no deal | 

Sale of Dublin home belonging to Kinahan cartel criminal falls through

The couple are both named in a Proceeds of Crime case being taken by CAB to have the Wheatfield Avenue house in Clondalkin declared the proceeds of crime.

Yesterday at 16:45

AN agreement with the Criminal Assets Bureau to sell the home of a man caught red-handed with a Kinahan Cartel weapons stash has been scrapped.

Just last month it was heard in the High Court, CAB were set to allow the sale of James Walsh and his ex-partner Lisa O’Hara’s home to go ahead and the money be held by a solicitor

The couple are both named in a Proceeds of Crime case being taken by CAB to have the Wheatfield Avenue house in Clondalkin declared the proceeds of crime.

But this week CAB asked for a previous order to stop the house being sold to be re-imposed after the planned €340,000 sale fell through, it was heard.

Judge Alex Owens agreed to revert back to the previous interim order to prevent the property being sold.

The house was the scene of garda searches in 2017 following a raid at Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole as gardaí acted on information from their British colleagues investigating Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh’s drugs gang.

Walsh was previously convicted of his role in the weapons stash organised by Bomber Kavanagh at an industrial unit in Greenogue raid in 2016.

Also convicted over the lethal underworld armoury was key Cartel man Declan Brady aka Mr Nobody and Jonathan ‘Rocket Man’ Harding.

Walsh also pleaded guilty in July 2021 at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to laundering €62,000 in crime cash.

Walsh (39) and his former partner Lisa O’Hara had both been charged with a total of 44 money laundering offences, which include using crime cash for a deposit on a house.

He was also charged with stashing €19,000 in a wardrobe at his home.

O’Hara given a suspended sentence, after pleading guilty to multiple counts of laundering more than €100,000 that was the proceeds of crime.

The Special Criminal Court found that she didn’t know where the money came from but was reckless in not asking questions of her then partner and father of her child.

When the gardaí had raided their home they also found financial documents which showed €136,000 had been lodged in various bank and credit union accounts over a three-year period,

It included a €60,000 cash deposit on the house and another €62,000 in cash paid to a builder for renovations on the house.

Walsh, was serving an eight-year sentence for the weapons offences when he was given another sentence of four years and nine months for money laundering.

O’Hara, who had never been in trouble before, said she presumed Walsh worked every day like she did.

The raid at Greenogue Business Park in Rathcoole came at the height of the Hutch-Kinahan feud in January 2017.

Walsh was standing in the reception area of the industrial unit where gardaí found 15 firearms, including an AK47, and 1,300 rounds of ammunition.