Finance adviser guilty of laundering bank millions

A financial adviser was found guilty today of laundering cash from the £26.5m (€28.5m) Northern Bank robbery.

Ted Cunningham, from Farran, Co Cork, was found to have handled more than £3m (€3.3m) in stolen bank notes in the two months after the audacious December 2004 robbery that has been blamed on the IRA.

The 60-year-old, who ran money-lending and investment firm Chesterton Finance, was found guilty of 10 charges linked to the dirty money racket by a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Cunningham clutched rosary beads and his lips trembled as the jury returned to the courtroom after four hours and 40 minutes and returned majority verdicts on all 10 counts.

His son, Timothy, had pleaded guilty to four charges of money laundering on day 15 of the lengthy trial.

The main charge is that they had in their possession £3,010,380 (€3,241,272) at Farran between December 20, 2004 and February 16, 2005, knowing or believing it to be the proceeds of a robbery at the Northern Bank Cash Centre in Belfast.

The pair face a maximum 14 years behind bars when sentenced in the next court term.

Cunningham’s long-term partner, Cathy Armstrong, rubbed his shoulder in support and nodded her head as the guilty verdicts were delivered.

Judge Cornelius Murphy said it was unlikely Mr Cunningham would be freed on bail until sentencing, but rose for 10 minutes before making a decision - allowing the convicted money launderer more time with his family.

“Given the seriousness of the charges and the way the case has progressed it’s very unlikely that he will be released on bail,” he told the court.

The court ruled that Cunningham knew that more than £3m (€3.3m) traced to him was from the infamous December 2004 heist.

Of the 155,000 banknotes recovered from his home, 15,000 were examined, with more than 400 identified by stamps and handwriting as having passed through the Northern Bank cash centre bank.

The jury even watched an interview with Criminal Assets Bureau officers in which he admitted the cash was from the robbery and that he had thought about burning it.

But in court the financier maintained that £2.3m (€2.47m) discovered in a locked cupboard in the basement of his home on February 16, 2005 came from the cash sale of a gravel pit in Co Offaly to Bulgarian businessmen.

During the 45-day trial he insisted he travelled to Bulgaria with business partner Phil Flynn, once one of Ireland’s top industrial relations trouble-shooters and then chair of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Ireland.

Gardaí said that, under interrogation, the money lender said he was given £4.9m (€5.3m) from an unidentified male in a northern- registered car whom he met on four separate occasions.

But Cunningham said his detention was worse than being in Guantanamo Bay and alleged he was intimidated into co-operating with gardaí after he was arrested on suspicion of IRA membership.