A 46-year-old man has been jailed for seven years for laundering more than €3.5m for one of the country’s most significant organised crime gangs.
Darren Hoey of Mountmellick Co Laois, was arrested after Gardaí from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau seized almost €700,000 at that address, and more than €2.8 million, as well as Sterling, at a cottage near Lisselton, Co Kerry.
Hoey was arrested after Gardaí from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau saw him take two bags of cash from an Audi A4 car and bring them into a cottage near Lisselton in north Kerry, which he had bought as a holiday home. Detectives found a further six bags of cash in the base of a bed in the house, to bring the total amount seized there to over €2.7 million, and more than £94,000 in sterling.
A search of Hoey’s home in Co. Laois yielded another €694,000. Mr Hoey pleaded guilty to money laundering and other charges when he came before the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee. Judge Helen Boyle sentenced Hoey to a total of eight years in jail, with one year suspended.
