Firm linked to alleged fuel smuggler owes €9.1m in tax and penalties

An insolvent fuel company owned by a man who has been the target of several cross-Border diesel smuggling investigations tops the latest tax defaulters list with a debt to the State of €9.1 million.

DMG Energy, with directors including Armagh man Damien McGleenan, has been in liquidation since 2013. It was targeted by Revenue for non-declaration of excise duty and underpayment of VAT, according to the list published on Tuesday.

DMG, now registered in Dublin but previously based around Dundalk, owes €3.4 million in tax, with a further €5.7 million in interest and penalties. None of the debt had been repaid by September, according to Revenue.

Mr McGleenan has been repeatedly targeted over many years by authorities in Northern Ireland investigating fuel smuggling. In 2007, police in the North froze assets on both sides of the Border worth more than €12 million, which belonged to Keady-based Mr McGleenan and members of his extended family.

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In 2009, Mr McGleenan and members of his extended family handed over assets worth up to £6 million (€6.6 million) to the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency after a lengthy High Court battle. The assets included several houses and were described at the time by UK tax authorities as being “amassed through years of fuel smuggling and excise fraud”.

Other defaulters

It is unlikely that the €9.1 million owed to the State by DMG, which Mr McGleenan co-owns with his wife, will be recovered, as a liquidator’s note says it had assets of €32,400 but owed unsecured creditors €2.3 million.

DMG’s tax debt is almost twice as large as the next defaulter on the list of 17 names published by Revenue on Tuesday.

Also prominent on the latest defaulters list is Monaghan-based Shabra Plastic & Packaging, which was founded and is run by high-profile businesswoman Rita Shah. Shabra owed €1.8 million in a VAT case but it appears to have repaid the debt sometime prior to September.

The defaulters list includes 15 other names owing a total of about €20 million, including farmers, PAYE workers and a milkman.