Two jewellers today told how a financial advisor charged with money laundering over £3 million sterling taken in the Northern Bank raid gave them £50,000 sterling to mind a week before the bank robbery took place on December 20th 2004.
Father and son, Jack (74) and John Douglas (35) from Tullamore in Co Offaly both testified that Ted Cunningham came to them around December 14th/15th 2004 and asked them to mind a bag full of sterling notes in £10s, £20s and £50s which amounted to £50,000.
Both men told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that Mr Cunningham, whom they had known for some years, called to their jewellers shop in Tullamore and asked them to mind the money which he said he had got from the sale of property in Dundalk, Co Louth.
The money was one of three consignments of cash that Mr Cunningham asked the two men to mind for him and he later returned in January and February 2005 with two further separate consignments of £100,000 sterling.
John Douglas said the first of these £100,000 sterling deliveries was about a week before he went with Mr Cunningham, Phil Flynn, ex-ICC Bank CEO, Denis O’Connell and Isle of Man solicitor, John Sturgeon to Bulgaria on January 22nd 2005 while the second was in February.
“I received £250,000 sterling altogether,” said John Douglas, adding that he didn’t count the money in any of the bags but put all five bags under the bed in an upstairs room of the house where his parents lived over their jewellers shop on Bridge St in Tullamore.
“Mammy kind of said to Ted ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong with it (the cash)’ and he said ‘No, not at all’” said John Douglas, adding that he and his parents had some business dealings with Mr Cunningham including the purchase with him of land in Co Clare some years earlier.
Jack Douglas told the court that he hadn’t put the cash into his safe because it was full with jewellery and he believed that putting it under the bed and later into a wardrobe was just as secure as his home was “a safe house” with iron bars on all the windows.
He told how he met Mr Cunningham, whom he described as “a very honourable man” when he brought two bags of cash and he asked him if the cash was from the Northern Bank and Mr Cunningham replied “Not, at all Jack — would I do a thing like that to you?”
He said that when he heard media reports in February 2005 that a 56 year old man had been arrested in Co Cork for questioning about Northern Bank money, he and his son, John wondered if it might be Mr Cunningham.
“John looked at me and I looked at him and said ‘ Could that be Ted?,” said Mr Douglas Snr adding that when they got a fuller account on a later television news bulletin they became concerned and John suggested contacting the gardaí about the cash.
“I said what if the IRA, the Sinn Féin fellows come looking for their money?” said Mr Douglas Snr and they decided to hang on to the money until gardaí called to them soon after and they handed over the cash to detectives.
Detective Sergeant Vincent Byrne of the Criminal Assets Bureau testified that no member of the investigative team found any evidence of a house or property sale in Dundalk by Mr Cunningham or his company, Chesterton Finance.
Mr Cunningham denies 20 charges of money laundering including one of possessing £3,010,380 sterling at Farran between December 20th, 2004 and February 16th, 2005, knowing or believing it to be the proceeds of robbery at the Northern Bank Cash Centre in Belfast.
