‘Viper’ debt collection agency takes 83% hit in profits

The debt collection agency run by Dublin criminal Martin “The Viper” Foley recorded a loss last year, with its accumulated profits plummeting by 83%.

Foley operates Viper Debt Recovery and Repossession Services Ltd, whose accumulated profits decreased by €4,471, from €5,342 to €871.

An accompanying auditor’s report in accounts lodged by Foley’s firm to the Companies Office confirms that Viper Debt Recovery recorded a loss last year.

That loss last year follows a loss of €18,388 in 2010.

The firm’s cash also took a dive in 2011, going from €2,672 to €804.

The company’s website boasts that the firm’s “proven strategies and debt recovery systems have recovered over 90% of our assigned accounts, which is well over the industry’s collection success average”.

On the services it provides, the website states that “our dedicated, professional team are trained in the Person Act 1997 and set out with immediate action in the aim to collect your debt as quickly as possible whilst retaining the relationship with your client if at all possible”.

The abridged accounts show that Viper Debt Recovery owed €14,541 in Vat and €2,000 in PAYE and PRSI at the end of the year.

Auditors for the firm, Conway, Conway & Co of Naas, Co Kildare, qualified their audit opinion on the financial statements due to no cash receipt book being provided.

The auditors state: “In respect solely of the limitation on our work relating to the limitation of scope, we have not obtained all the information and explanations that we considered necessary for the purposes of our audit; and were unable to determine whether proper accounting records had been maintained”.

Mr Foley, 56, from Cashel Avenue, Kimmage, Dublin, has survived five attempts on his life. The most recent was in Jan 2008 when he was wounded four times after a gunman opened fire on him as he was leaving the Carlisle Gym on Lower Kimmage Rd.

He first came to prominence in the 1980s as an associate of gang leader Martin Cahill.

He has more than 40 convictions, including ones for assault, robbery and possession of threatening weapons.

In one case he assaulted a garda and broke his jaw. In 1988, he threatened a member of the force with a crossbow when he was followed home by gardaí after leaving a St Patrick’s Day party in Cahill’s Rathmines home.

In Mar 1984, an IRA gang broke into Foley’s house in Crumlin, tied him up and kidnapped him. Gardaí believe the kidnapping was part of a row between Cahill and the IRA.

In Feb 1996, Mr Foley was again wounded in a gun attack outside his home. He was hit five times in the side and back and suffered a punctured lung.

Two directors are listed, Sonia Doyle and Mr Foley, whose occupation is described as “courier”.