A French dentist and inventor has told Cork Criminal Circuit Court how he was swindled out of 800,000 French francs - about £100,000. Mr Patric Jeniot was giving evidence against two foreign nationals charged with money laundering. Mr Jeniot needed finance to patent and market an invention. He said a loan was arranged for him by two men called Mr Pallisch and Mr Schaefer whom he believed to be agents of a company called Insurance Service International. "At one stage I did think it was a fraud," he said. Ms Maria Bernadetta Jehle, who is Swiss, and Mr Ernst Gunther Hollman, who is German, both with an address at The Priory, Ballymore, Cobh, Co Cork, have pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges.
Ms Jehle is charged with handling DM500,000 (about £200,000) knowing it to be the proceeds of crime between May 31st, 1996 and May 17th, 1997; and handling £80,000, knowing it to be the proceeds of crime on May 16th, 1997.
Mr Hollman is charged with handling DM250,000 between July 1996 and October 1997 and handling £25,000 on similar dates, knowing the money was the proceeds of crime. Most of the first two days of the trial, before Judge Patrick Moran, were given over to the evidence of German hotelier and businessman Mr Klaus Jurgen Wiese.
Yesterday he told the court he made a formal complaint to German police against Mr Pieter Jehle - a son of Ms Jehle - and a man called Mr Pallisch, after DM2 million of his money disappeared in a business deal organised for him by them. The trial continues today.