U.K. anti-racketeering agency seizes 77 properties in IRA money-laundering probe

DUBLIN, Ireland: A British anti-racketeering agency announced Thursday it has seized 77 properties worth 11.8 million pounds (€18 million, US$23 million) in an operation targeting the fuel-smuggling empire of a reputed Irish Republican Army commander.

The United Kingdom Assets Recovery Agency said all the properties had been purchased and rented "through the proceeds of unlawful conduct, including money laundering, tax evasion, false accounting, mortgage fraud and benefit fraud."

When it launched its operation targeting the real-estate portfolio in October 2005, the agency revealed that at least some properties were owned by the family of Thomas "Slab" Murphy, the IRA's alleged longtime chief of staff. His brother Francis was later identified as the owner of several of the apartments and houses.

The operation targeted a property management firm in Manchester, northwest England, run by an Irish-born businessman with roots in the same border region as Murphy. The British agency previously took control of 15 of the firm's properties in November.

"This is the latest stage in one of the largest and most complex investigations the agency has ever taken," said Jane Earl, the agency director.

In March, British and Irish customs officials backed by police and soldiers raided Murphy's border-straddling farm and uncovered a massive fuel-smuggling business, including several oil trucks and underground tanks and pipelines linking the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They also found several laptop computers and €1.1 million (US$1.3 million) in cash and checks hidden under hay bales.

History books and former IRA members have identified Murphy as a veteran IRA commander.

But Murphy has never been charged with any crime. Detectives hoping to question Murphy about the fuel-smuggling equipment, money and financial records seized at his family farm have failed to find him there.

For more than 15 years, British army observers monitored activity from a surveillance tower built specifically to look into Murphy's home, but the tower was torn down five years ago as part of Northern Ireland's peace process.

The most authoritative recent book on the subject, "A Secret History of the IRA" by Ed Moloney, says Murphy long served as commander of the IRA's border South Armagh brigade responsible for building and delivering many of the group's biggest vehicle bombs. The book says Murphy was instrumental in smuggling weapons from Libya in the mid-1980s and became the IRA's chief of staff in 1997.

Murphy twice sued a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, which in 1985 published the first major investigation into Murphy's career. Murphy lost both lawsuits. At the conclusion of the second case in 1998, a Dublin jury ruled that The Sunday Times was correct to describe Murphy as a millionaire smuggler and terrorist chieftain.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/18/europe/EU-GEN-NIreland-IRA-Chief.php