Assets in the State belonging to the jailed drug traffickers, Anthony Felloni and his son, Luigi, are to be handed over to a Criminal Assets Bureau receiver and deposited in a bank, pending further court order, the High Court ruled yesterday.
Anthony Felloni, his son, Luigi, and daughter, Regina, are serving jail sentences for drug-related offences.
In 1996 the Circuit Court found that Anthony Felloni (56), a heroin addict who is serving a 20year sentence, had benefited by £400,000 from drug trafficking. The court ruled that £80,000 was recoverable and should be confiscated. Luigi, serving six years' imprisonment, was alleged to have benefited by £75,000 from drug trafficking and the court ordered that a sum of £23,127 be recovered and confiscated.
Last March the court appointed a CAB solicitor as receiver and told him to carry out an assessment of the family's assets.
Yesterday, Mr Peter Charleton SC, for CAB, told Mr Justice O'Higgins that the receiver had carried out his assessment and was now seeking possession of the assets of Anthony and Luigi Felloni and the deposit of these in one bank until further order of the court. He said that monies in bank accounts in the Republic held by Anthony Felloni amounted to less than £100.
In an affidavit, the receiver said Anthony Felloni and his daughter, Regina, who is serving a sentence of six years and nine months, had £6,604 sterling in the First Trust Bank, Belfast, and £59,413 sterling in Abbey National, Belfast.
The receiver said there was a suspicion that there may be further accounts within and outside the country.
Yesterday's High Court order related to IR£9,807 and £2,240 sterling found by gardai at Anthony Felloni's home at Lower Dominick Street.
In relation to Luigi Felloni, the receiver claimed he found a total of £1,514 in An Post and Dublin bank accounts and £1,300 sterling seized from a woman who was arrested with him at Dublin Airport in May 1995. (The woman claimed he gave her the money and that he was due to collect it later).
He said that following surveillance of Luigi Felloni in June 1995, gardai found £6,573 and £2,000 sterling when they searched the house at Lower Dominick Street. In January 1996, in the same house, they found other sums in cash including 46,000 Spanish pesetas and 165,000 in Spanish pesetas in travellers' cheques.
Mr Charleton said that his clients might be coming back at a later stage to the court in relation to foreign bank accounts.
Mr Justice O'Higgins said that might be a matter for courts in other jurisdictions. He directed that the confiscated monies be lodged in an interest-bearing account in one bank pending further order of the court.
Last February the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed an appeal against severity of sentence brought by Anthony Felloni. During the hearing the court was told that he was addicted to heroin, had tested HIV positive, and had traits of institutionalisation.