A Co Clare man who is awaiting trial in the UK on charges arising from an alleged £100 million VAT "carousel" fraud has asked the High Court to dismiss as an abuse of court process proceedings taken in Ireland against him and two of his companies by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Mr Dylan Creaven (30) also wants orders preventing the Minister for Justice from handing over documents to the UK customs authorities to assist in additional criminal investigations there. The documents were seized in searches of his companies' premises.
The proceedings by Mr Creaven, formerly with an address at Woodstock, Ennis, and two of his companies, Silicon Technologies (Europe) Ltd, Ennis, and Bradenville Holdings, Henry Street, Limerick, opened yesterday before the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Finnegan, and are expected to last several days.
Mr Creaven was arrested in the UK in November 2002 and was in custody for more than a year before securing bail on conditions late last year.
In his High Court proceedings, he and his companies want to stop CAB pursuing actions against them under the Proceeds of Crime Act. CAB claims the defendants are in possession, control or beneficially entitled to properties which directly or indirectly constitute the proceeds of crime. They claim that Mr Creaven and or the officers of the two companies knowingly and wilfully failed to comply with the VAT and Taxes Consolidation Acts and were engaged in a lucrative trans-national VAT carousel fraud.
In earlier court hearings it was claimed the extent of the alleged fraud was over £100 million and that it involved high-value computer components and the alleged movement of these goods in a circle between various companies to generate VAT payments that had not been declared to the British authorities.
Mr Creaven and his companies deny those claims.
They claim that in applications to the High Court for orders against them freezing millions of pounds in various accounts, CAB failed to disclose important information including that search warrants had been sought and secured under the international mutual assistance provisions of the Criminal Justice Act, 1994.
In an affidavit, CAB's chief bureau officer, Det Chief Supt Felix McKenna, said he strenuously opposed Mr Craven's application and rejected claims that he had breached obligations to make full disclosure to the court of all material facts.
Mr McKenna said CAB, in conjunction with the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the Irish and UK customs authorities had, over a number of months, been involved in a major investigation into the activities and assets of Mr Creaven and some of his companies.
Searches had been planned before urgent information required a court application to be made to restrain the movement of funds, Chief Supt McKenna said.