A TOTAL of 53 people who had paid for flights to Las Vegas to attend Conor McGregor's fight at the weekend were prevented from travelling at Dublin Airport.
According to The Herald, McGregor’s brother-in-law Mark Elliot – who is married to the star’s sister Aoife – was one of those turned back from travelling to Sin City.
Several of those refused travel are rumoured to have close links to the Kinahan cartel, one of the capital’s notorious gangs.
41-year-old Elliot was one of more than 50 people – mostly men and mostly from the Greater Dublin Area – who were not allowed to travel to Vegas to see the action for themselves.
Mr Elliot previously served a three-year jail sentence for cannabis dealing and was not allowed to board a Friday evening flight.
The paper claims American officials in Dublin also refused entry to a number of criminals who had failed to disclose their convictions and other details on their Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (Esta) applications for the US.
Dublin Airport operates a US pre-clearance facility at Terminal 2, and the vast majority of people who were refused entry were denied at this stage.
Some of those not included in the 53 were sent home on the next available flight after arriving in the US.
Another fan was refused travel after being honest to an airport officer about using marijuana in his past.
Speaking to Joe Duffy's Liveline on RTE Radio 1 yesterday, the father of one of the man said that his son had all the right documents and no previous convictions, but pulled aside by officers right before boarding his flight and eventually told he was being refused entry to the USA.
The young man's dad Michael explained to the radio host that the reason for his rejection was admitting that he took a puff of a joint while at Electric Picnic.
He said: "He got through American immigration and he was sitting in the boarding area waiting for the flight and his pal to come through.
"He was pulled aside by an officer with a dog.
"The officer asked him had he ever been convicted of any drug related offences and he said 'no' which is correct.
"Then the officer asked if he ever used any drugs. He said 'no'.
"Then he asked if he had ever smoked any marijuana and my son said 'well I tried it two weeks ago but that's all and I never did it before, I don't use it, I tried it at Electric Picnic because people around me were smoking it."
Michael added: "He wanted to be honest because we brought him up to be honest and tell the truth."
Michael then said his son was taken to a room and made to wait with with around 15 other people.
"He wasn't spoken to anybody for around an hour, they came back, handed him his passport and walked him to the lift and said 'passport control is that way you can now leave the airport'.
"They told him he wasn't going to America and stamped his passport saying he was refused."
The fan, who spent €2,500 on his trip in total, was left devastated after being made to wait for an hour before being taken from the airport.
