Laundry Day

Not the actual laundry

For  20 weeks the Guards had been tailing John Duffy.

The 55 year old had unknowingly been under surveillance as he drove in and out of the yard, or went to the shop, unmarked cars tailing him, lads sitting outside the farm when he was inside watching the news, or chawing the fat off a chop.

Or wondering what he would do with the one and a half million euro he had buried in a field outside.

Duffy, of Ballynanty Beg, had been inside before in 2000 -  for having drugs for sale - but this time a van load of men dropped the money over to him and told him to hide it fairly lively or there would be mucking furders. 

Previously, he had worked as a chauffeur and could valet a car as quick as a horse could trot.

It may have been a mistake to rent a large container and connect an ESB supply to it.

Ditto the humping of an electric tumble drier across the yard and up the step while the plain clothes boys on stakeout wiped the brown sauce from breakfast rolls off their chins in disbelief.

Not the actual launderer or drier 

After being buried in a bog, the money was understandably manky and so he decided to give it a bit of a wash, as one does. 

And then get a pal known only as Mr X to hire a mini digger and haul the rest of it up while he loaded the soaking notes into the tumble drier.

The Gardaí could hardly get across the field quick enough. 

And jumped in the door to find Duffy literally laundering money. 

Not the actual Garda

"It's from the sale of knock-off fags" says he, but that is all he would say as the men had warned him in advance to keep schtum.

There were  so many 50 euro notes strewn about the grass and spinning merrily in the tumbler that it took a team of  Gardaí "several days to count it" .

There were bags in the ground that Mr X was trying to extricate, and Duffy was perched in the transport container vacuum packing the money into clear plastic while wearing latex gloves. 

Not the actual digger 

"Your honour, the container was awash with money stuffed into every corner, lying around the floor, in zipped bags, in sealed bags, in boxes, and the wet stuff was in the tumble drier"

He told the Gardaí he got 4 separate deliveries of paper folding money in bags and had to "break it down" but under pain of death refused to say who actually brought it. 

He said he was under pressure from the gang and being forced to do this, which the Gardaí believed completely. 

This is the largest haul of money ever retrieved from the proceeds of crime in the history of the State, and it is now in the custody of the National Mint. 

The ACTUAL money 

Judge Tom O Donnell described the case as "spectacular and surreal" not only given the amount of cash involved, but the fact that the man was literally laundering money in broad daylight, and that your man was on a digger retrieving wads of notes from wet clay.

O Donnell accepted that Duffy was desperate, and acting under duress, but allowed that this was no defence  and so sentenced him to 4 years in prison. 

It is believed he has asked to be allowed to work in kitchens on pot wash or slopping out toilets  and not in the Actual  laundry. 

MDM October 2nd 2015