Two men held over laundering of Northern Bank cash

Two men are to be charged today over the £26.5m (€29.4m) Northern Bank robbery after fresh arrests last night.

The men, both understood to be prominent republicans in Cork, were detained in the city last night.

The pair, one in his early 40s and the other in his early 60s, are expected before the non-jury Special Criminal Court this morning.

The fresh arrests come just weeks after money lender Ted Cunningham was convicted of possessing more than £3m (€3.33m) from the infamous IRA heist.

Detectives investigating the robbery discovered £2.4m (€2.66m) packed in six holdall bags locked in a cupboard in the basement of his home in February 2005.

The 60-year-old, from Farran in Co Cork, was also found guilty of another nine counts linked to the stolen cash which moved from Belfast to Cork.

His son, Timothy Cunningham Junior, was given a three-year suspended sentence after he admitted knowing money came from the December 2004 robbery at the Northern Bank cash centre in Belfast.

The massive cross-border investigation into the heist, code-named Operation Phoenix and involving anti-terrorist units, fraud squads and the Criminal Assets Bureau, is ongoing.