The £273,730 tax bill faced by convicted Dublin heroin dealer Anthony Felloni relates to unpaid taxes dating back 20 years. The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has obtained a High Court judgment for the amount against Felloni (53), who is serving a 20year jail sentence in Portlaoise Prison.
The action follows an earlier move by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to freeze some £300,000 in cash and assets from three jailed Felloni family members - Anthony, his daughter, Regina and son, Luigi.
The three were recently given leave for a judicial review of the High Court decision to grant the DPP the asset-freezing order.
They are challenging the constitutionality of sections of the Criminal Justice Act 1994. Under the Act, the State can confiscate assets gained by drug trafficking.
The High Court judgment against Felloni was obtained last April 15th on foot of a demand by the Revenue Commissioners on behalf of the CAB. The bureau got the judgment after lodging documents in the central office of the High Court. The CAB had been investigating Felloni for more than a year, in conjunction with a Garda operation codenamed "Operation Pizza".
According to CAB sources, the tax liabilities against Felloni date back to 1978. The case against him had "lain in limbo" until the CAB initiated last month's High Court action.
The CAB comprises members of the Garda, Revenue and Social Welfare officials, who work together to prepare tax assessments on criminals.
Felloni was one of the main suppliers of heroin in Dublin's north inner city. In June 1996 he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. He was described as "the brains, financier and organiser with the necessary foreign contacts for a major heroin wholesale operation". Regina Felloni is serving a six-year sentence for possession of diamorphine. Luigi Felloni is also serving six years for drugs trafficking.
Anthony Felloni's conviction followed his guilty pleas to two charges of having heroin for sale or supply in August 1994 and October 1995. When sentencing him, Judge Cyril Kelly said Felloni was "one of the principal movers of drugs in this city". Felloni became involved in crime in the late 1950s. His earliest convictions included assault, and a previous court hearing was told that many of the assaults were on his wife, Ms Ann Flynn. The couple had six children before they separated in 1993.
In 1980, after being convicted of assaulting his wife, Felloni moved to Britain where he built up criminal contacts. He was arrested in 1981 in Surrey and given a four-year prison sentence on a drugs conspiracy charge. After his release in March 1984, he returned to Dublin where he quickly set up his drugs business.
At the height of his activities in the 1980s, Felloni was one of the few major dealers in Dublin who sold drugs directly to street pushers. He was usually to be found around the top of Dominick Street, near his home in Palmerston Place. He kept most of his heroin in a flat in Ballymun.
As a major street dealer, Felloni became a focus of attention for the Concerned Parents movement. On one occasion, it interrupted his roadside trade by surrounding him on O'Connell Street and using a loud-hailer to alert passers-by to his activities. The resulting media attention helped to provide more Garda resources for combating drugdealers.
Felloni was sentenced in 1986 for 10 years for supplying heroin. There were rowdy scenes when the sentence was pronounced as members of the Concerned Parents movement began to cheer and clap. He was released in 1993 after serving seven years.