Smuggling Allegations and Denials
In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carried out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk. It has been extensively reported in the media – as a result of briefings by the Criminal Assets Bureau in the Republic of Ireland who were involved in parallel raids – that the investigation is aimed at damaging the suspected multi-million pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC's Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs; as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses, and in property.
In his first-ever press release, issued on 12 October 2005, Murphy denied he owned any property and denied that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven (Frank Murphy, Murphy's brother, was a client of Cravens). Thomas Murphy stated:
I have been a republican all my life and fully support the peace process. I will continue to play whatever role I can, to see it work.
Furthermore, Murphy claimed that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against the Sunday Times and that he made a living from farming. He went on to say:
There is absolutely no foundation to the allegations about me which have been carried in the media for some time, and repeated at length over the past week, I want to categorically state, for the record, that all of these allegations are totally untrue."
On 9 March 2006 police, soldiers and customs officials from both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom launched a large dawn raid on his house and several other buildings in the border region. Several arrests were made. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, over 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques were seized. Four laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which were underground, were also found. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtained seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams made a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA's continued presence in South Armagh, Adams said:
Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He's a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin's peace strategy and has been for a very long time.
He also said:
I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that.
And also:
He's a good republican ... Tom Murphy was one of the supporters of this peace process.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Murphy (Irish Republican)