UK crime agency investigating six in relation Nama’s Project Eagle

Six people are being investigated as "criminal suspects" as part the British National Crime Agency's inquiry into Project Eagle, the purchase of Nama’s Northern Ireland property portfolio, the head of the NCA has disclosed.

NCA director-general Lynne Owens told Northern Ireland Policing Board members on Thursday that seven people were interviewed by the agency under “criminal caution”, while six remained under investigation as “criminal suspects”.

Ms Owens said the Nama investigation was one of its “highest priority operations”.

Ms Owens said the NCA investigation, named Operation Pumpless, was “complex” and dealt with issues of alleged bribery, corruption and fraud over the controversial £1.2 billion purchase of Nama’s Northern Ireland property by US investment giant Cerberus.

Ms Owens told the board  two people were arrested under caution in May, adding they were subsequently released from police bail. “No inference should be drawn from the decision to release them from bail,” she said.

“We have not named and we will not name any persons we interviewed,” she said.

Continuing investigation

The NCA director-general said more than 40 witnesses have been questioned as parts of its continuing investigation.

She said the NCA conducted searches of eight properties and obtained court orders to obtain materials from public and private institutions.

She said her organisation, dubbed the British version of the FBI because it has cross-jurisdictional powers, was keenly aware of the public interest in the purchase of the Nama Northern Ireland loan-book known as Project Eagle.

Ms Owens said NCA deputy director Roy McComb recently briefed Northern Ireland Minister for Finance Mairtin Ó Muilleoir in confidence on the progress of the investigation.

Since July last year the NCA provided three confidential briefings to the Northern Assembly’s finance committee about Operation Pumpless.

“This is one of our highest priority operations,” she said. The investigation was of “highest priority in the serious crime grid”.

Ms Owens said the NCA investigation covered matters such as the purchase of the Nama loan-book, the “dispersal of fees offshore” and the “nature, extent and probity of the relationships and roles of persons involved in the process, including allegations of corruption”.

Ms Owens privately briefed Policing Board members on the investigation and commented on the arrests and interviews at the public element of the meeting on Thursday afternoon.

None of the board members questioned her about the Nama NCA investigation during the public session.

The NCA has already warned against any public comments that could jeopardise its inquiries. “Our view is that the public interest is best served by enabling the criminal investigation to progress, and without the risk of prejudice, to its natural conclusion,” an NCA spokeswoman told The Irish Times last week.

The NCA is leading the criminal investigation with the support of the PSNI. It is also liaising with law-enforcement agencies in the Republic, the Isle of Man and the US.

The overall Nama investigation derived from claims made in the Dáil in July last year by independent TD Mick Wallace who alleged that as a result of the Nama purchase, £7 million was lodged in an Isle of Man account “reportedly earmarked for a Northern Ireland politician or party”.