Second Anglo Bank executive questioned by fraud squad
A second Anglo Irish Bank executive was being quizzed today by fraud squad officers probing alleged financial irregularities at the now nationalised lender.
The bank’s former finance director and chief risk officer William McAteer was arrested after a search of a private property early this morning.
He was brought to Irishtown Garda Station in Dublin, where he can be held for up to 24 hours under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.
The arrest comes just days after Sean FitzPatrick, former Anglo Irish chief, was taken into custody following a dawn raid at his luxury home in Greystones, Co Wicklow.
The 61-year-old was quizzed by fraud squad detectives for around 24 hours before being released without charge from Bray Garda Station.
Mr FitzPatrick was the first person to be arrested since the bank’s headquarters at St Stephen’s Green in central Dublin was raided by the garda fraud squad and investigators from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement last February.
Earlier this month Anglo Irish Bank began legal action against Mr FitzPatrick to try to recover loans of €70m.
Over a period of eight years up to 2007, Mr FitzPatrick temporarily transferred borrowings with Anglo Irish Bank to another bank before the annual report was audited.
It later emerged the loans reached as much as €129m at one point in 2007.
The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Financial Regulator are also investigating whether Anglo Irish used more than €7bn of short-term deposits from Irish Life & Permanent to mask big customer deposit withdrawals.
The Government has already pumped €4bn into Anglo Irish since it was bailed out last January.
Expected record losses to be announced later this month could see the taxpayer being asked to inject more cash into the nationalised lender.
Anglo Irish is also expected to transfer around €28bn of loans to the state’s “bad bank”, the National Asset Management Agency.
