car washer | 

Revealed: Businessman involved in laundering money for drugs gang through car firm

The car firm provided vehicles for known criminals in Limerick to use, according to Garda evidence.

Today at 12:35

A Limerick businessman has been revealed as a key figure in laundering cash for the city’s notorious drug gangs through a car dealership.

Shane Curtin, from Newcastle West in Co. Limerick, is one of four men involved in Bawn Motors which had been set up to launder cash from the city’s drug mobs.

His business colleague, Mike Nash, from the same town, was also part of the set up in which the firm bought cars in the UK and sold them in Ireland.

When the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) raided the company in March 2019, seizing 111 vehicles, it was one of the biggest such operations carried out by the agency.

Last week, Judge Alex Owens granted an application by CAB to have dozens of the seized vehicles declared the proceeds of crime.

The cars had already been sold by the Bureau and the case centred on the €820,000 they made at auction, along with €20,000 in a bank account associated with the firm.

As part of the case to show the firm’s links to crime gangs, a senior officer gave evidence that Garda intelligence shows Curtin has connections in the drugs trade in Limerick.

In 2009, he was in a vehicle that was stopped after a tip-off and ecstasy tablets worth €10,000 were found.

It was also stated that Curtin remains active in importing and distributing controlled drugs, and spends most of his time outside Limerick.

The car firm provided vehicles for known criminals in Limerick to use, according to Garda evidence.

Details of the CAB case were heard in court last December in which Nash was also alleged to be involved in the drugs trade.

Another man who had been named as having a role in the car firm but was not a party to the CAB case was convicted drug dealer John O’Donoghue, from Rathkeale, who was described as an associate of criminals in the Limerick area.

O’Donoghue previously featured in the Sunday World in 2021 when he got a 10-year prison sentence for a vicious machete attack in which his victim thought he was going to die.

A fourth man involved in the car firm can’t be named for legal reasons.

Judge Owens on Friday in a written judgement said that if the firm’s records from 2015 are true then “it was a remarkable success”.

He pointed out that total recorded receipts from sales in 2017 was €5,301,313 and were €8,074,300, the following year.

“The likely source of wherewithal for all of this business activity was proceeds of crime provided by Limerick criminals as part of a money-laundering exercise. No other explanation is credible.”

He agreed with the Bureau’s accountant that the company’s “substantial funding from undisclosed sources” is the probable explanation for its growth.

Neither Nash nor Curtin had the legitimate means to have injected into the business the money needed to have achieved this growth.

The judge described the dealings with one of the UK car dealers as “highly irregular” due to the lack of invoices, which “points to introduction of money from unknown sources to acquire cars in the UK as the likely explanation”.

CAB stated in their case there was also evidence that €1 million in cash had been paid through a Bureau de Change outside the jurisdiction.

During the original three-day hearing last December CAB stated that Bawn Motors was “established to launder the proceeds of crime.”

They said Bawn Motors paid a British company, which doesn’t have a premises, €2.2 million for cars that were shipped to Ireland for re-sale.