Former Irish hockey star Catriona Carey has been arrested as part of an investigation into an alleged €600,000 mortgage scam.
According to The Irish Independent, the 45-year-old was arrested on Monday afternoon and is being questioned about conspiracy to commit a serious offence, namely alleged deception.
The Kilkenny native, who was convicted of tax offences in 2008 and of theft and fraud in 2020, is being held at a south Dublin garda station where she can be held for up to a week as detectives put around 20 separate criminal complaints to her.
Detectives have identified three people as part of their long running investigation and Catriona is the second person to be arrested in the probe.
Last February, RTÉ Investigates shed light on the accountant, former national sports star and convicted fraudster.
The documentary, led by investigative journalist Paul Murphy, claimed that Catriona took €500,000 in deposits from people struggling to make mortgage repayments — and spent it on herself.
She allegedly offered to buy their mortgage debt back from their lender at a discounted price, and would sell the debt back to the mortgage holder at the same discounted price.
Catriona’s UK-registered company Careysfort Asset Estates offered them a new loan to fund the buy-back. In return, she charged upfront deposits of between 10% and 30% of the loan – which translated to sums ranging from €5,000 to over €30,000.
Most people begged and borrowed the money and wired it to overseas bank accounts, or put it down in cash. Two years on, several of clients she relieved of deposits claim they are still waiting for a deal.
RTÉ Investigates got hold of a large number of bank statements from Careysfort Asset Estates, detailing hundreds of transactions including her local supermarket shop and a €55,000 BMW car, registered in Catriona’s name.
In one year alone, around €200,000 from company bank accounts was allegedly spent on personal goods and services. The money appeared to come from deposits paid by clients like Colin.
According to RTÉ Investigates, just €488.10 was left in the company coffers as of January 2022.
The Accountant, the Con, the Lies. Tonight on RTÉ1 at 9:35pm. Produced superbly by @JanetRUA and shot superbly by Matt Naughton. #rteinvestigates pic.twitter.com/dMFkoaySEW
— Paul Murphy (@MurphyPaule) February 14, 2022
Catriona, who was raised in Gowran in Kilkenny, was once close to her brother DJ – who has been ranked as one of the greatest hurlers Kilkenny has ever produced.
After she qualified as an accountant, Catriona worked for him in his business. But in her 20s, she furnished an incorrect invoice with her VAT returns and was caught.
In 2008, she was prosecuted for giving an incorrect invoice to the tax authorities, for furnishing incorrect information, and claiming back VAT that she was not entitled to.
Catriona was found guilty of all three offences, and was fined €1,500 at Kilkenny District Court. She resigned as a director of DJ’s cleaning business in March 2009.
Catriona was convicted in February 2020 for the theft of €6,948 and for forging a cheque from a Kilkenny hairdresser who had hired her as his accountant.She was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence.
Before sentencing, she repaid the exact sum via her solicitor, and the statement showed where the money came from.
It was sent from the Careysfort Assets Estates account, meaning that the account used by Catriona to lodge money defrauded from her clients was also used to repay money she had stolen elsewhere.
A Garda spokesperson told RTÉ Investigates back in February last year that there was an ongoing Garda investigation into a number of alleged fraud incidents relating to the activities of an asset management company.
They said, however, that An Garda Síochána does not comment on named entities nor individuals.
Catriona told RTÉ at the time that her company had funds to cover all clients’ deposits but was advised “not to refund clients at this point”.
