Two to be extradited in Irish fund case

Two men are to be extradited to the US and their homes seized for allegedly running a fraudulent Irish financial trust that took more than $80 million (€63.7 million) from investors, US federal prosecutors said.

The pair, who are to be extradited from Costa Rica, are among nine people charged in the past two weeks with running the Genesis Fund.

The Irish High Court had already found that one of the two men to be extradited, 58-year-old John S Lipton, formerly from Laguna Beach, California, had used aliases to disguise the whereabouts of money invested in the scheme, which was advertised as a high-profit Irish trust that was trading on the international financial markets.

It emerged in the High Court that the address of the trust's "financial expert" in Hong Kong matched that of a Hong Kong handbag store.

The US attorney's office for the central district of California has said that it is to seize Mr Lipton's mansion in Costa Rica and a mansion held by one of the other alleged founders of the Genesis Fund.

Investigators have recently uncovered bank transactions which, they say, show how the trust managers quickly moved their assets to Costa Rica to avoid compliance with an Irish High Court injunction stopping them from moving funds.

In June 1998, Mr Justice Sullivan granted an injunction to an investor, representing 20 US- based client companies, which forbade the Genesis Fund from dropping its assets below $5 million.

At the time, Mr Justice Sullivan said documents generated by the fund "leaves one with the impression that the whole arrangement is disturbingly vague and free of identifiable structures".

Genesis allegedly continued to advertise as an "Irish trust" that could make 3-4 per cent a month on currency trading in Asia.

Eight people, including three Genesis Fund managers living in Costa Rica, were arrested in the past two weeks. A ninth accused is now considered a fugitive by US authorities.

All nine have been charged with conspiracy, obstruction, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and failure to pay taxes.

The indictment states that the fund was set up in 1995, promising investors huge rates of return on currency investments and also promising that the investments would not have to be declared on US forms.

The fund collapsed in June 2002, only weeks after investors were allegedly told that the Genesis Fund was worth $1.3 billion.