Profile: He was once quoted as saying 'I plan to leave my own mark'. Dylan Creaven certainly seems to have done so with this week's landmark settlement
Dylan Louis Creaven may not be a household name, but the 32-year-old Clareman belongs to the elite band of Ireland's multimillionaires. This week, he came to national attention when he agreed a settlement of €26.5 million to be paid to the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and its British counterpart, the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA). Even when he pays this, Creaven, whose current address is in De Vere Gardens, Kensington, London, will still be an extremely wealthy man.
He is originally from Newmarket-on-Fergus, a small village a few miles from Ennis, son of Louis and Harriet Creaven. His father is well-known as the chairman of the Mid Western Hospitals Development Trust, an organisation which has raised large sums to improve facilities in the region. Dylan Creaven attended primary school in Shannon, and secondary at St Flannan's College.
In 1997, when Creaven was 23, Ennis was chosen to be the much-hyped recipient of the title of Ireland's Information Age Town. Some €19 million was invested in the town to develop an integrated telecommunications infrastructure.
Among the many projects carried out, all household residents were given the opportunity to train on computers, and later to buy computers for home use for a small fee; schools were supplied with free computers; and businesses encouraged to computerise accounts. Residents were given the chance to test an "electronic purse"; a card which debited pennies rather than pounds from their account, with the idea that all purchases, whether a pint of milk or a new coat, could be done electronically. This particular experiment failed, but technology remained a buzz word in Ennis. The entire town was the focus of worldwide media attention at the time and, according to its website www.eiat.ie, from 1997 to 2002, Ennis was the subject of the "largest community technology project in the world".
At the time that Ennis was in the running for the title of Ireland's Information Age Town, Creaven rented one of 18 units at the Clare Enterprise Centre (CEC) on the town's Francis Street. Then located between the local GAA pitch, Cusack Park and the town's Franciscan Abbey, the CEC, administered and subsidised by the State-run Shannon Development, was established as a start-up centre for craft workers. Among the original tenants was a dressmaker who specialised in wedding dresses and curtain making.
By the time Creaven rented what Shannon Development describes as "incubation units", technology, not wedding dresses, was the focus of business at the CEC. The units ranged in size from 700 to 1,000 square feet and were then leased out for the equivalent of €12 per square foot, per annum. So even the biggest unit, no matter how large the turnover generated by the tenant company, would have cost more than €12,000 a year to rent.
Creaven retained a space here from July 1996 to December 2002, where he was director of a business called Silicon Technologies Europe Limited, which specialised in computer component manufacturing. In December 2002, his tenancy of units 16 and 17 was terminated.
"Why? Because he had been arrested," Frank Larkin, Shannon Development's press officer said bluntly this week. "We had no knowledge of what he was doing."
BY 2002, SILICON Technologies Europe Limited, then with other offices registered in Singapore and Boston, was turning over €416 million a year. In October of that year, Dylan Creaven gave an interview to Computer Reseller News, a trade magazine for people dealing in information technology products.
Asked what the secret of making money was, he replied: "Spotting an untapped position, good planning, trusting your own judgment, not being risk averse, low paperclip bills and a sense of humour."
He also revealed that he could do the Rubik's cube in 40 seconds, that he relaxed by golfing, mountain-biking and working out at the gym, and that Paris was his favourite city. "Some areas of Paris are straight out of a novel," he commented.
When asked which he thought was a better status symbol, a car or a boat, he answered, "You can throw a better party on a yacht."
As to which software giant he aspired to be like: Bill Gates of Microsoft, Larry Ellison of Oracle, or Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, Creaven declared, "I plan to leave my own mark."
A month later, in November 2002, Creaven was arrested in London. He was charged with money-laundering and was alleged to be the mastermind behind Britain's biggest VAT fraud by conspiring to evade VAT to the sum of €250 million. The Cab went into his Ennis office and seized computers there, and also froze his Irish bank accounts.
By that time, he had also registered a business in Limerick city, Bradenville Holdings. Creaven had retained links with his home county, and had built a large house in Woodstock, outside Ennis. When seen in the town, he was always driving expensive cars, usually new top-of-the-range Mercedes. A keen rugby fan, he was for a time a sponsor of Limerick's Garryowen Rugby Club. He was also a noticeable and regular customer at Dromoland Castle's bar and restaurant, a luxury hotel just down the road from his old family home in Newmarket-on-Fergus.
IT WAS HIS extravagant lifestyle and his young age which had attracted the attention of the authorities on both sides of the Irish Sea, and their subsequent investigation into his business dealings was named "Operation Chipstick".
After his arrest, Creaven spent a year in Wandsworth prison before being released on bail. His trial was held in Blackfriars crown court during April and May last year. Although originally accused of defrauding the British exchequer of £162 million (€240m), by the time the case came to court, the charge specified £14 million (€). It was alleged that Creaven had been engaged in "carousel fraud". This is a process whereby consignments of small, high-value goods, such as computer chips, are imported VAT-free from another European country. When sold on to a domestic buyer, VAT charges apply. The seller charges the buyer a VAT fee as part of the price, but instead of paying this fee on to Revenue as legally required, the money is retained by the seller and not declared. Carousel fraud is estimated to cost British taxpayers alone up to £5 billion (€7.4 billion) a year.
During last year's trial, the ARA alleged "that over a period of time, 99 per cent of the business conducted by Silicon Technologies Europe, a company set up by Mr Creaven, involved fraudulent trades".
Creaven, who told the court he had traded in good faith with suspect businessmen, was acquitted by the jury and wept on hearing the judgment. No accounts have been filed by the company since 2002. In December last year, the High Court restored the company to the Companies Register, with the directors being listed as Dylan and Louis Creaven. The company is no longer trading, and exists in name only.
FOR THE LAST year, Creaven continued to be the focus of investigation by both Cab and the ARA. This week, he agreed to the landmark €26.5 million cash settlement with the two agencies. In addition, he will forfeit a luxury villa in Marbella, a flat in Knightsbridge, London, and four racehorses, one of them Latino Magic, winner of last year's Galway Hurdle, and all four of them trained by Robbie Osborne of Craddockstown House in Naas, Co Kildare. All these assets will be auctioned and the proceeds divided between the two agencies.
Had the agencies not struck a deal with Creaven, the alternative was an ongoing court struggle, which would have been hugely expensive for both sides. On Tuesday, the ARA said that the cash it would receive was "in respect of property which resulted from the VAT fraud".
Cab refused to comment on the settlement, beyond stating that it was made in a "joint jurisdiction". The ARA posted a statement on its website from Jane Earl, the agency's director, saying: "This case is our largest result so far . . . This case means that a proportion of the money stolen from the taxpayer through VAT fraud will be returned to the public purse, and it represents a significant achievement in the fight against VAT fraud, which is not a victimless fraud. Working with our colleagues in the Republic of Ireland, we have been able to ensure that there are no hiding places for assets at home or abroad."
Yesterday, Greg Glynn of Arthur Cox Solicitors, who acts for Creavan, told The Irish Times that his client would not be making any comment on the settlement.
So while Creaven was acquitted of fraud, he has still been the subject of the biggest settlement to date to either the Cab or ARA. It seems a fair bet that his old school, St Flannan's, won't be inviting him back as guest of honour speaker any time soon.
The Creaven File
Who is he?
A Clare-born businessman, who built up a multi-million euro business by trading in computer components
Why is he in the news?
This week, he made a joint settlement of €26.5 million, plus assets, with the Criminal Assets Bureau and its British equivalent, the Assets Recovery Agency
Most likely to say
"Not guilty"
Least likely to say
"Chipsticks are my favourite snack"
What he probably regrets most saying (when asked what the secret of making money was)
"Trusting your own judgment"