12 houses among proceeds of crime sold by CAB last year

The Dublin home of Liam Byrne, the head of the Dublin branch of the Kinahan organised crime group, was one of twelve houses sold by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) last year.

The 43-year-old is currently in jail in the UK awaiting sentence later this month for firearms offences.

The CAB annual report also shows that the agency seized almost €10 million of criminal assets and transferred more than €8.5m to the Exchequer.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said €3.75m of that money will be handed back to communities in the coming weeks.

Of the €8.6m which was forwarded to the Central Fund, €2.2m was under the Proceeds of Crime legislation, €5.7m in tax recoveries and €639,000 in Social Welfare recoveries.

In addition, the bureau returned over €1.2m to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions as a result of one specific case.

CAB identified over €3.3m in fraudulent social welfare overpayments and saved over €713,000 when it stopped payments.

CAB also carried out 46 searches last year in 22 counties and held its first publicly advertised online auction containing over 100 items of confiscated high-value luxury goods, including watches, handbags, gold bars and jewellery.

The most expensive item sold at the auction was a Rolex Watch which raised over €33,800.

The gold bars made €1,900 and €1,950 while the most expensive handbag, a Chanel, sold for more than €4,600.

Seven luxury men's and women's watches, seized from Kinahan cartel members Jason Reed and Thomas Rooney were auctioned off.

These included watches by Raymond Weil, Audemars Piguet and Rolex.

The auction ran for four days and earned a total of €446,000