Arrests are now likely following probe into IRA cash
Via Newshound
SENIOR Garda officers are hopeful of pressing criminal charges against several suspects as a result of Operation Phoenix, the wide-ranging investigation into Provisional IRA money-laundering.
A massive file on the complex investigation, which has been under way since late 2004, has now been completed by the Garda.
Detectives are currently putting the final touches to the report, following last-minute consultations with law officers, and it is expected to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions this week.
Phoenix started out as a relatively low-key operation targeting a number of financiers suspected of providing expert help to the Provisionals and examining their alleged links to key members of the IRA’s backroom network.
But the €38m raid on the Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004 changed the entire shape of the garda initiative.
The size of the haul from the bank surprised everybody, ranging from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair to the leadership of the Provisional movement, including the robbery mastermind.
The vanloads of cash to be disposed of put intense pressure on the launderers, who were overwhelmed by the extent of the task suddenly confronting them and their dilemma opened up a variety of opportunities for the Garda national fraud bureau and the criminal assets bureau and other support units.
As a result of their inquiries, gardai uncovered a money-laundering racket used by the Provisionals to “cleanse” €5m in sterling notes from the proceeds of the robbery.
A detailed picture of the money trail emerged eventually as:
* Gardai seized €2.4m in used £20 sterling notes stashed into holdall bags in the basement of a bungalow owned by Cork financier Ted Cunningham, whose firm, Chesterton Finance Company, was alleged to have been used to help launder the cash.
* Another £1.5m in new sterling notes went up in smoke when a man in Passage West burnt the cash in his fireplace after the organisers apparently panicked because they feared the new notes could be traceable.
* The remaining £1.1m was identified in the paper trail across a series of financial institutions and has either been seized or spent.
Gardai recovered almost €0.5m of the latter tranche when they were either contacted by businessmen or raided houses or business premises.
Detectives also seized €93,000 in a Daz washing powder packet after they searched a jeep at Heuston rail station in Dublin.
Three men were arrested following the find.
Apart from raiding Cunningham’s home in the village of Farran, 10 miles outside Cork city, gardai detained two other men and a woman, including a Sinn Fein activist who had been a former councillor and a party election agent.
But only one man has been charged so far and he is now awaiting trial on accusations of being a member of an illegal organisation.
Inquiries here and across the Border were widened as detectives examined documentation relating to developments in Britain and in Bulgaria.
Phoenix was split up into two main strands - establishing that the €5m seized by Gardai during their nationwide searches was definitely linked to the Northern Bank raid and examining the huge amount of documentation and computer files seized from the homes and offices of suspects and their professional advisers.
A decision by the DPP on further criminal charges will hinge partly on whether the gardai can prove that the seized money is linked to the robbery and also on his views of the strength of the partly circumstantial evidence contained in the file.
Tom Brady
