A married couple have been sent for trial in connection with the alleged theft of \u20ac274,000 from the State and alleged laundering of pandemic wage subsidy funds across international accounts.<\/p>\n
Edward Wang (57) and his 50-year-old wife, Kit Lee, of Drogheda, Co Meath, appeared at Dublin District Court on Tuesday following an investigation by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.<\/p>\n
Sgt Brian Hawkins told Judge Michele Finan the couple had \u201cno reply\u201d when charged.<\/p>\n
The Director of Public Prosecutions authorised that the couple face trial on indictment.<\/p>\n
The judge agreed to grant a return-for-trial order, sending them forward to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where the case will be listed for mention on May 21st.<\/p>\n
No pleas were entered by the couple, who were warned to notify the prosecution within 14 days if they intended to use alibis in their defence.<\/p>\n
The judge also acceded to a request from Conor McGreevy, defending, to order garda\u00ed to provide copies of interview videos.<\/p>\n
Wang is accused of stealing \u20ac236,093, the property of The Office of The Revenue Commissioners, between September 1st, 2020, and May 5th, 2021.<\/p>\n
A second theft charge alleges that from March 20th, 2021, to March 29th, 2022, he stole \u20ac38,250 in property belonging to the Department of Social Protection (DSP).<\/p>\n
He also faces deception charges. According to one, he was said to have induced the DSP to issue him with PPS numbers under two false names to make a gain for himself or another person on August 7th, 2021, and June 4th, 2020.<\/p>\n
He faces multiple charges of converting, transferring, handling, acquiring, possessing or using property that is the proceeds of criminal conduct, allegedly stolen Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme Funds in various bank accounts.<\/p>\n
The scheme was an Government initiative designed to help businesses affected by Covid-19 retain staff.<\/p>\n
He and his wife, of Colpe Crescent, Deepforde, Dublin Road, are accused of possessing or transferring \u20ac38,350 cash and \u20ac6,260 cash in suspected crime proceeds at his home in November 2022.<\/p>\n
Lee is accused of three other charges, including attempting to commit an indictable offence at KBC Bank, 47 Main Street, Swords, Co Dublin, contrary to common law.<\/p>\n
She is also accused of deception by inducing the DSP to issue her husband, Wang, a PPS number in a false name.<\/p>\n
Lee faces a charge of money laundering on January 10th, 2021, in connection with allegedly stolen Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme funds to the value of \u20ac3,108, also purported to be proceeds of criminal conduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A married couple have been sent for trial in connection with the alleged theft of \u20ac274,000 from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[160,14313,5721,12210,615,61,60,15949,43,11522],"class_list":["post-363071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-covid-19","tag-department-of-social-protection","tag-district-court","tag-drogheda","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meath","tag-news","tag-revenue-commissioners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363071","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=363071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}