State seizures €40k 'crime proceeds'

A Co Down convicted drug dealer has had over €40,000 of his money seized by the State after Judge Katherine Delahunt said she was satisfied it represented the proceeds of crime.

Richard Ferguson (aged 46) of Old Gransha Road, Bangor, was stopped by custom officers in Dublin Airport on November 25, 2008. He later admitted that he had come for Amsterdam, where he had taken drugs and that there was a small amount of heroin in his vehicle in the car park.

When officers searched the car they found the drugs and a plastic bag containing €40,320. He was later fined in the District Court for simple possession of heroin.

Ferguson was jailed for four years in 1996 after he was caught with cocaine at Rosslare Harbour and admitted to importing the drugs.

He was also jailed for 18 months in the North after he pleaded guilty to concealing criminal property. Ferguson had been stopped by officers in Belfast City Airport on September 26, 2007 after €40,000 was found vacuum-packed in a pillow in his luggage.

Mr McGinn said that Ferguson told custom officers in November 2008 that the majority of the cash came from the sale of property he had in Spain and a conversion of sterling into €10,000 which he had earned from his kitchen fitting business.

He said that it was his intention to re-invest the cash in lands and property in Spain.

Mr McGinn then read from an affidavit from a police constable in Northern Ireland who stated that Ferguson received an 18-month prison sentence relating to the seizure of the €40,000 in Belfast.

He initially told the police that the money had come from the sale of his Spanish property and that he had carried it in the vacuum packs to avoid "hassle" and questioning about the cash even though it had come for a legitimate source.

Ferguson denied that his activity was suspicious and claimed that he had also concealed the cash in this manner to stop it moving around in his suitcase and so that it would not be stolen while his luggage was being processed.

Mr Colm O’Briain BL, defending, said that there were no traces of drugs on the money that was confiscated by Irish custom officers nor was there any evidence in relation to criminal activity, apart from Ferguson’s recreational drug use, since 1996.

He said his client had pleaded guilty to the charge in Belfast because he had already served time in relation to the allegation.

He said that Ferguson had sold his property in Spain in 2003 for €145,000 and the Spanish document that had been supplied to revenue was later translated and proved to refer to that sale.

Judge Delahunt said she was satisfied that the cash had not come from the sale of the property in Spain and added that the manner in which the money was found, "gave credence to the State’s case".

She said she had taken into account Ferguson’s criminal history and the fact that he had also used the sale of his Spanish property as justification for the discovery of cash in his luggage at Belfast Airport.