Sale of houses a bonanza for State

THE State pocketed €94,000 more than expected yesterday when it sold six properties belonging to convicted criminal Patrick Mitchell.

The Criminal Assets Bureau raised €1.059 million for his six houses at an auction in Dublin. The properties, all in the capital, had been given an overall guide price of €965,000 by Lowe & Associates, the auctioneer company for CAB.

Mitchell, the brother of top gang boss George Mitchell, known as “The Penguin”, owed more than €1m in taxes and interest to the State. He agreed to sell the houses to pay his debt.

Mitchell, aged 56, with an address on Benbulbin Road, Drimnagh, Dublin 12, was jailed for two years last April and fined €35,000 for failing to make taxes returns worth more than €1m. Mitchell had pleaded guilty to the charges.The Circuit Court had heard that Mitchell had acquired 13 properties in various areas of Dublin from 1980 onwards under fictitious names and names of his associates. He had rented these properties out to tenants, but failed to make tax returns for the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Judge Michael White said that Mitchell had set out to deliberately defraud the State of substantial revenue.

The court heard that Mitchell had signed an agreement with CAB to pay off his tax liabilities through selling six of the 10 properties that CAB had targeted.

A CAB officer told the court that the agency had carried out a covert investigation of Mitchell’s financial affairs for about six years, starting in 1997.