Friday, February 13, 2009

As Safe As The Bank of Scotland

How time flies. It's been four years since the police in Northern Ireland woke up to find that one of their Belfast banks had been robbed. The biggest heist ever, they were proud to note, but who did it and where's the money gone to?

Four years on, and nearly three million sterling was located and its holder charged. The authorities have operated on the presumption that it was the IRA who pulled the caper, to fund a pension scheme for their retiring soldiers in the face of the St. Andrews agreement. Their assumption led them to financial adviser Ted Cunningham, who is now being tried in the Republic of Ireland.

How did Mr. Cunningham come to be in possession of those sterling notes? A mysterious man, driving a Northern Ireland-registered car, handed him a collection of duffel bags stuffed with cash.

How did this mystery man know to contact Mr. Cunningham in the first place?

Phil Flynn sent him. The same Phil Flynn who was the chairman of the Bank of Scotland (Ireland). It only makes sense. If you're dealing with large sums, you'd want a bank chairman handling things. Twenty-five million pounds doesn't disappear quietly, after all, and a certain level of expertise is required. Someone who knows the banking system inside and out. Someone who knows where the loopholes are.

You'll be getting five million, Mr. Flynn is supposed to have said to Mr. Cunningham, and it's a lot of laundry to handle. As it turned out, Mr. Cunningham must have cleaned up almost half of it, since the gardai only found about 2.3 million hidden away in the Cunningham home in Cork.

So where's the other twenty million gone off to?

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