Pubdate: Fri, 09 Feb 2001
Source: Irish Times, The (Ireland)
Copyright: 2001 The Irish Times
Contact:  11-15 D'Olier St, Dublin 2, Ireland
Fax: + 353 1 671 9407
Website: http://www.ireland.com/

TRAIL OF MISFORTUNE FOR DUBLIN BUSINESSMAN

Misfortune seems to follow Dublin businessman Mr Tom Forde wherever he 
goes, and those affected are usually others. Colm Keena reports.

This week Mr Forde sent a fax to the Criminal Court in Lugano, Switzerland, 
informing the judge he would not be taking up her invitation to come and 
give evidence.

The court had promised Mr Forde immunity from prosecution from the charges 
being faced by the defendants - Mr Paul Murphy (40), a native of Northern 
Ireland with an address in Bray, Co Wicklow, and Mr Andrew Winters from 
Surrey, England.

Mr Murphy is a former business associate of Mr Forde's. The Lugano court 
heard Mr Murphy and Mr Forde were involved in financial transactions 
totalling UKP 4.5 million (euro 5.7 million). The money was brought in 21 
caseloads of cash into Switzerland in 1997/1998, from Italy, the US and 
Britain, before being lodged in Swiss banks for transfer to accounts in the 
US.It forms one core aspect of the prosecution's case. The transactions 
occurred under Mr Murphy's direction. The prosecution's case is that the 
money belonged to Colombian cocaine dealers. Mr Murphy was introduced to Mr 
Winters by Mr Forde, but matters turned sour. "Mr Forde thought he was 
being cut out of the business and said he wanted half of Murphy's 
business," Mr Winters told the court. The three men met in Dublin in 
December 1998, but the meeting broke up after Mr Forde began making 
threats, he said.

Mr Forde told The Irish Times he rejected evidence that he demanded half of 
the $400,000 commission the two defendants were getting for their work. "I 
have never done business with Mr Winters and had only limited business with 
Mr Murphy," he said. He said no meeting in Dublin between the three men 
ever took place. The second leg of the Lugano case involves the Hibo trust, 
an Irish-registered trust of which Mr Forde and Mr Murphy were co-trustees. 
Cash totalling $6 million (euro 6.43 million) belonging to the trust went 
"missing" from a bank in Colombia, Banco Andino, to which it had been 
transferred, apparently by mistake. Mr Forde said the money was transferred 
in the name of the trust to an account of Banco Andino's with Citibank, in 
New York, "but kept going". Three London-based lawyers who were sent to 
Colombia to find out what had happened were turned back at the border, he said.

The trust money belonged to two German businessmen who owned the 
Irish-registered trust. It has since emerged the money was embezzled by one 
of them from a German company. Mr Forde did not want to discuss the Swiss 
court case in detail. It seems statements from Mr Forde concerning the cash 
brought into Switzerland, supported Mr Murphy's evidence that, when 
handling the cash, he had no reason to believe it was not legitimate money.

However, Mr Forde, the Lugano court has heard, was allegedly operating as a 
secret informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the US 
Inland Revenue Service, and US Customs and Excise. A second version of 
events given by him to the drugs agency is much less helpful to Mr Murphy's 
case.

Mr Forde appeared as a prosecution witness in a drugs case in Miami, 
Florida, two years ago. That case involved a man named Faught, who has a 
drugs record going back to 1977. "They [the DEA] asked me to help and I 
did," he told The Irish Times. "I didn't need to ask for immunity or 
anything like that."

Prosecutors from Switzerland travelled to the US to observe the case and 
noted Mr Forde's evidence. Faught was convicted.

It is the prosecution's case in the Lugano hearing that the money brought 
into Switzerland belonged to Faught. The prosecution has had some of the 
cash analysed and found it contained traces of cocaine. However, Mr 
Murphy's defence counsel has argued that this proves nothing, given the 
prevalence of cocaine in society. In his fax to the court this week, Mr 
Forde said he was not well. He suggested he might give evidence to an Irish 
judge or by way of videolink with the Swiss court. It is thought unlikely 
the offer will be taken up. This is not the first time Mr Forde has 
featured in stories concerning dubious transactions and missing money. In 
the early 1990s, a Norwegian bank took a case in the Dublin High Court 
seeking recompense for millions of pounds it claimed it had lost as a 
result of a confidence trick involving Mr Forde.

A Norwegian fish company, Broden Johnsen Albestad, had been approached by 
an Irish "businessman" who presented himself as being interested in buying 
fish for sale to Nigeria. The approach was made in 1986 by a James "Danger" 
Beirne, from Co Leitrim. Mr Forde was part of the group set up to effect 
the confidence trick, Mr Justice Morris said in the High Court in 1992. 
Another was a Mr Joseph Grimson, Cedarwood Gardens, Dublin.

The Norwegian Bank used by the fish company, Tromso Sparebanken, ended up 
with useless promissory notes for UKP 12 million, which had been signed by 
a bank official with Northern Bank, now National Irish Bank. It took its 
case in the High Court against Northern Bank and the court ruled that 
Northern Bank should pay the Norwegian bank UKP 6 million. The Irish bank 
appealed but the matter was settled in 1996, before the appeal was heard.

Late last year it emerged that Mr Forde was an advisory director of a US 
Internet company, ePawn. The former Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, is 
listed on the company's website as its other advisory director. The listed 
Irish recruitment firm, Marlborough International, was in merger talks with 
e-Pawn until a number of e-Pawn's directors were arrested in the US as part 
of an FBI crackdown on the infiltration of Wall Street by organised crime.

Mr Forde said he resigned from his position as advisory director to e-Pawn 
"some time ago". When it was put to Mr Forde that he'd had a "colourful" 
business career in which many dealings had gone awry, he said: "Certainly, 
certain things have gone awry but others didn't; they were very successful. 
Sometimes some things go wrong." No record could be found in the Companies 
Registration Office of existing companies of which Mr Forde is a director. 
Prior to the disclosure that he was involved in e-Pawn, it had been thought 
he was involved in selling imported Japanese cars from a business in 
Tallaght, Co Dublin. The companies associated with this business have since 
been dissolved.

Beirne, Mr Forde's associate in the bogus 1980s fish deal, was jailed by 
the Old Bailey in London in 1999 for 18 years for his part in an attempt to 
import cocaine worth UKP 6.5 million sterling (euro 10.2 million) from Peru 
into Britain. Mr Winters has previously served a prison term in Switzerland 
for his part in a failed attempt at smuggling emeralds from Venezuela. Mr 
Murphy has been in jail in Switzerland since late 1998. His case is 
expected to last into next week and his fate will be decided by a simple 
majority of the seven person jury.
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