{"id":667149,"date":"2026-10-27T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667149\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:38:10","slug":"liquidators-assigned-to-charity-in-money-laundering-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667149\/","title":{"rendered":"Liquidators assigned to charity in money-laundering probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The High Court has appointed provisional liquidators to a charity at the centre of a garda investigation into money laundering.<\/p>\n

The liquidators were appointed following an application by the Charities Regulator as part of a petition to wind up the charity, Liberties Recycling and Development Company limited.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the regulator said the appointment of a liquidator places executive control of the charity into independent hands immediately, to enable transitional arrangements to be put in place to support the charity’s vulnerable service users and employees, and to secure the assets of the charity and their transfer, if possible, to another charity with a similar charitable purpose.<\/p>\n

The regulator said it sought the order following engagement with the trustees when a garda money laundering investigation seized around \u20ac300,000 in assets.<\/p>\n

The investigation has been ongoing for some time.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed from the money laundering unit carried out a series of searches in Dublin and in the south and east of the country last week.<\/p>\n

\"A
\nOne of the cars that was seized as part of the investigation (Image: An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na)<\/p>\n

They seized two BMW X5 cars worth around a quarter of a million euro along with Louis Vuitton bags, Rolex watches and jewellery with an estimated value of \u20ac40,000.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9’s Crime Correspondent Paul Reynolds reports on today’s developments<\/p>\n

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in has confirmed that its TD Aengus \u00d3 Snodaigh is the chair of Liberty Recycling and said it supports the investigations by garda\u00ed and the Charities Regulator.<\/p>\n

A Sinn F\u00e9in spokesperson said: “Deputy Aengus \u00d3 Snodaigh has reiterated his support for the ongoing Garda investigation, taking place in conjunction with the office of the Charities Regulator, into a charity organisation of which he is a board member and chair.<\/p>\n

“Deputy \u00d3 Snodaigh has remained in regular engagement with the office of the Charities Regulator over the past week since confirmation of the investigation emerged, and he remains available to assist An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na with their inquiries.<\/p>\n

“Following today’s decision by the High Court, the full executive control of the charity now rests entirely with the provisional liquidators, whom Deputy \u00d3 Snodaigh met with earlier today.<\/p>\n

“Deputy \u00d3 Snodaigh said that support for the charity\u2019s vulnerable service users, CE workers and employees must now be prioritised by the liquidators, the Charity Regulator and the Department of Social Protection. He said that all possible measures must be exhausted to secure jobs or alternative CE places for all affected workers.<\/p>\n

“Deputy \u00d3 Snodaigh further stated that it his intention to call an emergency board meeting of the associated company, Liberty Global Exports Company Limited, with the intention of looking at all options, including the winding-up of the company.<\/p>\n

“Deputy \u00d3 Snodaigh held discussions today with the liquidator and with Department of Social Protection officials to try to ensure that service users and employees are supported during the liquidator\u2019s consultative period, and he confirmed that the liquidators had agreed to his request to facilitate a series of meetings with the charity\u2019s staff and stakeholders tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

The regulator said that while there is no evidence that the charity trustees are involved in the activities under investigation by the GNECB, the Charities Regulator formed the view, from the trustees\u2019 engagement with the regulator and their response to situation, that there was little or no effective management or oversight of the charity\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n

The charity has shops in several counties around the country and is involved in recycling clothes and other goods.<\/p>\n

Its website describes how it operates a clothes recycling “initiative to provide employment and training to local people affected by drugs”.<\/p>\n

The Charities Regulator said that Shane McCarthy and Cormac O\u2019Connor of KPMG have been appointed as joint provisional liquidators of the charity and that there will be a High Court hearing on the winding up application in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The High Court has appointed provisional liquidators to a charity at the centre of a garda investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-667149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667149","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=667149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}