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Swindlers - Season 1 - Episode 03: A House of Cards
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00:01On a June morning in 2010, in a fine Georgian mansion over Merrion Square, the management of Custom House Capital
00:09made their way to the first floor boardroom.
00:13They were gathering for the last installment of a team building exercise.
00:18The management team was led by CHC's directors, Harry Cassidy, the chief executive, John White, the investment director, and John
00:27Mulholland, who had set up the firm with Cassidy a decade previously.
00:33Cassidy presented the analogy of a castle on a hill, a vision of what CHC would become.
00:40It was a sham. Cassidy's castle on the hill was more like pie in the sky.
00:49The office of the financial regulator, on which CHC depended for its license to operate, wanted to get rid of
00:56Cassidy.
00:57It feared for the safety of funds that clients had entrusted to CHC.
01:07The stuff going on in the background, Custom House Capital's dark secret, was that it was stealing from its clients'
01:16accounts.
01:17It was a Total Car trèsличесical attraction, that it felt desperatelyioned, but also Protestantinter
01:54some of those who lost money in the collapse of custom house capital in 2011
01:58came to court for today's sentencing judge orla crow said she had read more than 200 victim impact
02:05statements from former clients most were hard-working people who had carefully put
02:10aside money for their retirement how did the central bank go into that company in 2009
02:15and those people were able to continue to do what they did I don't think our investment went
02:19bad because it was a bad investment I think our investment went bad because bad people took our
02:24money and did bad things with it it's kind of shocking really when you think about it you know
02:29like I feel better if I'd been scammed by a fella on the end of the phone the prosecution received
02:35victim impact statements from 197 people many of those who lost life savings they thought they had
02:41invested for their retirement came to court for the sentence hearing what we had worked hard for
02:47all those decades was squandered by a handful of people some of their husbands committed suicide
02:52some people just just gave up I knew the life she'd lived and how hard she'd worked and her health
03:03condition and to say to her I'll get all your money is gone just down the black hole by a
03:10guy that you
03:10trusted with your life the first email I got off the guards it was addressed to dear victim and that
03:19hit me being called a victim when you think about the scale of what was before us at the investigation
03:25stage where there's potentially 2,700 investors tens of millions of euros misappropriated the book of
03:32evidence alone ran into seven and a half thousand pages it was an absolute huge investigation
03:45the new dundrum town centre stands on an 18 acre site the first phase has taken almost five years to
03:52complete and local people queued from early morning to get their first look inside I just want to see the
03:57shops see see all the nice things that's in the shops at 10 o'clock the waiting ended I never
04:06thought
04:06I could live to either see the Lewis or to see this centre it's absolutely marvelous I had set up
04:17a business in 1995 so
04:19by the time 2005 and 2006 came along the country was singing the company was doing well and I was
04:31in a position to decide what I wanted to do with that money was I you know gonna go mad
04:36and buy a Aston
04:38Martin or would I be sensible and put it into a pension fund so a pension fund is what I
04:45ended up doing
04:47the arrival of American multinationals had begun in in a big way and then things were moving forward
04:54and they were moving forward most clearly in the property area what was going on in Ireland at the
05:02stage was you're buying something today and you're selling it a month later 30 percent more than you
05:07bought it for and all this carry on this morphed into a classic financial bubble where I haven't taken part
05:15in the bubble but my neighbor next door is now driving a spanking big new car and they're away
05:21on holidays half the time and my wife is looking at me saying what's wrong with us it's because we're
05:26not on property well I had a pension advisor most of the property opportunities in Dublin certainly a lot
05:36of them were taken up so he had said to me there's this company has set up called custom house
05:43capital
05:43and they were looking at investing in property outside of Ireland established in 1997 custom house
05:52capital is one of Ireland's most dynamic wealth management companies and currently manages over 1 billion
06:00euros on behalf of clients their sales pitch was aggressive returns and growth that was the pitch
06:06so they went for that quite strongly and it worked and people were attracted by it
06:18my aunt was born in city called Kiel in northern Germany it's on the Baltic she was born in 1928
06:25the war
06:25broke out when she was 11 years old she lost her mother at 12 years of age in the back
06:30of a truck
06:31bombed out city her father was quite elderly so she became a carer for him my uncle and he met
06:36this
06:37at that stage 17 year old beautiful girl her father accepted my uncle because he was Irish rather than English
06:43they married some years later and they rebuilt a little shop and she worked in that shop for 50 years
06:496 in the morning until 6 in the evening
06:53she loved Ireland particularly Connemara so they sold their business brought their money to Dublin
06:58put into Guinness Mahan Bank which was the place if you had a lump sum at the time
07:03she met Harry Cassidy there he was obviously dealt with her money
07:07so he came from a business culture that would have been probably cavalier is probably the best
07:11term I could use to describe it he came from Guinness and Mahan which was Des Treynor who was Charles
07:16Hawley's accountant and Tink Ansbacker accounts and offshore money this afternoon Sandra Kells of
07:21Guinness and Mahan Bank was explaining how they became embroiled with the Pruner brothers
07:25Fernando and Andreas who ran an organized crime ring in Miami Florida there was that kind of business
07:31culture at the time that he'd sprung up out of as well he came in strong in the 70s and
07:3580s
07:35he's an ambitious guy he was known as a business development guy not a technocrat and that stood to him
07:39in those times
07:42business was founded my grandfather in 1949 it was a drinks wholesale business
07:48serving pubs and clubs and hotels in County Kildare both my dad and his brother and my grandfather ran the
07:54business successfully for a long number of years
07:56they had an accountant and Roy advised them to start planning for post retirement or for the future
08:03introduce them to Jamal Holland and Harry Cassidy Harry was in Guinness and Mahan at the time the bank
08:10and some investments were made obviously and they grew quite quite well
08:18I was with the investment bank of Ireland my husband also worked in the same institution
08:22which to quote the Pruner at the time was the merchant banking arm of the Bank of Ireland group
08:28so that was the start of the relationship with Harry he was with the investment department for quite a few
08:32years and then he left and he went to Guinness and Mahan to best my knowledge he didn't have a
08:38college
08:38education he did the Institute of Taxation exams and excelled at them as far as I'm aware but yeah
08:44so he would have been straight out of school and into the bank he did have a great way with
08:48clients
08:49very good way with clients and clients trusted him I had transferred funds that I had come into
08:56as a result of the death of my husband I transferred those to Guinness men under Harry's guidance if you
09:03like
09:04and you trusted them oh implicitly implicitly like a lot of Irish people at the time it was based on
09:12relationships it was based on trust it was based on a point of contact I suppose maybe 20 or 30
09:17or 40
09:18years before that it was if you were a small-town business person in Ireland if the bank manager
09:23came to you and said said you should invest in this product that's what you did because you trusted
09:27a bank manager 1980s 1990s there was a lot of big institutions that wouldn't invest in a pension
09:33management the economy was becoming buoyant and probably thought why am I working here or why
09:38am I giving two-thirds of this away when theoretically I could set up my own shop keep it for
09:42myself and
09:43build out a business that's going to be worth something down the line Harry was great great fun
09:48very good sense of humor short fuse when he exploded he exploded I mean he had a bit of the
09:53small man
09:54syndrome but he didn't have in stature he made up for in taxation expertise running into investment
10:02expertise and arrogance hi Harry Cassidy from Custom House Capital Limited with another thought for
10:09the day did you know that Donald Trump is worth around 2.6 billion dollars and that if you laid
10:15his
10:15money in dollar bills end to end it would stretch all the way to the moon with a bit to
10:19spare so what
10:20does this have to do with Custom House Capital Limited well chances are you feel your pension fund
10:25wouldn't even stretch into the middle of next week which is why it'd be a rather good idea to call
10:29us
10:30today Custom House Capital Limited is regulated by the financial regulator under section 10 of the
10:34Investment Intermediaries Act 1995
10:37because they'd obviously dealt with him in Guinness Man they thought Harry is the man
10:41so they sent their money forward to Dublin with the intention of buying a house here or building a house
10:45so she trusted him implicitly
10:47they had strong brands and relationships coming from Guinness and Martin and a few other institutions
10:54so they came together as John Mulholland who was a non-executive director and a chairman
10:57Harry Cassidy as the CEO and a few people they brought with them at an executive level as well
11:01so for the first few years they were successful but it was hard not to be successful if you're a
11:05stable enough business during that period of time because there was a lot of money and cash
11:08coming into the economy
11:16The Custom House Capital investigation was certainly one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken
11:23by the Guard of National Economic Crime Bureau
11:25I think ultimately 100 people came forward and actually made statements and then you have to involve
11:31every aspect of their investment with that particular firm
11:34how it was handled, how it was organised, messaging they received from Custom House Capital and staff
11:40A lot of victims didn't come forward but in fraud investigations in particular it's not unusual for victims to not
11:48come forward
11:49Victims sometimes feel ashamed, they're embarrassed, they don't want their business known
11:54It took 12 years from the point of when it officially stopped for people to go to jail
11:58Why was that?
11:59Because it took so long to unravel the complexity of what they did
12:03There was so much data, electronic data, retrieved as part of that investigation on servers and on different computers
12:10And it required a particular data processing that was not available to GECB at that time
12:15And for that reason the case was put on hold pending the receipt of that report
12:21It wasn't, you know, people of extreme wealth from a lot of the people we spoke to throughout the investigation
12:28They'd lost a very modest amount of money that they thought they could use for later in their life
12:33And it was the absolute stress that people were put under as a result of this
12:44We started contributing to pension kind of in the mid-90s
12:48By 2006, you know, the business was going really well here
12:52And of course when you're self-employed and you have any relationship with any insurance company of any kind
12:57They're always knocking on the door
12:58And so one day they knocked on the door and said, you've some cash on your pension
13:02Why don't you buy a pension property?
13:05Because Charlie McCreevey has changed the rules
13:07You can put any asset you want into your pension
13:09Why don't you do this?
13:11I did get a pension off in computer type in Marion Square
13:14Pat, the boss, he put me onto the pension scheme
13:17You left that job around £2,000, was it?
13:19He retired, so he was shutting it down
13:21And what was in the pension pot then?
13:25£49,200
13:26When I set up my own business back in the 80s
13:30It was fairly successful, fairly quickly
13:33Then eventually we had been introduced to the idea of setting up a personal pension
13:40And that would have led me to Canada Life
13:44Over a number of decades we had saved something in the order of £475,000
13:54And so Canada Life, who were our pension provider at the time
13:58Appointed a trustee for this property that we were buying
14:00And the trustee they were appointed were Custom House Capital
14:03We never knew who they were
14:05We'd never heard of them before
14:07They start building relationships within the intermediate community
14:10The financial advice community, accountancy community
14:12The Canada Life's of the world
14:13And start bringing them to say, well if you introduce a client to this
14:16We'll pay you a commission, a fee, whatever it's going to be
14:19And that'll be part of the portfolio that you'll have with them
14:22But they would still be the client of the Canada Life agent at the time
14:26And it would have been a product they were investing in
14:28So they wouldn't have been a Custom House Capital client per se
14:31But parallel to that, Custom House Capital were bringing in their own clients directly
14:35Joe came in and he told me that he had an investment that he thought I might be interested in
14:39He said, this one is really good
14:40I would recommend that you join
14:42He said, in fact, I'm in it myself
14:44Like, you know what I mean?
14:45He says
14:45And lots of my friends had gotten involved in the SSIAs
14:49And I was too cautious to get involved
14:53The broker, he assured us that Custom House Capital were the top people
15:00And I was brought down, introduced to them
15:03It was all very impressive stuff
15:04Met John Mulholland in particular
15:06Never met Harry Cassidy
15:09And that was it, really
15:11There was nothing more to it
15:12You just sign this
15:14And we look after everything else
15:16Custom House Capital Limited is regulated by the Financial Regulator
15:19Under Section 10 of the Investment Intermediaries Act 1995
15:24Authorised, regulated, central bank
15:26Like, why would you suspect
15:28That there was anything untoward here at all?
15:37So CHC's basic fundraising model for themselves as a corporate entity
15:44Was based primarily on a 5% upfront commission
15:48On any monies invested with them
15:51So if you invested 100,000
15:53They would take 5,000 as commission
15:55That's a pretty aggressive, juicy commission
15:58But it allowed CHC then
16:02Offer very extravagant junkets
16:05And incentives to try to get money in
16:07And then on top of that
16:09They were getting commission on the monies invested in the property
16:12They were good at bringing clients on board
16:14They recognised this within each other
16:16They both liked to go off and play golf together
16:20And John had a place down in Mount Juliet
16:22It was the ultimate junket
16:24And it was part of the era at the time
16:27You know, that you had to look after your clients
16:30There was games of golf
16:31There was dinners
16:32There was nights out
16:33There was social gatherings between John Mulholland
16:37And his wife
16:39And my mother and my father as well
16:41Who obviously would listen intently to the advice that John would give
16:46And trusted him implicitly
16:48And whatever he might suggest they should do
16:50And what products they should invest into as such
16:53The Customised Capital Prime Property Fund number 2
16:57Has just been launched
16:58What benefits exactly does that offer to investors?
17:01As with the CHC Prime Property Fund 1
17:04It offers investors diversification
17:06And the same great range of benefits
17:08They love to have that image of
17:10Look at us, we're successful
17:12And how would you schedule him?
17:14Suave
17:16Loved himself
17:17Loved the Man About Town image
17:20I remember my dad saying to me
17:22That they had bought this premise on Merriand Square
17:24This big Georgian double front of premise
17:27High ceilings and antique furniture
17:29And that where was all this money obviously coming from
17:32Surely the fees weren't that good
17:33To obviously create that level of investment in a business premise
17:38The high upfront fee couldn't have happened
17:42Without the expectation of very high investment returns
17:46And they couldn't have realistically been offered
17:48At that time on anything other than property assets
17:51Which had had a very long period of sustained buildups
17:56And in an environment where asset values are rising
18:01By between 15 and 20%
18:03My instinct is less to worry about the size of the 5% commission
18:07Than to say, hurry up and get the money committed
18:10Don't leave me out of the race
18:12I think it would be safe to save between pre-retirement and post-retirement
18:16The value of the funds was definitely over a million
18:191.2, 1.5 million
18:21But it fuels the bubble
18:23And it reinforces the bubble
18:24And it reinforces the danger of the bubble
18:26Because now we've got a bunch of investors
18:28Who have used borrowings to get in here
18:31And if the asset value drops
18:34The risk that they have negative equity inflicted on them
18:38Suddenly rises
18:39They started sending me updates from CHC
18:44Which, strange enough, made me feel more secure
18:47Over two years, the years 2006-2007
18:52I put in what was a high five-figure sum
18:59Here we are in 2025
19:03And I have never seen one cent of that money
19:17This is the first ever detailed breakdown of the Irish mortgage market
19:21And it shows a surprisingly strong level of activity
19:24If you go to a party on a Saturday night
19:27The party starts at 10 o'clock
19:28At 1 in the morning
19:30You could justifiably wander around the party
19:33Handing out alcohol awareness leaflets
19:35But nobody's going to thank you for it
19:37And if you're in bubble liftoff mode
19:42People do not want to hear the warnings
19:46Germany's decentralised property market is booming
19:49Through our association with Berendis and partners
19:52We identified the potential of the German commercial property market
19:56Over two years ago
19:57It was good marketing to say
19:59We're not going to put all of our eggs
20:01Into the Irish property market basket
20:04We're going to spread them across Europe
20:06Just one kilometre from Hamburg City
20:09On Heidenkampzweg
20:11Our award-winning specification office
20:14Before completion
20:16A large number of renowned
20:17Colorado
20:19What type of investors are you looking for?
20:22Are you looking for individual investors?
20:23And perhaps a range of pension funds?
20:26It's open to all types of investments
20:27Private clients
20:28Pension funds
20:30Approved retirement funds
20:31And even company monies
20:32The theory was
20:33They bought a building
20:34They used your funds
20:36As part payment for the building
20:38They took a mortgage for the rest of it
20:41It was paid back over seven years
20:42And then technically
20:43After the seven years
20:44They sold the building
20:45And when our profit was made
20:46It was distributed back through the pensions
20:48Then
20:48For all that
20:49How many people?
20:51It was ten
20:53To what value?
20:56680,000
20:57When it was transferred
20:57As far as I'm aware
20:59Instead of sticking with what they knew
21:01And which they had a good history with
21:04They decided
21:05You know
21:06We can
21:07I don't know
21:08Conquer the world
21:09Or whatever they were thinking
21:09I don't know
21:10But like
21:11Setting up the fund
21:12To buy a shopping centre
21:14In Munich
21:15The pair of them
21:17And there would have been a pair of them in it
21:19Whole apartment blocks
21:21In Spain
21:22Wanted bigger and better
21:25Statements were issued
21:27They'd come in the post
21:28Once a year
21:29My dad would meet with John Mulholland
21:30It would be kind of a
21:31Semi-formal review
21:33Every couple of months
21:34We would get a statement
21:35For each person who was in the pension
21:37What was being projected by
21:39Say John Mulholland
21:39When you were sitting in the boardroom?
21:41Everything is fine
21:42Don't worry about it
21:43Your dad's
21:45Investments are secure
21:46He had lots of
21:48High profile
21:50Established business people
21:51That were obviously investing
21:52In CHC products
21:53So
21:54What's good for the goose
21:55Is good for the gander
21:56In some respect
21:57The jaw-dropping slide
21:59In Irish bank shares today
22:00Is unprecedented
22:01For recent times
22:03It was Warren Buffett
22:05Who said
22:06That it's only when the tide goes out
22:08That we get to see
22:10Who's been swimming naked
22:12And
22:12The global property
22:14Rise
22:15That peaked
22:162007-2008
22:19And
22:20Because so many people
22:21Had borrowed money
22:23To take part in this
22:24Financial leverage
22:26Worked against people
22:27On the way down
22:28And that turned a lot of people
22:30Into negative equity positions
22:32And then whoever had lent to them
22:34Had to foreclose on them
22:35The fear is
22:36The cancer has spread
22:37To the heart of European banking
22:39Anybody with a bit of
22:40Inserter knowledge
22:41Knew the writing was on the wall
22:42And taking clients' monies in
22:44At that stage
22:44Would have been
22:45You know
22:45A problem
22:47He
22:47Came
22:48And
22:49Had this
22:50Investment proposal
22:51And that's what
22:52The Destiny 119 Property Fund
22:55Was presented to us
22:56And he asked us
22:58If we were interested
22:59In using some of the cash
23:00That was still in our pension
23:01They were looking for
23:03More money
23:03Than we were prepared
23:04To put in
23:05They wanted
23:0650,000 from each of us
23:07Myself and my husband
23:08Both
23:08So we got seats
23:10On Canada Life
23:10For the 25,000
23:12That was paid into this fund
23:13So Canada Life
23:14Weren't running that fund
23:15They were selling it
23:18And everybody was told
23:19Something different
23:19I mean
23:20One gentleman
23:21He was told
23:22The minimum
23:22For that fund
23:23Was 350,000
23:25And that's what he put into it
23:26Then there was a group of people
23:28And they had a company pension
23:30And each of them
23:31Individually put in money
23:32But all of them thought
23:33They were dealing
23:34With something
23:35That Canada Life itself
23:37Was guaranteeing
23:38And selling
23:39Other pension people
23:40Who are in this game
23:41Many years
23:42Have told me
23:43We would never
23:44Advise people of your age
23:46To move your pension
23:47At that stage
23:47You were too old
23:51Starting in 08
23:52And onwards
23:52Into 09
23:53Or 10
23:53Or 11
23:54CHC's
23:55Supposed property
23:56Diversification
23:58Expeditions
23:58To Italy
23:59Germany
24:00France
24:00Wherever
24:00They were now
24:02Losing money
24:03Even though
24:04Harry Cassidy
24:06Wished to present
24:06To the outside world
24:08A picture
24:08Everything is well
24:10And it must have been that
24:12Which spurred him
24:13To take money
24:14From healthy funds
24:15To prop up
24:16Unhealthy funds
24:17Customers Capital
24:19Did not have the permission
24:20To move client monies
24:21Into different funds
24:23Or different products
24:23Without their consent
24:24Or instruction
24:25That's written instruction
24:27To do that
24:27Is he firefighting
24:28At this time?
24:29Yes
24:30And spinning
24:32Plates in the air
24:33And running from one plate
24:35To the other
24:35To keep it spinning
24:37He may have thought
24:38At the time
24:39That the drop
24:40In property values
24:41Being experienced
24:42In 07 and 08
24:43Would reverse themselves
24:46And that he was doing
24:47His investors a favour
24:49By keeping the show
24:51On the road
24:52I think there was
24:53One or two meetings
24:54I was definitely at
24:55In the boardroom
24:56In the front of the building
24:56Overlooking Merriand Square
24:58We were going on
24:59What was printed
25:00On the reports
25:01In relation to the true value
25:03That was obviously there
25:04He was effectively stealing
25:05The second problem we had
25:07Was that the drop
25:09And property values
25:10Continued
25:10And further exposed
25:12The financial fraud
25:14That lay at the heart
25:16Of what he was doing
25:22What we have here
25:23Is the original servers
25:24From Custom House Capital
25:26These servers
25:26Were seized by Gardaí
25:28In 2011
25:28Under a court order
25:30They contained
25:31Obviously a huge amount
25:31Of information
25:32Relevant to our investigation
25:33Because of the volume of data
25:35And the multiplicity
25:36Of the victims
25:37That led to a decision
25:39That we needed to look
25:41For external support
25:42Using a data analysis tool
25:45That was not available
25:45To GECB at that time
25:47And so the report
25:49That we got is around
25:492020 or 2021
25:51It can be quite daunting
25:52At the start
25:52When you look at
25:53Terabytes of information
25:54You go, my God
25:55How are we going to
25:56Make sense of this
25:56But you have to come up
25:58With a process
25:58As an investigation team
25:59On what we're going to do
26:01How we're going to
26:01Catalogue evidence
26:02How we're going to
26:02Identify evidence
26:03Each individual member
26:05Of the team
26:05Reviews a report
26:06And we had a meeting
26:07That went on
26:08For about three hours
26:08As we had the meeting
26:10We would look
26:10At some of the evidence
26:12That we had available
26:13Some of the data
26:13Custom House Capital
26:15Used a system called Unity
26:16And what essentially was
26:18It was a system
26:19That was a ledger
26:20That they could keep track
26:22Of where investors' money was
26:23We were also able
26:25To reconstruct
26:26The email server
26:27And we could see
26:28What people were saying
26:30To each other
26:30In and around the time
26:31That this was going on
26:32The approach that was
26:33Taken at the beginning
26:33Is that we look at
26:35One injured party
26:36Look what happened
26:36To their money
26:37And treat that one transaction
26:39As a fraud or a theft
26:41But when we actually
26:43Realised that
26:44There was simply going
26:45To be too many transactions
26:46To do that
26:47In Custom House Capital
26:48It would have been
26:49Thousands of transactions
26:50That's when the focus
26:51Turned to the email traffic
26:53Who was speaking
26:54To who
26:55And who was in charge
26:57And what role
26:58Did each person play
26:59There was people involved
27:01That were doing certain things
27:02That they probably
27:02Shouldn't have been
27:03But they mightn't have been
27:04Aware of the greater picture
27:05But certainly the heads
27:06Of CHC
27:07Knew exactly what was going on
27:08And that was evident
27:09From the emails
27:10At the end of that meeting
27:11We decided
27:13That we were going to
27:13Investigate it as a conspiracy
27:15Among the senior management
27:16Rather than
27:17Indivision
27:18Deceptions of 73 individuals
27:20The whole focus
27:21Of the case
27:22Changed thereafter
27:28So before even we talk
27:30About how money was lost
27:31The foundations were quite
27:33Shaking how they were
27:34Managed as well
27:34Because the regulation regime
27:36In 2007
27:37When this all started to happen
27:38Wasn't as strong as it is now
27:40But at that time
27:41It was like the world west
27:43In the regulators checks
27:46In 2007
27:47Four years before this
27:49Blue public
27:50Four million of differences
27:53Between what some accounts
27:55Said were in them
27:56And what was actually in them
27:58Were identified
27:58It should have been
28:00Absolutely glass clear
28:01To the auditors
28:01That these records
28:03Are in a mess
28:05My husband's a photographer
28:07And he went to a lot
28:08Of social events
28:09He photographed a lot
28:10Of you know
28:10Prize givings
28:11At various fancy golf clubs
28:13And things like that
28:14He met one of
28:15One of the directors
28:16Who subsequently was jailed
28:18And he knew
28:19That we had cash
28:20In our pension
28:20Now Barry didn't know
28:22That we had cash
28:22In our pension
28:23But this guy
28:24Knew that we had cash
28:26In our pension
28:26And then eventually
28:28We were approached
28:28By somebody acting
28:30On behalf of Custom House Capital
28:31Through Canada Life
28:32They were desperate
28:34To get money in
28:35And I don't think
28:35They were able
28:36To get enough money
28:37From dealing with
28:37Direct clients
28:53I suppose at the start
28:55Of the investigation
28:55You know
28:56We have to figure out
28:57Who's involved
28:58Who's a suspect
28:59Who's a staff member
29:00So we have to get
29:01An overall picture
29:02Of the inner workings
29:04Of Custom House Capital
29:05But we could tell
29:06From the outset
29:07That the main people
29:08Involved
29:09Appeared to be
29:10Harry Cassidy
29:11John White
29:12John Mulholland
29:13And Paul Lavery
29:14Also held a key role
29:16As the financial controller
29:17Within the company
29:18When we look at
29:19The actual scheme
29:20Of what was going on
29:21It was essentially
29:22Where clients
29:23Would be given
29:24Valuation reports
29:25The Destiny Equity Fund
29:26Had 32 million
29:28In it
29:28At one stage
29:29What these valuation reports
29:30Would say to the client
29:31Is that
29:32This is how your money
29:33Is performing
29:34This is where your funds are
29:35When CHC started to chase
29:37They started cashing
29:39The equity fund
29:40Without the client's
29:41Consent or knowledge
29:42Moving this cash across here
29:44Every couple of months
29:45We would get a statement
29:46For each person
29:47Who was in the pension
29:48I was getting an update
29:49From Canada Life
29:51Which is the most peculiar thing
29:53So this Velovis bond here
29:54Was moved out
29:55Into what's called
29:56A special purpose vehicle
29:57An SPV
29:58And this could have been
30:00For a property in Germany
30:01Their funds had to be removed
30:04From what we could see
30:06Where property funds
30:07In Europe
30:08The funds were then
30:09Placed in the correct place
30:11Where the investor
30:12Thought they should have been
30:13And once they had done that
30:14They would run
30:15The valuation report
30:17Paul Lavery
30:18Would calculate
30:19Fictitious interest
30:20Which would also be included
30:22On the valuation report
30:23That went to the investor
30:24So the investor
30:25Would get their valuation report
30:26And be happy and confident
30:28That my money's performing well
30:30And then falsified assets
30:32Because none of the money
30:33Is where it should have been
30:34In cash or in equities
30:35And the investor would obviously
30:37Have absolutely no knowledge
30:38Of this whatsoever
30:47There's so many people involved
30:49In the company
30:49How do you hide something
30:51On this level
30:52How do you hide it
30:53And what we believe
30:54Is that the pop-up system
30:56On the internal CHC computer
30:59Was the way
31:00The fraud was concealed
31:01So I'm just looking at
31:03One particular note here
31:04When you type the client's name in
31:06It will say
31:07Please contact Harry or Paul
31:09Before issuing any valuations
31:11That raises our suspicion
31:13Of surely
31:14You know
31:15If an investor
31:15Called CHC
31:17They can be advised
31:18Of their account status
31:20Without having to go
31:21To the head of the company
31:22There's a note on it
31:24Client should not be
31:25In QIF2 investment
31:26These need to be backed out
31:28To run a valuation
31:30As per PL
31:31Which we believe
31:32Is Paul Lavery
31:32And he will calculate
31:34What interest is due
31:35As we were going
31:36Through the email traffic
31:37We can see
31:39A reoccurring phrases
31:41For want of a better word
31:42And one of them
31:43Was the term
31:43Needs to be backed out
31:45So we could search
31:46That term
31:47On the email servers
31:48Looking for backed out
31:49And what we did discover
31:51Was it was instructions
31:52Being given
31:53To back clients out
31:54So they could run reports
31:55To deceive the clients
31:56And once that was done
31:57The money was returned
31:58But there was another
31:59Example of an email
32:01Can you do your magic
32:02On this account
32:03As the client is showing
32:04An investment in property
32:06Client is showing
32:07An investment in property
32:08Well why should a client
32:09Be showing an investment
32:10In property
32:10Unless he's actually
32:11Invested in property
32:12So I think that
32:14That kind of one email
32:15Alone can nearly set the tone
32:16Of what was actually
32:17Going on at the time
32:18And the scale of
32:19What was going on
32:19At the time
32:26In 2009
32:28The Century Bank
32:29Sent an inspector
32:29Into CHC
32:30And they
32:31Also
32:32Restricted CHC
32:34From taking on
32:34New investment
32:36Monies
32:36In the investment world
32:38That's the equivalent
32:38Of a yellow card
32:39Now at that point in time
32:40With
32:411.1 billion
32:42Of assets under management
32:44With
32:44You know
32:45320 properties
32:46With 40 funds
32:47You know
32:48It was a complicated
32:49Labyrinth of a business
32:50Already
32:50But only 20%
32:51Of that business
32:52Was actually
32:52The regulated side
32:53So the central bank
32:54Had no idea
32:55What was going on
32:56On the unregulated side
32:57And there's paper trails
32:58Saying that's not our problem
33:02And then they found
33:04That
33:05Monies had been taken
33:07From fund A
33:07To prop up fund B
33:09So their solution
33:10Was to try and sell
33:11That part of the business
33:12Customer's capital
33:12The regulated entity
33:13To appian asset management
33:15At one stage
33:15Like that was a terrible solution
33:17Appian asset management
33:18In good faith
33:19Took the leap
33:19And did that
33:20In 2009-2010
33:22Definitely around the time
33:23That appian
33:24Were looking at
33:24Buying into CHC
33:26I think John probably
33:27Spoke to my dad
33:28In relation to
33:29You know
33:29We're looking to
33:30Sell the business on
33:31Or there's going to be
33:32A change in ownership on it
33:33It took one of the staff members
33:34To actually just raise their hands
33:36And say
33:36There's an issue here
33:37And then
33:38Yeah it was
33:41Angela Mahan
33:42She took up a position
33:44In customers capital
33:45In 2007
33:46And she was promoted
33:47In 2008
33:49To head of finance
33:50And operations
33:50So she was at
33:51A more senior level
33:52And she attended a meeting
33:54Where there was a discussion
33:55On a shortfall
33:57In an investment
33:58In property in Germany
34:00Something around
34:0111 million
34:01She realised that
34:03They didn't have the money
34:04To meet that shortfall
34:05And she learnt that
34:06Money was being taken
34:07From clients accounts
34:09She said that was wrong
34:11And she contested that
34:11With the senior managers
34:12Basically she was overruled
34:14By the senior management team
34:15And she decided that
34:17She couldn't put up with this
34:19And she resigned her position
34:21She was asked by two of the senior managers
34:23Not to resign
34:24One actually said
34:26You're only a young person
34:27You have to realise
34:28There's a commercial reality sometimes
34:31And when that commercial reality is there
34:33Integrity goes out the window
34:34She left in late 2008
34:37And in 2009
34:38She actually had to contact
34:40CAC to get her P45
34:42And in that conversation
34:43With the senior manager
34:44She asked
34:45Had the situation been resolved
34:48And it had not
34:49And at that point
34:50She made a disclosure
34:51To the financial regulator
34:53And then she cooperated fully
34:56With the guard investigation
34:56In terms of
34:57As a witness
35:00I was in a car
35:01And I started reading it
35:03It possibly mentioned liquidation
35:04And I just messaged Harry immediately
35:08Just
35:09What the fuck
35:11And
35:11He came back
35:12To all run out of proportion
35:14Nothing to be worried about
35:15Whatsoever
35:18And we now know of course
35:19That was
35:19The top of the slope
35:29Custom House Capital
35:30Custom House Capital
35:31Was one of the companies
35:32That were registered
35:33By the pensions board
35:35And I invested
35:37My life savings
35:38Which goes back
35:39Nearly 40 years
35:40Of contributions
35:41For my pension
35:42My mum is elderly
35:44When she was in her 80s
35:45She decided
35:46It might be a good idea
35:47To sell her house
35:48My dad had died
35:49Some years before
35:50John, good afternoon.
35:52How's the phone go?
35:53Are you a victim of Custom House Capital?
35:56Absolutely, totally was.
35:58But it was a huge scam from day one,
36:00because the financial staples we used to get
36:01every six months were falsified.
36:04The shareholders, people who ran the firm,
36:06were very, you know, well-known.
36:07They were recognised in the industry.
36:09You know, John Mulholland, John White, Harry Catsby.
36:11Custom House Capital got over one billion from investors.
36:14It's more white-collar crime in this country.
36:17The first anybody really knew of this was in July,
36:19and at that point, there was a freeze,
36:20and you could not take your money out.
36:22The ship had sunk at that point.
36:24I was due to retire about the end of December.
36:27After that, I would have no funds whatsoever.
36:30There's people who had every penny that they own
36:33in terms of what they provided for their old age
36:35in that fund, and it's gone.
36:37What about you, Patrick? Have you told your friends?
36:39No, I haven't.
36:40Why not?
36:41It would be very embarrassing.
36:43Well, I wouldn't be embarrassed about it.
36:45Patrick, you say you stand to lose your house
36:47at the end of the month.
36:48Well, I could.
36:49I mean, we're sending people to jail
36:50for not taking TV fees,
36:52and all these people are walking about scot-free.
36:55After throwing away millions on people,
36:57their pensions, their life schemes,
36:59you're going to lose your house.
37:00Out in the street, you're bare feet.
37:02Scandalous. The country is so corrupt.
37:05What's the first inkling?
37:07How did you find out?
37:08Joe Duffy.
37:09I was sitting listening to Joe Duffy.
37:12Once I'd established it was my investment,
37:14I kind of knocked off Joe Duffy
37:16until I got on the phone.
37:17And basically, he just told me,
37:19there's no money in this field.
37:21You will get nothing back.
37:22And he was quite blunt about it.
37:25When did you first hear about something?
37:27Well, shortly after John White told my auntie
37:30to send her a cheque.
37:31There was no indication right up to that minute.
37:33But Christ, of all the people I know in life,
37:35how hard this money was earned.
37:38Every day grinding away,
37:39getting up at all hours in the morning,
37:40and to lose it all just like that.
37:42The regulator was writing letters
37:44to Custom House Capital
37:45long before we ever transferred our pensions to them.
37:47Had we known that,
37:48we would have never done it.
37:50But we didn't know.
37:51There were so many people
37:52who didn't do their job properly,
37:53coming back to Central Bank
37:54and not actually managing the business,
37:56and the pensions authority.
37:58Did all these people fail at what they did?
38:00There was an environment there
38:01that allowed these people
38:02to do the things they were going to do.
38:09So there was a number of arrests carried out
38:12as part of the investigation.
38:13Harry Cassidy, Paul Lavery and John White
38:16were arrested in 2012 initially.
38:19But again, there was a second round of arrests
38:21conducted in 2019,
38:23and that was obviously done at a time
38:24when the investigation team
38:26had built up a lot more knowledge
38:28of what actually went on.
38:29The Dublin District Court heard
38:30that the three men were all arrested
38:32in Dublin earlier today
38:33by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.
38:36John Mulholland was arrested in 2019.
38:38Paul Lavery was arrested again in 2019.
38:41John White was also arrested again in 2019.
38:44We had sought to arrest Harry Cassidy again in 2019,
38:48but he wouldn't present to Garda
38:51voluntarily to be arrested.
38:55Where was he?
38:56He was in Germany at the time.
38:57And what was he doing there?
38:59I believe possibly he was teaching English
39:02as a foreign language.
39:03The court heard John Mulholland,
39:05John White and Paul Lavery made no reply when charged.
39:09He was ultimately arrested by the German police.
39:11I believe he spent approximately
39:12about three months in custody in Germany.
39:14But in the end,
39:15he decided to return back to this jurisdiction
39:19where he was met and ultimately charged.
39:26After it all collapsed with Custom House Capital
39:29and the liquidators moved in,
39:31I used to receive a letter every year.
39:34The balance was zero.
39:37I don't know the story of how these properties
39:40ended up being sold the way they were
39:41for as little as they were.
39:42The buildings are still there.
39:44The rent is still there.
39:46So therefore,
39:48there's no reason why there should be a problem
39:49with any of these things.
39:51But of course,
39:52with the times that were in it,
39:53they become a fire sale.
39:55Yeah, we got 550 euros each back.
39:58That's it.
39:59And for the regulated side,
40:01where people had money in regulated investments,
40:03there's a thing called the Investor Compensation Fund.
40:05The maximum that the Investor Compensation Fund can pay out
40:09is 20,000 per investor.
40:11And people may have had savings from an entire lifetime
40:16that had to look after them in their old age,
40:20parked in CHC,
40:22and to have that so sharply reduced
40:24probably would unleash medical symptoms in some of them.
40:31Her health was failing.
40:33She'd been in hospital several times.
40:35Now,
40:37my fear was,
40:38we'd get the phone call to say,
40:39she's fallen,
40:40and that then I would get calls to say,
40:42we need money to pay for her nursing home.
40:45Now, God forbid,
40:46had she ever rung me and said,
40:47Nick,
40:48get on to Harry and tell him I need 10 grand or 20 grand,
40:52I would have had to say to her,
40:53Helga,
40:54there is no 10 or 20 grand.
40:56Now, how could you say that to somebody
40:57who built her,
40:59this was her life,
41:01the fear that the phone would ring,
41:02because she was very unwell.
41:04She was finally brought into hospital during COVID,
41:06and she died there alone,
41:07only the hospital staff.
41:08We rang,
41:09but they said there's no point in coming over.
41:11And that's what frightened me most in the last year.
41:13And thankfully,
41:14I didn't have to tell her.
41:15I think it came to a stage
41:16where he wouldn't even talk about it anymore,
41:18because he knew there was not much you could actually do about it.
41:22His health was failing.
41:23He'd lost his wife.
41:25He was spending three days a week in hospital having dialysis.
41:28So his life had become quite insular.
41:30And with that then, I suppose,
41:32everything began to just cave in on top of him.
41:34I got a letter first,
41:36and I got invited to a meeting in town.
41:39There were people there,
41:40and they were seriously aggrieved.
41:42I think there was one guy who had something like 50,000,
41:45and he was furious.
41:46And I'm sitting there with the cold realisation
41:49that nearly 400 grand on my part
41:52had been put by this broker
41:54into Custom House Capital on one bet.
42:01Did you have to explain to your employees?
42:03Yes, which was a very awkward conversation.
42:06And I had to explain to them,
42:09as they were coming up to retirement,
42:10that their pensions were gone.
42:12And in my opinion, they would never see any of them.
42:18At the end of the day, the book stopped with me.
42:20I made the decision.
42:21It was my decision as the trustee of the company.
42:24It was the wrong decision.
42:26It was my decision,
42:27and are you doing it?
42:35I was assigned to cover the sentence hearing of the four men.
42:39So the presiding judge, Judge Orla Crowe,
42:42she was sitting that day in courtroom 12.
42:44I remember going up in the lift there and walking in,
42:48and it was just so busy.
42:51There were so many people in that courtroom.
42:53It was a very sad day, to be honest,
42:56because there were widows where the husband had died since,
43:00but all their money had gone into a pension fund
43:04through Custom House Capital and lost everything.
43:07It seemed to take an eternity to get from the back of the court
43:10up to the box,
43:12and then to have the accused sitting right in front of you.
43:17But the judge, I thought, handled it very well.
43:21And, of course, the newspapers were all over it.
43:25So there were 197 victim impact statements handed in to the court,
43:29and four of them were read out by infected investors in Custom House Capital,
43:35or by family members of those investors who had passed away.
43:40I saw a woman cry.
43:42She said, I put my pension fund in.
43:44And she said, it means I'd have to go back to work at 65.
43:47She was crying.
43:48But nobody put their arms around her and said,
43:51it'll be all right.
43:53It is only now that I approach retirement age
43:56that the full impact of this theft is starting to manifest itself.
44:00In the past, I pushed it to the back of my mind,
44:03but for the last few years, I cannot shake it off.
44:06It causes me many sleepless nights nowadays,
44:08and I constantly worry about my financial future.
44:11With the world the way it is now,
44:14I have two Adolf children still living at home,
44:16and I maybe could have helped them with a deposit on a house
44:19if this money had not been stolen.
44:22I've lived my entire life in South Inner City Dublin,
44:25and in a broader sense, this crime has also compounded my belief
44:29that there is a demoness in Irish society,
44:32which robbed me and my family of a more secure retirement.
44:37Having worked continuously for the last 45 years
44:40and never relying on the state for a single cent,
44:43I don't think that this was too much to aspire to.
44:52Now, there were four guys being sentenced.
44:55They all had their own legal counsel separately.
44:59Each of them stood up and advocated
45:01for why their guy shouldn't go to prison.
45:03You know, it was all like cats in a sack,
45:05just all fighting, trying to be the one who doesn't go to prison
45:08or doesn't get the worst sentence.
45:10And the way they were talking about these guys
45:13is like they were paragons of virtue.
45:15I turned around to Barry and said,
45:17I'm going to start feeling sorry for them soon
45:19if they keep on going on like this.
45:20I said, are these guys talking about these men
45:23who have defrauded all of these people?
45:25So Harry Cassidy and John Mulholland took 2.3 million out,
45:29discreetly out of company in commissions,
45:31directly to a Luxembourg bank account.
45:34And a Tenerife property was bought for John Mulholland.
45:37So they were profiting during this period of time from 2007 to 2011 personally,
45:41as well as drawing out salaries.
45:4360 years of his life working, putting away money to support himself
45:47in the latter years of his life that he was going to be able to enjoy.
45:50Then to see it all, the majority of it all wiped away was really frustrating for him.
45:54And one of them was trying to say that he was so much younger and all this kind of stuff.
45:58And I was a bit led and all that.
46:00And the judge was like, you're an adult, take responsibility.
46:04The judge noticed in her sentencing remarks that the men threw their guilty pleas.
46:09That meant that the state was saved a very long and complex trial.
46:13The judge said 67-year-old Harry Cassidy, the co-founder and chief executive officer of CHC,
46:19was in charge of the entire conspiracy and breached all trust placed in him.
46:24She sentenced him to seven years in jail.
46:2653-year-old John White, the head of private clients, was given four years.
46:30Paul Lavery, who was 47, was head of finance
46:33and carried out directions he knew were wrong, the judge said, jailing him for three years.
46:3873-year-old John Mulholland, a co-founder and non-executive director,
46:42pleaded guilty to neglectfully discharging his duties as a director
46:46and was jailed for 12 months.
46:48Judge Crowe said many of the victims felt shame, but that was misplaced.
46:53She said they had been systematically deceived in a sophisticated operation,
46:57which went on for almost three years.
47:21The most dramatic part of it, looking back now, was when the guards came in to take them away to
47:29the cell.
47:29A lesson there to the profession is that there is a price to be paid if they misappropriate people's funds.
47:38I'm very happy that even when he does come out, he will still be a convicted felon.
47:44He's a criminal and he will have done time.
47:56Thankfully, we still have our health and we have a vibrant family.
48:01My wife still works, but I turned 74 this month.
48:05It's difficult because we're reliant on the state pension and then a few bits and pieces.
48:12I suppose I took and I still take a philosophical approach to it all.
48:18There's no point in me getting angry about it.
48:20I heard of people who borrowed money to put into that scheme.
48:24And they're the people I really feel sorry for.
48:27You just move on.
48:29I think Irish people are, they don't like talking about misgivings or they don't like talking about being taken for
48:36a fool or being taken for granted.
48:37So there'll be a lot of people, I think, that will just take us to their grave.
48:40And we brought her ashes up to kill an edema.
48:42And she's buried beside her husband with my godmother.
48:49Lately, I've been starting to realise, not that it went bad. It was criminal.
48:54It was an offence. People have gone to jail for it.
48:57Years after the collapse and the whole lot, we actually worked in the building that they operated from at Marion
49:03Square.
49:04And I walked up to the door, there goes the most capital looking at me.
49:07They never took the plaque off the building at that stage.
49:09I think it's sad that anybody would think that they had done something wrong.
49:13You're supposed to work hard and you earn a few bob and you set a few bob aside and you
49:19invest it somewhere so that it's going to grow.
49:21You will be able to provide for yourself and you won't be depending on the stage and you won't be
49:25depending on your kids and you'll be able to afford all the things that you still need to do when
49:29you're, you know, retired.
49:32That's what we're supposed to be able to look forward to in this green and pleasant land.
49:43I'm 15 pounds.
49:49I know.
49:53I know.
49:56I know.
50:00I know.
50:03I know.
50:07I know.
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