IRA 'laundering stolen cash in UK housing market'

[emad]

Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Wednesday March 30, 2005
The Guardian

The IRA could be using untraceable money stolen in the Northern Bank robbery to buy properties in the UK, the Irish government believes.

A senior Irish political source told Monday's Irish Times that an operation to buy property outside Ireland was one of five or six different means to launder the £26.5m stolen in the Belfast robbery last December, which police on both sides of the border have blamed on the IRA.

Around £10m of the sterling notes stolen from the Northern Bank is without recorded serial numbers and is effectively untraceable.

The source told the Irish Times republicans were "finding properties and then using frontmen to buy them and sign for the deeds."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1447697,00.html

[emad]

1. IRA buying property with bank raid money

Irish Times

The IRA is using untraceable money stolen from the Northern Bank robbery last December to buy properties for cash in the United Kingdom, the Government believes. Mark Hennessy and Conor Lally report.

The £26.5 million was quickly broken up into "five or six parcels" in the days after the December 20th raid to help the IRA in its effort to "launder" the banknotes.

They believe each parcel was to be laundered separately. The property-buying operation went into action shortly after the bank raid, a senior Irish political source told The Irish Times.

"They are finding properties and then using frontmen to buy them and sign for the deeds," the source said.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/0329/2088007699HM1FRONTBANK.html

[Bridget Burke]

2. Glad to see the IRA has moved up in the world.

Instead of blowing up the UK, they're buying it up. BBCAMERICA shows "Homes Under The Hammer"; I'll be on the lookout for buyers using the lovely Belfast accent.

More evidence of wrongdoing from the article (since so many of the charges are "alleged"):

It was reported that republicans were working with a Bulgarian criminal gang to buy a bank in Sofia, and that the IRA could use Bulgaria's property market as a conduit for laundering the money from the Northern Bank robbery.

The Bulgarian financial intelligence agency has since examined several accounts set up in Bulgaria and said it found no link to IRA money laundering.

Oops, that one didn't work out. Let's try another:

Meanwhile, the Social Democratic and Labour party has argued that money raised by seizing assets from Northern Ireland's paramilitaries should be invested in a fund for their victims.....

Last week the assets recovery agency succeeded in persuading the high court in Belfast to freeze almost £5m in assets owned by a former officer in the Royal Ulster constabulary, Colin Armstrong, who is alleged to have links to loyalist paramilitaries and to be involved in international drug-trafficking.

Oops, this one refers to "loyalist paramilitaries."

If they keep looking, surely they'll find some real evidence against the IRA.

[Henny Penny]

3. " The IRA is using untraceable money "

I thought they told us it was all sequentially numbered and could never be spent.....

Could those bankers be less economical with the truth?

[Stella_Artois]

4. Some of it was

About a third IIRC.

I have a cousin in the police who has spent some time on this case, in a place you would not expect to be a hotbed of organised crime.

The money travelled pretty far, pretty fast.

[Bridget Burke]

5. And someday we may hear the real story.

Maybe.

Until then, it's so much blather.

[Stella_Artois]

7. To you it will be

Until someone is in court, and even then you will convince yourself that the person / people is framed.

My cousin couldn't share many details with me, for obvious reasons, and for obvious reasons if he did i wouldn't put his job on the line by sharing them here.

He was 100% certain what organisation did this. Either he's lying to me, or telling the truth, thats up for me to decide.

[Henny Penny]

9. I am sure you cousin would not lie to you...

why would he?

But he may have been informed by his superiors that it was the case, based on "intelligence". However, intelligence can be flawed and often even downright malicious. (As we all know only too well alas).

Look at the high profile raid on Stormont that collapsed the assembly- I think Hugh Orde was taken for a ride then because the PSNI no longer have their own well developed network of agents and are relying on outside information. Some of which may be coming from former RUC men who had to leave as part of the "reforms".

[Henny Penny]

6. perhaps you can enlighten us?

When you see all the main stream media and politicians singing from the same hymn sheet in the run up to an election, and no evidence to back it up.... lets just say a certain amount of scepticism abounds.

"Show me the money...!"

[Stella_Artois]

8. He couldn't go into detail

Frankly, i didn't want to put him in the position of having to say "stop asking questions", but he told me where he was working that previous week (A city in the North East) what case he was on (NI bank robbery). I asked him if the IRA did it, he nodded. I mentioned that i had heard that the money was useless and he said some of it was.

Its up to me wether i believe him or not, and up to you if you believe what i've typed here, i'm just relating what i know.