EXCLUSIVE | 

Mob money-launderer Jim Mansfield Jnr back at helm of new property company – weeks after release

Jailed businessman who laundered money for Kinahan cartel is now director of million-euro property company

Patrick O’ConnellSunday World

Today at 07:18

Mob money-launderer Jim Mansfield Jnr is back at the helm of a new property company – just weeks after his release from Portlaoise Prison.

The convicted criminal plans to use the company to build new houses, apartments and non-residential properties – as the demand for new homes reaches a point not seen since the height of the Celtic Tiger.

Mansfield Jnr who, a court heard, was previously given €4.5 million of Kinahan cartel cash to launder through investments in the Dublin realty market, is now listed as the sole director of property start-up ‘Swiftbrook Services Limited’.

The company, which has an authorised share capital of €1 million, is headquartered out of an office in Keatings Park, Rathcoole, south Dublin.

The 55-year-old was previously known to do business out of the family-owned Finnstown Castle Hotel, but when the Sunday World called there this week it appeared to be in use housing asylum seekers.

Mansfield Jnr – who served 13 months in prison for attempting to pervert the course of justice – signed the documents to form Swiftbrook with his brother PJ on January 11, 2022 – two weeks before he began his sentence.

Company documents obtained by this newspaper show the shamed former hotelier is listed as the sole director of Swiftbrook, while brother PJ, who has no imvolvement in criminality, is listed as company secretary.

It’s understood that while in custody in Portlaoise, Mansfield Jnr was in regular contact with an assistant who not only ran through business matters with him, but also topped up his tuck-shop account.

Mansfield Jnr was jailed for 18 months in February of last year for attempting to pervert the course of justice by directing that CCTV footage be destroyed.

The footage showed him with Martin Byrne on the morning that Byrne, Citywest hotel’s former head of security, was kidnapped by dissident republicans Dessie O’Hare and Declan Duffy.

The Special Criminal Court acquitted Mansfield of conspiring with others to have Byrne kidnapped by a criminal gang on June 19, 2015 but convicted him of directing that the footage be destroyed.

Mr Justice Alex Owens said that CCTV footage showed Mansfield Jnr with Martin Byrne before the two men travelled together to Keating Park, where the security expert was kidnapped by Duffy and O’Hare.

Mr Justice Owens said although the “most likely” scenario was that Mansfield Jnr “lured” Martin Byrne to a meeting with O’Hare and Duffy that morning with a view to facilitating his kidnap, the court could not reasonably exclude the possibilities that O’Hare had misled Mansfield Jnr about the purpose of the meeting or that Mansfield Jnr was not privy to the kidnap plot.

O’Hare was jailed for seven years in 2019 for falsely imprisoning Mr Byrne, while Duffy was jailed for six years in 2018 for the same Offence.

During Mansfield Jnr’s time in Portlaoise, further evidence was given by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in the High Court of his links with serious organised criminals.

Details of his associations with the Kinahan organised crime group emerged after the CAB sought possession of a luxury gated home in Saggart, Co. Dublin which the court heard had been given to the gang.

The High Court heard that Mansfield Jnr handed over the property along with cash after he failed to invest €4.5 million in cash in property, which the gang had given him.

Daniel Kinahan lived in the house for a time and some of his personal items were found there.

The High Court heard of the Kinahan gang’s assets in Dublin and its attempts to invest in the Dublin property market.

The gang gave Mansfield Jnr €4.5 million in cash in two suitcases in 2009 to buy property. However, Mansfield’s fortunes deteriorated in the financial crash and the gang did not get their property.

The deal turned sour and Mansfield repaid the gang with some cash and the houses at Coldwater Lakes in Saggart.

The High Court heard Mansfield Jnr described as having got “caught up in a quagmire”.

The court heard that the house was specifically under the control of the Kinahan cartel’s top two leaders, Daniel Kinahan and jailed drug trafficker Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, from 2014.

Kinahan has previously been found by the High Court to be the Kinahan cartel’s controller and manager.

Kavanagh was the head of the gang’s UK drug trafficking operation.

A search in Dublin in January 2017 marked the beginning of the end for Kavanagh’s empire, which used a network of lieutenant money-launderers without criminal conviction and seemingly ordinary companies.

Kavanagh (54), who was arrested in England in January 2019, was sentenced to 21 years in jail last March at Ipswich Crown Court after being convicted on drugs and money-laundering charges.

Some of Daniel Kinahan’s personal items were found in the house along with €5,000 in cash in a white envelope with ‘KAVS’ written on it, which CAB believe was Kavanagh’s money.

CAB also seized another €24,150 in cash at the house and a further €20,500 in a nearby property.

The court heard that no one claimed ownership of the money but an attempt to place the house in the legitimate ownership of Kavanagh was never effected.

Mr Justice Michael MacGrath was also told that Kavanagh is an international drug trafficker who is married to Joanne Byrne, the sister of David and Liam Byrne.

Liam Byrne is the head of the Byrne organised crime group, the Dublin branch of the Kinahan gang. His brother David Byrne was shot dead at the Regency Hotel in 2016.

The High Court granted the CAB orders allowing it to seize the Kinahan gang’s house and cash and remit the assets to the exchequer.