Kevin McGeever denies buying mansion with proceeds of crime

A former property developer who faked his own kidnapping has denied he bought a mansion in Co Galway with the proceeds of crime.

“Define crime?” Kevin McGeever asked during a hearing before the Master of the High Court.

The hearing was held to determine whether he can pay a €1.17million judgment debt registered against him last year by investor James Byrne over property in Dubai sold by Mr McGeever's KMM Intel Properties.

Mr McGeever said the reported €4.5 million sum paid by him to buy and refurbish a mansion, Nirvana, in Craughwell, Co Galway, came from 30 years of working every day and not drinking or smoking.

He was under cross-examination by counsel for Mr Byrne as part of efforts to have Mr McGeever divulge his assets so the debt might be recovered.

Mr McGeever at one point expressed a wish not to continue giving evidence and said he wanted to leave it to his legal representative “because I am out of my depth here”.

He also said he wanted to sit down with Mr Byrne and the matter could be sorted out very simply.

He said he had a friend with business interests in Hong Kong and Singapore who would provide him with money for the Byrne debt.

That friend would later recover the money as part of any future business deals he and Mr McGeever had. “I don’t need to be here (in court).”

He refused to name the friend who “has been taking care of me for a couple of years” because it would “cause his name to go round the world”.

‘Bit of a celebrity’

Earlier, he said he had not given details of a hospital where he was being treated for an illness, for which the court heard he had no medical certificate, because anywhere he went he found photographers taking pictures of him.

Andrew Robinson BL, for Mr Byrne, said this was because he had become “a bit of a celebrity” in recent weeks following his conviction and two years suspended sentence for wasting Garda time by concocting a story of being kidnapped by creditors.

Counsel said Mr McGeever promised last December to pay the debt by March but had not done so and his latest promise to settle the matter could not be believed.

Asked about a Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) investigation into the source of funding for Nirvana, Mr McGeever said that had not "gone anywhere" and CAB "has not lodged papers or charged me with anything".

On the suggestion the money came from the proceeds of crime, he asked: “What do you mean by crime? What are you talking about, am I a drug dealer?”

When counsel said he was wanted by the FBI and Interpol, he said that was “going back 30 years”.

The Irish authorities held all his identity documents, including his passport. “I don’t know who I am,” he said.

He said Nirvana, which he hoped to leave to his two daughters and their two children, was bought by a company, Universal Assets (UA), in 2005.

When told UA had been dissolved, he said that may be the Irish company but not a British Virgin Islands-registered company of the same name.

Jailed for fraud

Asked about a director of UA, Colm Sexton, who had been convicted and jailed for fraud, Mr McGeever asked who Mr Sexton was and described the claim that he was a director as "an absolute lie".

Asked had he first bought Nirvana in his own name and then transferred it to UA, he said no, it was bought for him to have “a nice home in the West of Ireland.

“I named it Nirvana because it was to be a place of peace and tranquillity, not after the band. It was to be a place of peace and tranquillity but it did not turn out that way”.

Asked about a €200,000 cheque paid to a since-deceased builder who did work for him in Ireland, Mr McGeever said it would be a waste of time for him to to sue the builder’s estate to get that money.

Mr McGeever also said he had sold 50 floors of commercial property in Dubai, plus six or seven apartments to Irish investors. After the economic crash, those investors pulled out and the properties had to be sold “to Indians and Pakistanis at liquidation price”, he said.