The Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) has secured a High Court order freezing property and cash valued at almost €4.5 million belonging to an American man who was behind a $24 million insurance fraud.
The assets include €3.6 million in dollars and euros on deposit in Irish bank accounts and a lakeside holiday home on almost two acres in Kenmare, Co Kerry, where fraudster Matthew Wallace Schachter lived.
Cab plans to give the entire proceeds of Schachter's Irish assets to the victims of his fraud. Usually the proceeds of any Cab action go to State coffers.
Schachter defrauded US and Canadian citizens and insurance companies of an estimated $24 million between 2000 and 2004 through bogus insurance firms he established in the Caribbean.
He sold and renewed insurance policies and collected premiums. However, while he paid out minor claims to bolster his credibility as a legitimate operator, he would not pay out on more substantial claims.
Those seeking substantial amounts of compensation found they had never been insured in the true sense of the word. The companies which he operated were never federally registered and did not have the necessary capital to cover large claims.
The head of Cab, Det Chief Supt John O'Mahoney, has told the High Court he believes the money on deposit here and the Kenmare property to be the proceeds of crime. Yesterday, he and Cab's bureau legal officer Frank Cassidy were granted an interlocutory, or freezing, order in respect of the cash and property.
The house and land in Kenmare will be sold in the next two to three months. At that time Cab will begin the legal process of repatriating to Schachter's victims the proceeds of the sale, along with the cash on deposit.
Under an alias, Robert Lewis Brown, Schachter incorporated two bogus companies, Tri-Continental Exchange Ltd and Combined Services Ltd in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Both of these had shelf companies which were almost identical to the names of legitimate licensed companies. They took advantaged of the name similarities by falsely claiming these legitimate insurers were providing the insurance cover.
Gardaí first became aware of Schachter living in Ireland when contacted by the US Inland Revenue Service in March 2004 in the course of a criminal investigation it was conducting. He was found to be living here under his alias and had an Irish driving licence under the name Robert Brown.
He travelled to Canada later in 2004 where he was arrested in September of that year. The following February he was extradited to Sacramento, California, where he died from cancer in October 2005, aged 59, while awaiting trial.
In the four years to May 2004, just under €24 million had been deposited into a US bank account in the name of one of his companies, of which about $19 million was generated from the sale of bogus insurance policies.
About $10 million was transferred to accounts in Ireland and Jersey with the remaining money spent by Schachter and a small group of associates.
Cab's investigations, conducted by a forensic accountant and Det Shane Fennessy, showed direct links between the $10 million transferred and the cash on deposit here and Kenmare property.
When he was arrested in Canada, Schachter had a list of his bank accounts and companies in Barbados, Ireland, Gibraltar, Spain and the Bahamas.
He had first adopted the alias Robert Lewis Brown in 1994. The real Robert Lewis Brown died in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2001.
The interlocutory order relating to the assets in Ireland was granted to Cab by Mr Justice Kevin Feeney in the High Court yesterday.