Gardaí investigating a Provisional IRA money-laundering operation believe that £2.3 million seized last week was part of a £5 million consignment brought from the North to be channelled through an operation run by a Cork financial adviser.
However, gardaí believe the adviser thought that some £1.5 million was part of the proceeds of the £26.5 million taken in the Northern Bank raid and he believed it was too dangerous for him to handle.
According to an informed source, the adviser stalled on collecting the final £1.5 million of the £5 million haul and the money was instead collected by a republican activist from the greater Cork area who was given responsibility for laundering that money. It is believed the activist divided up the £1.5 million and gave £60,000 to a fellow republican activist for safe-keeping, while he gave an undisclosed sum to a second man who panicked and burned it when gardaí began closing in.
Meanwhile, it is understood that the financial adviser began farming out the money to a number of enterprises, including £250,000 to a businessman in the Tullamore area.