The High Court has ruled that items including 14 luxury watches worth over €150,000, and a mobile home seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) as part of a follow-up investigation into money-laundering are the proceeds of crime.
The order was made by Mr Justice Alexander Owens about several assets Cab seized from convicted criminals Jason Reed, Thomas Rooney and Catherine Dawson.
Cab said Jason Reed, Rooney and Dawson are members of an international organised crime gang involved in illegal drug and firearm trafficking.
The bureau also sought orders against Jason Reed’s wife, Charlotte Reed, claiming she benefited from her husband’s criminal activities, although she was not involved in criminal activity.
Dawson, Rooney and Jason Reed, who are claimed to be known to each other, were convicted of laundering over €400,000 in cash for a criminal organisation.
They were all arrested and charged after being observed exchanging large sums of cash by members of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau in Drogheda in May 2020.
Last year, the Special Criminal Court (SCC) sentenced Jason Reed, from Maelduin, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, to seven years imprisonment for money-laundering offences.
Rooney of Betaghstown, Bettystown, Co Meath, was sentenced to six years for money-laundering offences by the non-jury SCC over the same incident.
Money-laundering offences
Also arising out of the event, Dawson, a former partner of Rooney’s, with an address at Betaghstown Wood, Bettystown, received a fully suspended three years and nine-month prison term after pleading guilty to money-laundering offences.
In follow-up operations, Cab seized several assets it claimed were in the possession and control of the respondents at the time.
Among the items seized were 14 18ct-gold luxury watches with a combined value of €152,000. A mobile home in Co Wexford and quantities of cash totalling €22,000 were seized from Jason Reed, Cab claimed.
The bureau alleged all of the assets were acquired by the proceeds of crime.
It based its applications on grounds including that the Reeds were known to customs and that their revenue and social profiles and bank accounts could not account for the legitimate acquisition of the property.
The Reeds, Cab said, had lived a lifestyle beyond their legitimate means and spent over €58,000 at Brown Thomas store in Dublin between 2017 and 2021.
Cab added that a financial analysis of Dawson’s and Rooney’s records did not provide evidence for transactions that could account for their purchases of luxury goods and property.
Rooney had placed bets on his Boylesports Account totalling €85,000, with €81,000 losses between 2006 and 2012, Cab said. The account was allegedly serviced with funds from unknown sources, which Cab said was from the proceeds of criminal activities.
No claim was made on the property. Cab’s applications were unopposed.
In a ruling at the High Court, where the bureau sought certain orders under the 1996 Proceeds of Crime Act, Mr Justice Owens said he was satisfied that the mobile home, cash and the luxury watches were the proceeds of crime.
“There seems to be a superfluity of watches going around here,” the judge said, adding that he himself “only has one watch”.
The court also deemed a €22,000 cash seized from the Reeds’ home and Jason Reed’s person in 2020 and 2021, and a Cosalt Super 32 mobile home seized in Co Wexford following Cab investigations, are also the proceeds of crime.
The judge appointed a receiver over the non-cash assets, which are to be sold.