A convicted IRA prisoner turned international property developer has been accused in the Italian courts of using the Italian Mafia to launder money.
The Irish Independent reports that Henry Fitzsimons, 63, a Northern Irish property dealer and director of Irish company VFI Overseas Properties Ltd, was accused by an Italian magistrate last week of using the company to launder IRA money through a vacation complex in southern Italy run by the mafia. Fitzsimons has denied the allegations.
A magistrate in Calabria identified Henry James Fitzsimons and the company, after police moved against an alleged money-laundering scheme, seizing property worth €450m and making a series of arrests. According to reports from Italy, a European arrest warrant was issued for Fitzsimons, which detailed allegations of money laundering for the IRA.
Fitzsimons was reported to be hiding in Africa after his name was linked to the investigation but later emerged to deny any involvement through his lawyer, according to the Irish Independent.
His lawyer has said that his client, was jailed for 12 years for his part in a series of bombings during the height of The Troubles, had not been involved in the IRA since his release from prison in 1981. On his release from prison, Fitzsimons ran a night club and a taxi company before going into the property trade.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.IrelandNorth | Mar 12, 2013, 03:29 PM EDT
How did the great and glorious British Empire finance their global retail estate acquisitions portfolio for the best part of a millenium? How did the Spanish, the Portugese, Dutch, French do likewise? By church collections? Let they who are free from sin cast the first stone! Oh - silence.
aloistmartin | Mar 11, 2013, 11:53 PM EDT
More Scandalmongering aimed at Gentrifying the Republican Cause. Nationality, The Revolution, The Church; Dublin is nothing more than an Requited Ogre, who seeks shelter beneath the Behemoth of EU Austerity ! ( Eh, Seano@ )
SeanO | Mar 11, 2013, 07:49 PM EDT
The Troubles were the biggest money making racket, of all time, in Ireland. Dolers who would never amount to anything in a hard working civilized society, GETTING RICH.