This is the moment officers from the Criminal Assets Bureau and gardai seized a property linked to the Kinahan cartel’s No 1 man in Ireland Ross Browning.
This morning at 10am CAB officers arrived in several vehicles at the luxury property - Chestnut Lodge - in Garristown, north county Dublin to take possession of it as part of the CAB’s €1.4million case against Browning.
The property, on 1.2 acres, was purchased partly with Browning’s drug money. At a High Court hearing recently, Judge Alexander Owens appointed a receiver to take charge of the property.
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The renovated cottage as well a luxury house behind the cottage, paddocks and an indoor show-jumping arena, will then be sold off by the receiver with monies going partly to the Exchequer and partly to some of Browning's family members who used their own funds to renovate the property.
The property featured an ‘escape hatch’ concealed with a hanging carpet leading from the house to the shed behind it. A motorbike was at the foot of the escape hatch which a senior detective said in an affidavit “was clearly there for Browning’s use.”
Family members had previously agreed to vacate the property by this morning prior to the CAB seizing it.
A similar order was made by Mr Justice Alexander Owens for a property on Deanstown Avenue in Finglas, Dublin 11 which has to be handed over to the receiver on Tuesday at 10am.
That property was deemed the proceeds of crime by the High Court earlier this year.
Browning, originally from Hardwicke Street in Dublin’s inner city, didn’t challenge the €1.4 million Criminal Assets Bureau case against him.
However, several members of his family denied CAB’s claim and said that money used came from legitimate sources.
Browning, who was described in court as the Kinahan Cartel’s No.1 man in Ireland being at the heart of an international crime gang involved in €1billion worth of illegal activities.
In his February judgement Judge Owens said that although Browning’s name was not on the properties they were controlled by him, his partner Sinead Mulhall and his mother Julie Conway.
A number of other family members were named in the CAB case as being used by Browning to disguise his involvement including his sisters Cheryl and Robin, his aunt Lesley Conway, his late grandfather William Conway and his second cousin Ian O’Heaire.
Browning tried to disguise drug money in Ireland through these family members who in return enjoyed his generosity when it came to cars, jewellery and travel.
In May, defence counsel said Browning’s family members “accept they [the properties] have to be vacated and surrendered,” and gave the undertaking to vacate them.
