gary Hutch, another nephew of The Monk.

That murder was followed by a failed attempt to kill The Monk on New Year’s Eve, 2015, in the Canary Islands. He sensed trouble and slipped away from his would-be killers.

Detectives believe he then planned a gangland spectacular when armed men, some dressed as bogus cops and one as a woman, murdered Kinahan mobster David Byrne in February 2016 at a boxing weigh-in at Dublin’s Regency Hotel. The gang intended also to kill Daniel Kinahan but he escaped.

It was a miscalculation for which crime book author Paul Williams said The Monk has since paid for dearly.

Among the death toll so far are three of The Monk’s nephews, his brother and two of his closest lifelong friends.

Gardai have stepped up operations in Dublin’s gangland areas and have prevented up to 30 murders and charged more than 20 individuals with offenses ranging from murder, possession of firearms, drug-trafficking and money-laundering.

They have seized a large arsenal of weapons, drugs worth tens of millions of euro, large sums of cash, and cars and property bought on the proceeds of crime. 

The latest murder happened at the same time as one of the suspects in the Regency Hotel attack, 25-year-old Patrick Hutch – claimed by the prosecution to be the man dressed as a woman – is being tried for the murder of David Byrne.   

That trial continues.

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