Gilligan loses €500,000 to British authorities

Drug trafficker John Gilligan has been forced to hand over nearly €500,000 to British authorities.

The UK’s Revenue and Customs seized IR£296,000 hidden in a suitcase as the 55-year-old boarded a plane for Amsterdam in London’s Heathrow Airport in October 1996.

Officials finally secured the seizure at Uxbridge Magistrates Court, London and, with nearly eight years interest, the money is worth around €500,000.

Gilligan was arrested at Heathrow and subsequently charged with money-laundering but as he awaited trial an extradition request was made and he was returned to Ireland.

He was jailed for 28 years for importing cannabis by the non-jury Special Criminal Court in 2001.

The gang boss was found not guilty of the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.

Peter Hollier, HM Revenue and Customs regional head of criminal investigation, welcomed the seizure.

“This forfeiture today brings a successful conclusion to this case and demonstrates that crime simply doesn’t pay,” he said.

“To take over a quarter of million pounds of cash directly from the criminals’ pockets shows that HMRC is committed to taking the cash out of crime and stripping criminals of their ill-gotten gains, even when the original offences were many years ago.”

Gilligan is battling to stop the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) from confiscating property belonging to him worth an estimated €17m.

When it was first seized in 1997, the Jessbrook Equestrian Centre and its 100 acres at Mucklon, three miles from Enfield, was valued at €4m euro. Other property and money has also been seized by CAB.

He has already been refused legal aid for the constitutional challenge to the law which allows the freezing of assets believed to have been paid for by crime

The law he is trying to challenge – the Proceeds Against Crime Act – was brought in shortly after the death of Veronica Guerin, who was shot and killed 11 years ago.