A JAILED couple connected to the Kinahan cartel’s drug business has lost more than €500,000 in cash and property.
Judge Alex Owens said in the High Court last week that Barry Fowler and his partner Lorna Palmer had “been living high on the hog of criminal enterprise”.
As a result of the case taken by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), Palmer lost the battle to keep the house described as “her last refuge”.
The judge ruled that the property in Co Wexford – which is in Palmer’s name – was bought with the proceeds of crime, while Fowler dropped his opposition to have €99,000 in cash seized by CAB.
Fowler is currently serving a six-year sentence for possession of cannabis worth €134,000, while Palmer is in prison for 18 months for money laundering.
Judge Owens said the pair were “awash with cash” and the evidence in court involved “vast sums of money”.
He described Fowler as “a man of means with no means” and that there was “quite the degree of a luxury lifestyle”.
Fowler, who has 20 previous convictions, had been caught with €500,000 worth of cocaine and €294,000 worth of cannabis, along with €118,000 cash in 2012.
He received a seven-year sentence for that offense, but the drug dealing continued at his home while he was behind bars. In May 2021, just months after his release, he was caught with €134,000 of cannabis.
Fowler’s close links to the leader of the Byrne Organised Crime Gang also emerged in court, which heard he had been seen driving a vehicle used by Liam Byrne and which was later seized by CAB in a separate case.
Video from Palmer’s home at Millbrook Lawns, Tallaght, in April 2017 revealed dealing activity with money drop-offs, collections, and the weighing of drugs for sale. A search of the house resulted in the seizure of €99,780 in cash for which Lorna Palmer received a prison sentence last May after pleading guilty to money laundering.
The pair spent €107,527 on the house and grounds at Coolamain, Oylegate, Co Wexford, and €234,911 on the house where Palmer lived at Millbrook Lawns.
Chief Superintendent Michael Gubbins detailed in an affidavit how the couple created schemes to launder the cash.
Source: Sundayworld
