crime pays | 

How cocky Cork drugs boss blew €100k gambling and enjoyed lavish holidays with wife

Detectives found that a beauty and tanning business set up by his wife Pamela Coone was funded entirely by unexplained wealth.

Today at 08:13

Cocky Cork drugs boss John Coone told a garda an €18,000 cocaine seizure was “a week’s pay” and offered to triple another detective’s wages for information.

Details of his significant gambling habit also emerged in a Criminal Assets Bureau case in the High Court this week where his seized assets were declared the proceeds of crime.

He blew €30,000 in a Boyle Sports account and lodged another €68,000 with Paddy Power while having no history of any legitimate income.

Detectives found that a beauty and tanning business set up by his wife Pamela Coone, also known as Murphy, was funded entirely by unexplained wealth.

With a declared income of just over €2,000 from the business she was able to enjoy extensive trips to Malaga, Tenerife, Malta and Lapland.

The couple also embarked on a luxury six-week trip to Santorini in Greece during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Coones’ lifestyle and spending were part of CAB’s case against the couple along with Coone’s mother Eileen and brother Kieran.

Described in evidence as a career criminal involved in drug dealing Coone has 47 criminal convictions, including the sale and supply of drugs.

Bureau chief Michael Gubbins in an affidavit asserted Coone had been given custodial sentences 18 times and had been found close “to the action” of drug dealing activities on a number of occasions.

This included once being stopped in a car being used to smuggle €140,000 worth of heroin.

The case focused on seized cash, several bank accounts, a Land Rover, a Kia Sportage, a VW Passat a Skoda Superb and several Louis Vuitton bags.

Counsel for CAB told the court that case against Coone “boils down there is little in the way of legitimate income.”

Coone’s gambling could not be considered as a source of any income because “he wasn’t very good at it” and suffered serious losses to bookies.

Riverview Aestics was the impressive business set up in Pamela’s name in Co Cork but there was no evidence provided as to how the fit-out of the premises and tanning equipment was funded.

There was a total of €220,000 in lodgements through Pamela’s account at a time when she was dependent on social welfare.

Cash receipts from the business did not correlate with activity on bank cards or with the salon’s appointment book which was mostly empty.

CAB said John Coone was using the business and a car dealership which were funded and set up by him to launder his money.

Eileen Coone, described as the person with “most-explained” income, had €66,000 lodged to her accounts between 2018 and 2020 while she was in receipt of a pension.

There were suggestions the money may have come from car boot sales, but no evidence was offered of this.

A sum of €3,900 was found at Eileen’s home, the explanation for which was not considered credible according to CAB.

Coone’s brother was the registered owner of a VW Passat which had been bought for €10,000 but which CAB said was effectively in the control of John Coone.

There was no explanation for where the money for the car had come from.

A Land Rover was purchased from Bawn Motors in Limerick, a firm which has been the subject of Proceeds of Crime judgement against it and described a vehicle for money laundering.

During raids carried out in February evidence was found a property purchase in Bulgaria which CAB said is also indicative of Coone’s wealth.

Judge Owens said that the evidence shows John Coone has access to “substantial income streams” over a number of years.

He said the obvious source of the money flowing his wife and mother’s bank accounts was his drug dealing and that he has been “a significant drug-dealer.”

The couple lived an “exotic lifestyle” with no known source to fund it and enjoyed a life of luxury.

He said he had little option other than to tule the assets as being derived from crime and accept the evidence from the bureau’s Chief Officer.

He awarded costs against John Coone but not against the others named in the action as he appeared to be the person in control of the assets.

The Sunday World previously revealed how it was Coone’s lifestyle that first alerted gardai, who suspect he graduated from street dealer to a major drugs boss in the south west in just a few years.

Gardaí suspect Coone has been dealing drugs for years and was jailed for a year after he unsuccessfully appealed a conviction for drug dealing in 2012.

A series of text were found on phones and used against Coone.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said at that trial: “Whoever is sending or receiving these texts is clearly in the business of sale or supply of drugs.”

“You would want to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to say that whoever is getting these or sending them is getting them in the business of supplying drugs.”

Counsel for CAB this week also referenced the judge’s remarks.