{"id":258544,"date":"2026-01-22T20:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/258544\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T20:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:09:07","slug":"at-least-e3-7m-in-unaccounted-client-funds-discovered-in-athlone-investment-firm-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/258544\/","title":{"rendered":"At least \u20ac3.7m in unaccounted client funds discovered in Athlone investment firm, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least \u20ac3.7 million in client funds of an investment firm \u2013 whose owner died of a heart attack last August \u2013 are unaccounted for in what appeared to be serious misappropriation of the money, the High Court<\/a> heard. <\/p>\n

Strand Investments and Finance Ltd, trading as 123 Financial Services, Athlone, Co Westmeath, was owned by Bernard Kinahan, of Elm Close, Barrybeg, Roscommon Road, Athlone, who died on August 31st. He was a director of the firm along with Ken Kinahan, who now says he actually had no involvement in the management of the company.<\/p>\n

On Thursday in the High Court, barrister Devina Brady, on behalf of the Central Bank of Ireland<\/a>, applied on an ex parte basis (only bank was represented) to have provisional liquidators appointed to the firm following a forensic accountant\u2019s review identifying serious financial irregularities.<\/p>\n

This included that clients were misled into believing they had investments held with certain funds or \u201cproduct producers\u201d when their money was paid to accounts associated with the company and Bernard Kinahan. <\/p>\n

Clients were provided with falsified certificates purporting to evidence their investments and falsified statements showing that interest was accruing on investments that did not exist. <\/p>\n

There were inadequate business and accounting records and it appears steps were taken to modify certain banking and accounting records with a view to concealing the true financial position of the company. It has not yet been possible to reconcile the true financial position or the scale of misappropriation of client assets, the review found. <\/p>\n

Initial analysis of available information shows, however, that it appears 45 clients were impacted by misappropriation and at least \u20ac3.7 million of client money is unaccounted for. These are, however, only preliminary figures.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice Brian Cregan appointed Aiden Murphy and Declan Hanly of Crowe Ireland as joint provisional liquidators. The judge said this was a very serious matter and wondered if it was indicative of a Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n

The judge ordered that papers in the case also be served on the Insurance Compensation Fund and on the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In an affidavit seeking the provisional liquidators\u2019 appointment, Des Ritchie, head of investment firms and retail intermediate supervision at the Central Bank, said the firm\u2019s latest audited accounts from the end of July 2024, show it had \u20ac41,186 in cash at hand, net assets of \u20ac47,135 and a turnover of some \u20ac204,000. It is recorded as having had 711 clients. <\/p>\n

Following Bernard Kinahan\u2019s death, the family, through a representative, asked to engage with the Central Bank to sell the company\u2019s client list. <\/p>\n

In October 2025, one product producer notified the bank that it had received information which was \u201cindicative of the representation of an investment being made\u201d with the company when no such investment was made.<\/p>\n

The Central Bank began a review of the firm and was told by the family representative of his concern about possible irregular paperwork. Ken Kinahan then asked accountants RBK to carry out a forensic review. <\/p>\n

Following a formal report on RBK\u2019s phase one investigation, Bernard Kinahan\u2019s bank account was restricted and from a summary review of company and personal accounts, it emerged there were suspicious transactions involving large sums of money being passed through them, he said.<\/p>\n

Among its findings, RBK said several bank statements appeared to have been modified or partially edited, including by the use of TipExed out transactions. <\/p>\n

On December 15th, Central Bank officers seized documents and devices in the company\u2019s Athlone offices. A client of the firm had also contacted the Central Bank to say he made an investment of \u20ac333,000 which was never made.<\/p>\n

The case comes back to court in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least \u20ac3.7 million in client funds of an investment firm \u2013 whose owner died of a heart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,20927,82653,73,61,60],"class_list":["post-258544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-central-bank-of-ireland","tag-garda-national-economic-crime-bureau","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}