The double agent: FBI spy Mr David Rupert was worth every cent of his $1.25 million bill for infiltrating Michael McKevitt's terrorist operation, Omagh bomb victims said after the McKevitt trial.
Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic were desperate for the American businessman to provide the evidence needed to jail the "Real IRA" man, so they met his spiralling cash demands.
Mr Stanley McCombe, whose wife, Anne, was among the 29 murdered by the terror organisation in the August 1998 attack on the Co Tyrone town, insisted he had no problem with the big payments made to the double agent.
He said: "It's money well spent because it got this man convicted." For well over half of the five-week trial, Mr Rupert squeezed his 6ft, 7in frame into the witness box, and revealed every detail of his association with dissident republican paramilitaries.
Undercover drugs operations, three bankruptcies, four marriages, plenty more girlfriends, a professional wrestling career, fraud inquiries and a gambling boat venture involving the Mafia and Latin-American dictators were also examined as Mr Rupert's extraordinary life was laid bare.
The prosecution praised his staggering bravery while defence lawyers dismissed him as a mercenary fantasist. But everyone in Dublin's Special Criminal Court was captivated by his testimony.
Even though this self-confessed "whore" would do anything for money, it was clear the whole case against McKevitt depended on his evidence. He was kept under armed protection at a secret location before being smuggled in daily to the witness box as dozens of FBI agents and Garda elite response unit men swarmed all over the old courtroom.
Mr Rupert (51), recalled army convention meetings and other secret "Real IRA" gatherings in houses and hotels where the terrorist disclosed his terrifying plans.
By this stage, he was a paid-up informer for American and British intelligence services reporting on other republican dissidents. Meanwhile, the irrepressible entrepreneur was also devising new ways to make his fortune.
Ever since quitting school in upstate New York at the age of 16, he had vowed to make it big in business, driving a Rolls-Royce to appear successful while his ventures collapsed.
But chief prosecutor George Birmingham SC, was lavish in his praise. "Mr Rupert was a figure of quite remarkable courage," he told the court.
"He took on this extraordinarily dangerous task, performed with great skill over a number of years." At first, he resisted FBI appeals to testify at McKevitt's trial, fearing he would be shot.
It was only after the authorities agreed to raise his monthly payments and he watched a tear-jerking TV documentary on the Omagh bombing that the spy had a change of heart.
As the defence tried to discredit him, it emerged that Mr Rupert also planned to write a money-spinning book about his dangerous assignment. His need to make money was made even more urgent by owing $750,000 in unpaid taxes to the US government, while it emerged the authorities also investigated him for alleged fraud.
His decision to infiltrate Irish republican terrorists was not his first time undercover. In 1974, he aided state troopers in New York in an operation targeting drug dealers and a female officer suspected of being involved in their narcotics ring.
There was no buzz of excitement from taking on the dangerous assignment, he insisted. Sniggers broke out all around the court as he explained: "I didn't want to be in the house because my first wife was a bit of a bitch."