The house of an armed robber has been offered for sale by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) despite the robbery gang leader having fought the case to the Supreme Court. The five-bedroom property, in Clonee on the Dublin-Meath boundary, is now on the market with an asking price of €345,000.
Its former owner, Stefan Saunders (47), was jailed in 2018 for 7½ years after gardaí foiled a cash-in-transit armed robbery in 2016. Along with other gang members, he tried to steal more than €2 million from a cash-in-transit van. Saunders was also convicted of possession of a semi-automatic pistol.
The property seized from him is 255sq m and is described by Wilsons Auctions as having an “open-plan livingroom, diningroom and sunroom, kitchen, five bedrooms, master with en suite and walk-in wardrobe and main bathroom”. Saunders spent some €120,000 on extending the house, which included expensive sanitary ware, furnishings, projector screens and a Jacuzzi.
The double-fronted semidetached house was taken possession of four months ago by Cab, after a protracted legal process, including Saunders attempting to bring the case for hearing before the Supreme Court. The house will be sold in an online public auction in two weeks.
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In its case against Saunders in the High Court, Cab’s evidence was that the Dubliner was also involved in the €1.8 million Brinks Allied security van robbery in Artane, Dublin in 2005. He was forensically linked to a vehicle used in a “tiger kidnapping” of a cash transit firm employee.
In October 2022, the High Court found the five-bed house at Hazelbury Park, Clonee, Dublin 15, was acquired and renovated with the proceeds of crime. The court also ruled the mortgage on the property, where Saunders lived with his wife, Tammy, was paid with such funds until they fell into arrears in 2010.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens also ruled that a rental property the couple sold, businesses and expensive cars were funded in the same way. A valuer noted the Hazelbury Park home, which was purchased in 2005 for €360,000 with a 90 per cent mortgage, was refurbished to the “highest standard” in 2007.
The couple denied the assets derived from the proceeds of crime and claimed the funds came from valid employment, gifts and savings.
Ruling in the Cab’s case brought under the 1996 Proceeds of Crime Act, the judge said he was satisfied he was a member of a “gang of robbers” who funded a “spending spree” on these assets by Saunders and his wife between 2005 and 2008. Saunders also had a second buy-to-rent property at Mayeston Lawn, Finglas.
The court ruled the proceeds of crime was used to fund a number of businesses and to buy expensive cars, including a €98,000 BMW X5. The judge said “money from unidentified sources” was used to provide working capital for the interior decoration business Tammy Saunders worked in, U Design of Berkeley Road, Dublin, which was established in June 2005.
Money from unidentified sources was used to open and operate hair salons in Berkeley Road and in Meakstown, near Finglas, he said. Cash from unidentified sources was used to renovate a house owned by Saunders’s mother-in-law and her partner in 2006.
The source of €17,500 bail money which his mother-in-law put up in November 2006 for Stefan Saunders, who was before the courts on a drugs charge which was later dropped, was also unidentified.
