Gardaí investigating the suspected money-laundering operation linked to a Cork businessman, Mr Ted Cunningham, have arrested an international business consultant who travelled with Mr Cunningham and Mr Phil Flynn to Bulgaria last month. Conor Lally & Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent report.
The woman, originally from Northern Ireland but now based in Co Kildare, has worked for a well-known international consultancy firm and has experience of doing business in Bulgaria. In January she set up a meeting for the Irish party with the Bulgarian Deputy Finance Minister, Mr Ilia Lingorski, in Sofia. Mr Lingorski has special responsibility for inward investment.
Mr Flynn has told The Irish Times he was working on setting up three firms in Bulgaria, one of which would replicate the unlicensed lending company, Chesterton Finance, and another which would seek a Bulgarian licence to act as a mortgage company.
Mr Cunningham is the principal behind Chesterton in whose home in Co Cork earlier this month the Garda discovered more than €2 million in cash. Gardaí believe the Provisional IRA may have been laundering money through Chesterton, including money from the Northern Bank raid.
Following the disclosure that Mr Flynn was a director of Chesterton, he resigned as chairman of Bank of Scotland (Ireland).
A team of senior Garda investigators has spent the last few days in Bulgaria meeting officials. Officers in Dublin from the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation have identified an Isle of Man-based man whom they wish to interview about his links to Mr Cunningham's operation.
Mr Flynn told The Irish Times that this man runs a business based in Germany and was providing legal advice on the Bulgarian projects. Gardaí believe this man and the woman arrested here on Thursday also worked on Mr Cunningham's behalf in Libya and Malta. The woman has worked for several clients on business deals in Bulgaria in recent years.
Gardaí have been anxious to speak to her since the raid on Mr Cunningham's home in Farran, Co Cork, 10 days ago. She was still being questioned yesterday.
Officers are expected to travel to the Isle of Man to interview the man who gave advice on the Bulgarian trip. The man was described as a "financier" by one Garda source, who said he was an expert on tax breaks and tax havens.
Mr Flynn said he had been travelling to Bulgaria since the 1970s. More recently he had been looking at the possibility of business ventures there. Mr Flynn is a former trade unionist who was vice president of Sinn Féin in the 1980s.