Proceeds of house auction to go to fraud victims

A KERRY house worth more than €500,000 owned by a deceased US insurance fraudster is to be auctioned next month on behalf of the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau.

The sale proceeds will be repatriated to the US and Canadian victims of the insurance frauds, who are thought to have lost as much as $24 million (€18m).

Next month’s auction for a modern home at Templenoe, on the Ring of Kerry, was cleared by a High Court ruling in May following an application by the CAB, which also seized $3.5m (€2.5m) in Irish bank accounts held by the late Matthew Wallace Schachter.

Using the alias Robert Lewis Brown, Schachter had incorporated two bogus companies in St Vincents and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. He died in California in 2005, aged 59, while awaiting trial after being extradited from Canada in 2004.

The real Robert Lewis Brown died in Las Vegas in 2001, but Schachter used this name while living in Ireland, and even had an Irish driving licence in this name.

Schachter came to the Irish authorities’ notice back in 2004 while he was living near Kenmare, after gardaí were alerted by the US Internal Revenue Service. He, along with a small number of accomplices, had soldbogus insurance policies to a range of individuals and companies in the US, using company names similar to well-recognised firms.

Auctioneer Daire Crowley, of DNG Giles, said they were to auction the house, Caislean Beag, on September 5.

While earlier reports had valued the house at up to €1m, the quoted AMV guide as it goes for auction is €500,000.

Although CAB normally passes on the proceeds of crime it has tracked down to the Irish Central Exchequer, any proceeds in this case are likely to go to a liquidator of Schachter’s companies in the US and Caribbean.