Clare man makes €26.5m settlement with Cab

A villa in Marbella, four racehorses and £18 million sterling (€26.5 million) have been agreed as a settlement by Dylan Louis Creaven (32), originally from Co Clare and with an address in Knightsbridge in London, with the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and the Assets Recovery Agency in Britain.

Gardaí last night would only confirm that an individual had made a settlement with the two agencies but did not name him.

It is understood however that Mr Creaven agreed the settlement with the two agencies and will pay the stg£18 million (€26.5 million) immediately.

Mr Creaven was first investigated over a VAT or "carousel" fraud estimated to be worth stg£162 million (€238 million), but eventually prosecuted in relation to fraud worth stg£14 million (€20.6 million).

The case involved high-value computer components and the movement of these goods in a circle between various companies to generate VAT payments that had not been declared to the British authorities. He was acquitted in Britain last year.

However, the authorities continued investigating his activities and he agreed the settlement, which emerged last night.

The villa in Marbella which has an estimated value of stg£1.8 million will be sold by the Assets Recovery Agency and the assets shared with the Cab. It was unclear last night what proportion of the assets would go to the Irish agency.

In June last year the Assets Recovery Agency froze stg£9 million of Mr Creaven's assets, which the agency claimed had been acquired through what it termed "missing trader intra-community" fraud.

It also claimed that 99 per cent of the business conducted by Silicon Technologies Europe Ltd, a company set up by Mr Creaven, involved fraudulent trades.

The assets frozen last year included the Spanish villa in Marbella, a property in Knightsbridge valued at an estimated stg£1.2 million (€1.8 million) and two plots of land at the Emirates Hills golf club in Dubai.

The Assets Recovery Agency had also got agreement last year from Mr Creaven that he would not use a number of bank accounts with funds of more than stg£6 million (€8.8 million) without first contacting the agency.