In less than two years since it was established the North's Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) has frozen or seized property, possessions and cash valued at about £10 million, from a dozen alleged criminals. Gerry Moriarty talks to Alan McQuillan, of the Assets Recovery Agency, about recent seizures.
Head of the agency Alan McQuillan slugged it out with Hugh Orde for the post of chief constable of the PSNI in summer 2002. Although he lost out on that occasion, Mr McQuillan had the compensation of heading the ARA, making him a sort of Northern Ireland Eliot Ness. He has a staff of 163 comprising lawyers, financial investigators, case workers and support staff. They go about their work covertly and then pounce.
Northern Ireland has an Organised Crime Task Force and the ARA is one important arm of it. The taskforce has a general policy, said Mr McQuillan: "We lock up the criminals and take their money. If we can't lock them up, we take their money. If we can't take their money, we tax the money." Locking up is the responsibility of the PSNI. Much of the rest of the task is for Mr McQuillan and the ARA.
"I love the job," he said last week. Part of his satisfaction stems from the fact that the ARA recorded its biggest success last week, freezing almost £5 million in assets belonging to Colin Armstrong who lives in palatial style in Glenavy, Co Antrim. Mr Armstrong, a former policeman, now alleged to be a major international drug dealer, had links firstly to the UVF and later to the LVF.
Although £10 million worth of assets have been seized or frozen by the ARA, the actual net value is just over £6 million, according to Mr McQuillan, as some of the alleged criminals would have debts owing to the likes of building agencies and insurance companies which must be paid.
Most of those assets are in cold storage because in the majority of cases Mr McQuillan currently can only freeze, but not seize, possessions. That's because of a case taken by Cecil Walsh, who is serving a six-year sentence for conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
ARA wants to recover £180,000 of Walsh's possessions with a net value of £87,000. The prisoner, however, has contended that his human rights have been breached.
He has lost two cases and the Court of Appeal refused him permission to appeal to the House of Lords. He can petition the House of Lords, however, and the case could end up in Europe. In the meantime, a queue of cases where assets are frozen is being held up pending the conclusion of this string of appeals.
The ARA has recovered or is in the process of recovering assets valued at about £1.5 million from two murdered loyalist paramilitary drug dealers, Stephen Warnock and James Jonty Johnston. The assets agency was able to come to a settlement with the men's families.
Last week the DUP's Nigel Dodds welcomed the ARA's achievements but queried how come there were so few nationalists or republicans on the list of those successfully dealt with by the agency, especially considering the "Rafia" allegations against the IRA.
Of ARA's 12 cases, which exclude two tax cases, nine of the individuals appear to be from a loyalist background, while only three are nationalist or republican.
Mr McQuillan says it is easier to tackle loyalists because generally they do not have the cohesion or discipline of republicans.
Nonetheless, ARA has investigated deep into republican south Armagh.
For instance they froze assets valued at £400,000, with a net value of over £300,000, of Armagh brothers Gerard and Terence Keenan, who had operations in Keady in south Armagh and in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. They had been accused of excise offences relating to the importation of alcohol.
The most significant of the republican figures so far fingered by ARA is alleged oil smuggler Patrick Belton. He was cleared of killing 29-year-old British soldier Cpl Gary Fenton who was knocked down by an oil tanker lorry at a checkpoint in south Armagh in 1998.
Mr Belton, then with an address at Newry, was shot three times in that incident by another soldier who saw his colleague trapped under the lorry. He escaped across the Border but gave himself up to the authorities two months later.
Mr Belton, who has a luxurious house situated on the Border in south Armagh, has had assets valued £1.2 million (net value £340,000) frozen by the ARA.
The fact that Mr Belton, who was seen previously as almost beyond the reach of the authorities, has had his assets seized gives other alleged major smugglers some pause for thought this Easter.