Posted by FRAUD SQUAD Fraudster Catriona Carey being shielded by network of close friends
Associates of controversial distressed mortgage advisor Charles Allen appear to be helping Carey lie low after she ripped off homeowners
March 16 2022 11:30 AM
Associates of controversial distressed mortgage advisor Charles Allen appear to be helping convicted fraudster Catriona Carey lie low after she ripped off homeowners.
A close associate of Charles Allen was seen driving Carey away from a house she has been staying in recent days in Courtown, Co. Wexford, after Carey’s white BMW was seized by gardai.
Officers with the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau called to the house on Wednesday after receiving a tip-off she was there.
In a planned meeting with her solicitor, agents took possession of the car.
The Sunday World can reveal Carey was once very close friends with Allen.
Catriona Carey talks with gardai
In 2013, Carey’s name was linked to a controversial outfit called the Rodolphus Allen Family Trust, a group led by Allen and which promised to protect distressed borrowers from having their homes repossessed in return for a cash fee.
In the Dail, Kathleen Lynch, who was then a junior minister, called it as “highly dubious property trust” that “sucked in” desperate people.
Attempts to contact Allen were unsuccessful, as home and mobile numbers for him listed no longer work.
Charles Allen has no criminal convictions, but in November 2013 he was arrested in a dispute about the ownership of a property in Co. Cork.
Allen, of Inistigoe, Co. Kilkenny, was described at the time as being the leader of a mysterious trust, which thousands of debtors believed would protect €2bn worth of assets.
The previous September the High Court issued a bench warrant for his arrest, after he was deemed to be in contempt for failing to respond to a summons.
In August that year his organisation, the Rodolphus Allen Private Family Trust, led a cross-country motorcade and twice ousted receivers from the Kennycourt stud farm in Co. Kildare.
The property was soon surrendered back to the receivers and Allen, the owner of the property Eugene McDermott, and political activist Ben Gilroy, were all summoned to court to answer allegations of trespass.
Allen relocated to Newry, Co. Down, where the warrant could not be acted upon.
Thousands of indebted homeowners, businesspeople and developers had paid Allen to join his trust, but up to then, it failed on each occasion it was tested.
Allen was arrested at a property in Co. Cork but was subsequently released from custody after he gave an undertaking not to interfere with or trespass on lands in Co. Kildare.
Catriona Carey looks into the BMW car with a garda at the house near Courtown
The World understands undercover gardai have been monitoring recent practice and competitive matches involving Kilkenny Hockey Club, of which Catriona Carey is a member in order to keep track of her movements.
Carey brazenly turned up for a practice game within days of the RTÉ Primetime Investigates exposé on her activities.
Carey is alleged to have scammed hundreds of thousands of euro from desperate homeowners in false schemes to buy off their struggling mortgages in return for deposits they never got back.
Gardai visited her plush detached home last Wednesday and seized bundles of documents.
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