The Criminal Assets Bureau has seized more than €500,000 in property and cash following two separate operations targeting a Traveller criminal gang and a Chinese brothel keeper.
The High Court directed that CAB confiscate a house in Newbridge, Co Kildare, and other items from married couple Andrew and Ellen Wall who are part of the Traveller criminal family known as the ‘Cock Wall’ gang.
The gang carried out burglaries and robberies, mainly on the homes of the elderly, all over the country.
Neither of them had a job and yet the Criminal Assets Bureau found they had more than €400,000 in cash between 2002 and 2007.
CAB searched their home at Piercetown in Newbridge and confiscated an 18-carat diamond cluster ring worth €6,100.
They also found a receipt for €8,000 for cosmetic surgery on Ellen Wall's nose and she said she spent €10,000 on a watch.
The Bureau also seized €14,000 cash (some of it sterling), a Volkswagen Passat worth €15,000 and the couple's house valued at €240,000.
CAB discovered Andrew Wall had got the house for less than the agreed price because the vendor was too afraid to have him pay the remaining €100,000 after the deal was closed.
And in a separate High Court judgment, Mr Justice Kevin Feeney also approved a settlement of €243,000 from Junxiu Hua, a convicted brothel keeper known as ‘Tina’ who was running a brothel in Thomas Street in Dublin and sending the profits to China.
In three-and-a-half years she sent more than €1m (10m yuan) home.
