Court hears libel plaintiff made CAB fraud settlement
The officer said Martin McDonagh made a “global” settlement with the CAB after it had taken a High Court case under proceeds of crime legislation freezing his assets including a shop he owned in Sligo.
The proceedings also related to him claiming the dole while working and failure to make tax returns between 1998 and 2000.
Mr McDonagh, 45, of Cranmore Drive, Sligo, is suing the Sunday World over an article published on September 5, 1999, in which he was called a Traveller “drug king”.
Referring to him under the nickname, “the Shark”, the article alleged he was involved in money-lending as well as having masterminded the importation of the largest amount of cannabis and ecstasy into the west of Ireland in 1999.
Mr McDonagh has at all times denied he is involved in drug dealing.
Yesterday, a CAB officer who cannot be named, replying to counsel for the Sunday World Hugh Mohan SC, said the action against Mr McDonagh was made under the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996 with the purpose of freezing his assets and appointing a receiver to them.
“Our case was that he had been involved in drug trafficking for a number of years and in fraud against the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) in the UK,” said the officer, a Garda detective.
The officer told the court that an examination of Mr McDonagh’s bank accounts with the then TSB bank, by a CAB forensic accountant, showed that more than £700,000 had gone through them during the 1990s. This figure was challenged by Mr McDonagh’s own accountant who said it was £419,000 and CAB later revised its own figure down to £665,000, the CAB officer said.
Evidence in the case has ended and it was adjourned until tomorrow when the jury of seven women and five men will hear closing submissions.
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