THE IRISH OBSERVER: Northern Bank Robbery 2004

Monday, May 3, 2021

Northern Bank Robbery 2004

While I was in prison (grievous miscarriage of Justice, returning to Court of Appeal 2021) in December 2004 when the Northern Bank Robbery took place, I was also in contact with An Garda Siochana on a regular basis, this related to various crimes that had been brought to my attention by fellow prisoners. One of the crimes that I was assisting An Garda Siochana with, was the Murder of Sophie Tuscan Du Plantier in Cork, a fellow prisoner had told me that a certain individual had admitted to him that he had murdered this young women.

During a conversation with senior Detectives following the Northern Bank robbery, they told me that Gerry Adams had been under surveillance before the robbery, and Adams had meet with Ted Cunningham in Cork, Ted would be convicted of laundering money totaling £3,000,000 from the Northern Bank robbery. Ted told Gardai that Phil Flynn, a former Vice-President of Sinn Fein/PIRA, was the Boss in relation to the money laundering.

Phil Flynn was also a Director of Bank of Scotland at the time of the Northern Bank Robbery and an advisor to Berty Ahern. When Phil Flynn stepped down as Sinn Fein/PIRA, Vice President in 1984, he said publicly at the Ard Fheis that year, that he would always be available to Sinn Fein/PIRA.

Provisional Sinn Fein/IRA always focused a great deal of their energy on placing people on the inside of banking and financial institutions, not simply to gain Intelligence on the movement of money, details for counter-fitting (1984), Tiger-kidnappings, but also to target members of the security forces and others of interest.

Tonight 3^rd May, 2021, Darragh MacIntyre and Sam McBride will at 9pm on BBC examine the Northern Bank Robbery by Sinn Fein/PIRA in 2004. Sinn Fein/PIRA have always denied involvement due to the political fall-out, however, I am satisfied, having infiltrated Sinn Fein/PIRA again 2010-2015 that Sinn Fein/PIRA sanctioned and participated fully in the robbery and the money laundering that followed. Bobby Storey had no problem telling me that he had directed the Northern Bank robbery and that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were supportive of the robbery.

When Bobby and I spoke to each other, it was an honest conversation, as Bobby knew that I had prevented the Murder of senior members of Sinn Fein/PIRA in Belfast.

So, what do I know about the Northern Bank and Sinn Fein/PIRA?

In 1996, I handed the document below to a BBC NI journalist, Ann Cadwalader, so that she could give me a view on the possibility of having the document published as a book. I knew that Ann Cadwalader was married to a leading member of Sinn Fein/PIRA, Gerry O’Hare, however, I was trusting her journalistic integrity. While I knew Gerry when he was in Dublin, I knew his first wife, Rita O’Hare better as she was based at Sinn Fein/PIRA HQ in Dublin and now fronts Friends of Sinn Fein in America.

Shortly after I had given my document to Ann Cadwalader, I was told by a female ‘republican’ from Coalisland that two members of Sinn Fein/PIRA from west Belfast wanted to meet with me. The female from Coalisland had no explanation as to why Sinn Fein/PIRA wanted to meet with me. I agreed to meet with the two members of Sinn Fein/PIRA at Cloisters café in The Students Union at Queens University, where both the female ‘republican’ from Coalisland and I were studying.

A male and female member of Sinn Fein/PIRA arrived at Cloisters, both were in their early/mid-twenties and presented well. The two Sinn Fein/PIRA members made it very clear that they were representing Sinn Fein/PIRA Command Staff in west Belfast. They wanted to know what my ‘political’ position was, what I was up to. They certainly skirted around the document that I had given the BBC journalist, which was effectively a history of Sinn Fein/PIRA. They said that they had been told that I was a Born Again Christian and effectively a Protestant, I asked them, if I was, how would that be a problem, as the Father of Republicanism was a Presbyterian called Wolfe Tone. This piece of history appeared to throw them.

Having chatted for about half an hour the female and male Sinn Fein/PIRA members left, with as much information as they had when they arrived. While they would not have known it, I was still working with Kevin McKenna and Martin McGuinness.

Shortly after this meeting with the Sinn Fein/PIRA members from west Belfast, I called into Northern Bank, on the street in front of City Hall, to meet a friend for lunch. When I walked into the bank, my friend was working directly behind the counter, and to the left of him was the male and female members of Sinn Fein/PIRA who had meet with me at Cloisters. They were all imputing data from cheque-book stubs into computers.

In 2000, Ann Cadwalader, wrote lies about me and was paid for the publication of those lies, therefore exposing Ann Cadwalader as a liar and a fraudster. If this is not true, she can issue a Civil Action and see where it gets her.

Money Laundering Operation 2002

In 2002, I was in prison in The Republic, this was a non-political prison, however, Ministerial Orders were being signed and transferring Sinn Fein/PIRA, Real IRA and Continuity IRA in on top of me, for nefarious reasons.

It was in 2002, that one of Sinn Fein/PIRA’s most significant money launderers arrived into the prison having been sentenced to five-years. Kieran Byrne then (34) spoke freely to me as he would have known many of the people that I knew along the south Armagh/Louth border.

Kieran Byrne had been operating a Bureau de Change from a semi-detached building shared with a Garda Station at Dromad, Dundalk, a short distance from the south Armagh border, the bureau had a turnover of more than £17 million a year. It also operated as a private bank, handling up to £60 million for 150 customers, many of whom were Proxies for Sinn Fein/PIRA.

Kieran Byrne was able to tell me that other Proxy Finance companies along the border from Donegal, Monaghan to Louth were involved in laundering money for Sinn Fein/PIRA, most of the money coming from smuggling, robberies, protection rackets including drugs and so forth.

Kieran Byrne told me that members of Sinn Fein/PIRA who were well known to him would arrive with cash sums ranging from £50,000 to £350,000, usually in plastic bags, and he would launder that money for a percentage of the sum lodged. Kieran said that after the Good Friday Agreement Sinn Fein/PIRA were laundering millions with him as drug dealers were paying a higher percentage of their takings to Sinn Fein/PIRA as Sinn Fein/PIRA had Murdered a number of dealers.

Kieran had been convicted of a number of charges, failing to take measures to establish the identity of a customer of foreign exchange, carrying on a bureau de change at Dromad Enterprises, Dundalk, without authorisation and handling cash representing the proceeds of criminal activity. All of the charges related to dates between 1998-2000, however, Kieran said that money laundering had been on-going for decades.

Kieran’s premises were searched by Gardaí on October 19, 1999, and documents, cash totalling £700,000 and cheques and bank drafts for £900,000 were seized, and Kieran was arrested.

A forensic accountant working with An Garda Siochana, Mr David McManus, analysed documents seized at the premises including banking and business records. He said the business was mainly exchanging sterling and punt currencies and there were bank accounts both sides of the Border. The turnover from the Republic was mirrored in Northern Ireland, he said.

He said figures from the AIB in Dundalk showed that in the 3½ years from 1996 the turnover exceeded that declared to the Central Bank by £27.1 million.

Mr McManus said Byrne had accepted up to £350,000 sterling per transaction, and some individual accounts were in false names.

Among the documents seized were 12 customer cheques totalling £122,326 sterling, with no payee details. This was consistent with money-laundering schemes.

Soon after Kieran was sentenced to five years, Sinn Fein/PIRA made representations to the Irish Government and Kieran was given early release. People such as Phil Flynn, originally from Dundalk and once arrested and charged with being Director of Finance for Sinn Fein/PIRA, was in 2002 in a powerful position with Berty Ahern.

Northern Bank Robbery 2004

I am satisfied having infiltrated Sinn Fein/PIRA again in 2010-2015, and engaging directly with Bobby Storey that the Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness sanctioned The Northern Bank robbery. Sinn Fein/PIRA needed a great deal of money if they were to make any significant electoral breakthrough in The Republic. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that McGuinness's MI6 Handlers would have been happy to allow the robbery to go ahead and this would explain why nobody has been successfully prosecuted in relation to the kidnappings and actual robbery.

While commentators talk about the risk to the ‘peace-process’ by carrying out the Northern Bank robbery, this is utter nonsense, Sinn Fein/PIRA had continued to Murder at will without political sanction north and south after Good Friday Agreement. The British Government had categorised continued criminality by Sinn Fein/PIRA, including murder, as “InternalHouse-keeping” (Mo Mowlam, 1999) and not a breach of their agreed ‘cease-fire’. This flawed thesis had been supported by Tony Blair and Berty Ahern. In 2021, former Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell would state publicly that Bertie Ahern's Government of which McDowell was part had granted a De Facto Amnesty to Sinn Fein/provisional IRA from 2002.

Anyone looking for Sinn Fein/PIRA involvement in the Northern Bank robbery, need look no further than those Sinn Fein/PIRA who had been placed inside the banking system for years and those Sinn Fein members since convicted of money laundering in relation to the robbery, for example, George Hegarty was a card carrying member of Sinn Fein/PIRA when he was convicted.

Following the Northern Bank Robbery, IRA member, Don Bullman from Cork was arrested in early 2005 at Heuston Station in Dublin, he was found in possession of a Daz washing power box containing more than €90,000, he was jailed for IRA membership. Those arrested by Gardai following the northern bank robbery, included several men from Derry and a former Sinn Féin candidate. While the PSNI arrested several well known Sinn Fein/PIRA including Brain Arthurs, arrested with this author in 1986 under 7 day detention order.

An Garda Siochana also recovered over £2,000,000 from the Northern Bank robbery during raids in Cork and Dublin. Around $100,000 in US banknotes was also recovered from a toilet of the police athletic association's Newforge Country Club. The PSNI confirmed the money was taken during the Northern Bank heist but said the stash was likely to have been "planted to distract detectives".

This latter act, the work of the same people, Bobby Storey, who would provide Gerry Adams with a list of 27 Sinn Fein/PIRA sex criminals protected by the Sinn Fein/PIRA leadership, in order that Gerry could give that list to An Garda Siochana and take the political pressure off.

Bobby had worn a women’s scarf about his head, placed the list through Gerry’s letter box, so that Gerry had images of a mysterious women on his CCTV placing the list through his front door and therefore a back-story to explain how he had the list.

Money Laundering in Cork

At a house owned by financial adviser Ted Cunningham in Farran, County Cork, £2.3 million was impounded after being discovered hidden in compost and Cunningham and his wife were taken in for further questioning. Phil Flynn, who was chairman of the Bank of Scotland (Ireland), had to resign as he was also involved in one of Ted Cunningham’s companies. Phil had been Vice-President of Sinn Fein/PIRA until 1984 and an Advisor to Berty Ahern at the time of the Robbery.

In March 2009, financial adviser Ted Cunningham from Cork was found guilty at Cork Circuit Court on ten charges of laundering over £3 million which came from the robbery. He was remanded into custody and later received a sentence of ten years' imprisonment. His son was also convicted on one count of money laundering. Ted Snr told Gardai that Phil Flynn was the Boss of the money laundering operation.

When Ted Cunningham senior appealed, his conviction was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal in May 2012. The court viewed the warrant used to search his house as invalid because it had been issued by the senior Garda officer in charge of the investigation, as permitted by section 29(1) of the Offences against the State Act, a state of affairs which the Supreme Court had recently found to be repugnant to the Constitution of Ireland.

The court ordered a retrial on nine of the ten original counts of money laundering. It directed that the tenth, relating to a sum of money allegedly found in Cunningham's home, was not to be retried. Cunningham was remanded into custody with the possibility of bail.

At the retrial in February 2014, Ted Cunningham pleaded guilty and received a 5-year suspended sentence on two counts of laundering about £275,000. Cunningham avoided imprisonment on account of his bad health and his promise to resign from Chesterton Finance. The sums of £2.985 million and €45,000 which had been impounded during police raids were forfeited to the state. Cunningham sued Northern Bank in 2020 regarding the impounded money, alleging that the Gardai had seized it improperly.

Garda surveillance had recorded Gerry Adams meeting with Ted Cunningham before the heist took place. Alongside the murder of Robert McCartney, the heist caused the US government to block fund-raising for Sinn Féin/PIRA in the United States in March 2005. The ban was dropped in November 2005.

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