The amount of money allegedly embezzled by Irish businessman Mr Paul Murphy through an Irish-registered trust may be considerably higher than the $6.8 million (€7.4 million) estimated by a moneylaundering trial in Switzerland.
The "Hibo" trust was set up by Mr Murphy (40) in late 1997 and is estimated to have contained $6 million embezzled from the German deep-drilling company Deutag. The money disappeared from a Colombian bank in 1998 while under the control of Mr Murphy and Dublin businessman Mr Tom Forde.
The head of the board of Deutag told The Irish Times yesterday that the amount embezzled was much higher than the estimated $6.8 million and was in the range of "two-figure million deutschmarks".
"The money was embezzled by company director Dr Bernd Oellers and an accomplice, Dr Rene Hieber, over a period of years and lodged in the Hibo trust," said Mr Werner B. Wilmer of Deutag. The company is the world number three in the oil and gas deep drilling business, with an annual turnover in excess of one billion deutschmarks (€510 million). Oellers was fired as company director in 1995 and later found guilty of fraud. This year he began a four-year sentence in a prison near Hannover.
At Oellers's trial in 1998, lawyers representing Deutag invited Hibo trustee Mr Tom Forde to attend the trial in Osnabruck. However, Mr Wilmer says Mr Forde declined to attend. Mr Forde says he has no recollection of this invitation.
Earlier this week Mr Forde declined, on grounds of illhealth, to attend the trial in Lugano where his former business associate Mr Murphy (40) and British businessman Mr Andrew Winters (47) stand accused of knowingly laundering £4.5 million (€5.7 million) in drug money. The men admit laundering the money but deny they knew its source.
On Wednesday, Mr Forde was accused by Mr Winters of demanding half of the $400,000 commission the two men earned from moneylaundering. Speaking later to The Irish Times, Mr Forde denied the accusation, saying he never had done business with Mr Winters and had only limited business with Mr Murphy through the Hibo trust.
The Hibo trust was registered in Ireland with Mr Murphy and Mr Tom Forde as trustees. The funds were held in the Banque Prive Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva and were to have been invested in medium-term bonds through Inter Fina Limited, a company based in London.
But in 1998 Mr Murphy transferred two million Swiss francs (€1.3 million) to a bank account in Lugano where it was diverted into an account named "Ascot Trust, Dublin" and disappeared.
The balance of the money was wired, with the consent of Mr Forde, to the Cartagena, Colombia-based bank, Banco Andino.
"Somewhere along the way the funds ended up in an account to which I had no access," Mr Forde said yesterday evening.
The account in which the funds ended up was, however, accessible to an associate of Mr Murphy, Todd Faught, who is serving 15 years in a Florida prison for moneylaundering.
The Hibo trust fund was to have been transferred to Citibank in New York, but disappeared.
Hibo is just one aspect of the complicated moneylaundering trial, which is now reaching the end of its second week.
Yesterday Mr Murphy's parents, sister and wife attended the trial in Lugano, which is taking place entirely in Italian with a translator sitting between the two accused men. Mr Murphy's wife Carol described the trial as a "sham".
"It is appalling because they cannot understand and their case is falling apart every day," she said yesterday. The men had attempted to have the trial moved to an English-speaking court without success, she said.
The trial is expected to last until next Wednesday.
