High Court rules house, car are proceeds of crime

The High Court has ruled that a house, car and watch belonging to a feuding criminal gang member and his partner worth over €600,000 are the proceeds of crime.

Mr Justice Alexander Owens said James Gately and Charlene Lam lived an exotic lifestyle of cruises on the high seas and were virtually never in the State.

Gately is a senior figure in the Hutch organised crime group and has survived several attempts on his life by the Kinahan organised crime group.

The Criminal Assets Bureau also said he was a suspect in three murders and will now move to confiscate his and his partner’s assets.

Mr Justice Alex Owens said the pair were virtually never in the country, spending time in airport terminals and cruises in the south seas and the Carribbean.

One cruise over three weeks took in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and Japan.

CAB told the High Court that Gately was part of a criminal gang involved in armed robbery and the importation of drugs.

He had been regarded as part of the Kinahan organised crime group until the murder of Gary Hutch in 2015, which sparked the ongoing Hutch-Kinahan feud which so has so far cost 18 lives.

Gately has been targeted and shot several times by the Kinahan organised crime group, which on one occasion brought to Ireland the Estonian hitman Imre Arakas to shoot him.

CAB said Gately had also been arrested over a tiger-robbery and a post office heist

He was also linked to three murders, those of Aidan Byrne, David Byrne and Eamon ‘The Don’ Dunne, and had been shot himself on two occasions.

A senior figure in organised crime, Gately bought a house in Glynn Drive in Coolock for €125,000 and put on an extension effectively doubling its size for another €440,000.

He also drove a Volkswagen Golf GTI car and his partner wore a Rolex watch worth over €4,000.

Thousands of euro was also spent on jewellery and plastic surgery.

Today the High Court ruled the assets seized by CAB were the proceeds of crime.

Justice Owens said the house, car and watch were “overwhelmingly” the proceeds of crime, which he said subsidised their lifestyle.

He said the were virtually never in the State and it was perfectly obvious they had quite very large sums of disposable income.

However, Justice Owens said he will hear further submissions from the couple on income between 2019 and 2021 to determine whether any of their mortgage payments were not proceeds of crime.

He appointed a receiver to the car and watch.