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Showbiz drug dealer and key player in the Fat Freddy Thompson gang has entered a court bid to prevent gold bars, a house and €10,000 in cash from being seized.
Romotor and DJ Adam Keating appeared at the High Court this week for a hearing to seek an order for the Criminal Assets Bureau to take possession of the property.
The convicted drug dealer said he had “fired” his lawyer and was now representing himself, adding that he has filed an appeal against the court’s decision treating the property as proceeds of crime.
Last November Judge Alex Owens ruled in favor of the CAB that the gold, cash and Co Kildare’s property were proceeds of crime.
Keating had denied the charges in the CAB case despite his previous arrest and conviction after being caught with a kilo of cocaine.
This week they asked a judge whether there is now a stay on their home in Ellistown, Kildare, to be seized until the Court of Appeal has dealt with their case.
Judge Owens clarified that it would be a matter for those judges to decide as would his request for digital recordings of previous hearings that he did not attend.
CAB’s case against Keating was adjourned until CAB was in a position to continue.
Last November it emerged that one of Keating’s roles in gangs linked to the Kinahan cartel was to rent properties that were then used by well-known criminals.
Keating, also known as Marcus Lane and Michael Keating, was caught in Northern Ireland in June 2016 with €60,000 in a van on his way to Belfast airport on his way to Amsterdam.
He also had €10,000 in €500 notes in his underpants when he was arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland along with three other men.
The arrests in Northern Ireland and evidence found on the phone led to an investigation by the CAB, which had previously probed the Dubliner’s financial dealings.
A Detective Inspector in the CAB case against him said that Keating was “a key player in the Freddie Thompson gang”.
While Keating had denied the claim, the officer said in a counter-affidavit in the High Court that Keating had “not rebutted the evidence” on his links with crime gangs and stood by his claim.
Keating, a concert coordinator and DJ, and his partner Ms Veronica Salley, a former dancer who worked in a Dublin hairdressers, claimed the CAB’s investigation was incomplete.
He rejected claims that the money used to pay for his properties was generated from proceeds of crime and legitimate sources of income that were not probed by the CAB.
He claimed that the businesses he operated in Belfast, FNO Promotions Ltd and the Ace of Clubs, were cash based.
When contacted by the Sunday World in November, Keating said he would appeal the decision against him, which he described as “fabricated”.
In his November ruling, Judge Owens described Keating as a man who was “heavily involved in criminal activity”, including the planned importation and supply of cocaine.
There was no explanation for the large sums that went through his bank accounts or the accounts of entities linked to him, other than the money was from the proceeds of crime.
The CAB claimed to have received large sums of money held by Keating over a number of years, which he used to buy a house in Knocklion, Dublin.
That property was later sold and used to acquire his home in Ellistown, Co Kildare in 2014 for €300,000, which was funded with a mortgage from a financial institution.
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