Garret Hevey, aged 43, from Brookdene, in Shankill, Dublin, and 42-year-old David Peile formerly from Ballyguile, in Wicklow, both pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading in relation to a company called Arden Forestry Management between January 2014 and June 2016.
Judge Melanie Greally said that while it could not be classified as a Ponzi scheme, she had come to the inescapable conclusion that this was a simple case of calculated fraud, which was "pure" and well executed. Hevey was a director of Arden Forestry Management and used the pseudonym, James Baker. His co-accused called himself David Marshall.
The court heard Peile emailed Hevey saying "shit, he wants to visit the land registry department, how do we get over that one?" The court heard more than €1.5m was transferred from Arden to a bank account in Dubai, of which both men were beneficiaries. When the gardaí froze almost €2m in an AIB account here, a Barclay's bank account was set up and over €800,000 of investors' money was put into it.He said his client, Mr Hevey, did not display the behaviour of someone operating a Ponzi scheme but someone who operated an unusual business model, perhaps unsuccessfully and made attempts to remedy it.
He said his client had asked him to express his remorse for his role in defrauding innocent investors.
Nice little number if u can get away with it ..so much for Land register data !!!