CAB seizes €600,000 worth of assets from alleged fuel smuggler
An alleged fuel smuggler who was cleared of killing a British solider at a cross-border checkpoint had two properties seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) today.
The Criminal Assets Bureau took control of two properties owned by Patrick Belton, which are believed to have a combined worth of around €600,000.
The High Court in Dublin heard that Belton told mortgage lenders he was working as a forecourt manager at a Belfast filling station, earning £40,000 (€51,919) a year, when he bought the houses - 20 The Meadows, Point Road, Dundalk, Co Louth, and a cottage in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan, in 2000 and 2001.
The majority of monthly payments were made in cash or third party cheques.
Investigators proved however that the 46-year-old was almost continuously on social welfare either in the North or the Republic of Ireland from 1992 to 2004 and paid no or very little tax in either jurisdiction during the same time.
Mr Justice Keven Feeney ruled that Belton had no legitimate source of income when he purchased the properties in 2000 and 2001.
"The evidence before the court establishes that the defendant is the owner of both properties and the sole person whose name appears on the mortgages," he said.
"The court is satisfied that the defendant is in control of the premises and that both premises are a property within the meaning of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996."
Detective Chief Superintendent John O'Mahoney, CAB's current chief bureau officer, told the court he believed that the defendant had been a prolific smuggler from North to South and from South to North and that he had been involved in such activities from at least 1998 up until 2005.
Belton was cleared of killing 29-year-old British soldier Corporal Gary Fenton who was knocked down by an oil tanker lorry at a checkpoint in South Armagh in 1998.
Belton, then with an address at Newry, was shot three times in that incident by another soldier who saw his colleague trapped under the lorry.
He escaped across the border, but gave himself up to the authorities two months later.
