A former director of Gaelic Seafoods, a Galway-based fish farm operator, has been convicted by a Scottish court of a series of frauds worth £7.5 million sterling (€11.5 million).
A jury convicted Stuart Baillie (39), of 1 Victoria Terrace, Inverness, Scotland, after hearing a total of 70 witnesses give evidence over 101 days in court.
During what is believed to be the longest trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, the jury heard how Baillie used a chain of companies he helped run to con financial institutions into bogus leasing deals. He has been remanded in custody to await sentence next month.
Baillie stepped aside as managing director of Gaelic Seafoods in January, 1997, pending the resolution of the court case.
The court heard the frauds began as a means of disguising Northern Ireland security contracts from the eyes of the IRA. It evolved into a method of persuading finance houses to advance money so that Baillie's companies could buy lorries, cranes, fish-farming equipment and other heavy industrial plant.
During the trial Baillie, who had been living and working in the Republic, blamed any wrongdoing on a 46-year-old Irish associate.
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