Gardaí investigating the discovery of almost £5 million sterling in Co Cork last year have brought some of the money to Belfast in an effort to establish if it was part of the £26.5 million stolen in the Northern Bank raid in Belfast in December 2004.
Officers from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and Special Detective Unit along with Garda forensic experts have made a number of trips to Belfast during the summer months with money recovered from a number of locations in Cork.
The Garda teams, which also included officers from Cork city and west Cork where most of the money was seized, met PSNI officers leading the investigation into the Northern Bank raid on December 20th, 2004.
Together with the PSNI, the gardaí met bank staff to try to establish if any distinctive marks on the notes recovered in Co Cork could be clearly identified as coming from the stolen cash consignment.
"Basically, some exhibits would have been brought to Belfast - notes which had handwriting and other distinctive marks on them, and staff were interviewed to see if they could identify the writing or any of the other marks," said a Garda source.
According to the source, the decision to bring some of the money to Belfast to show to bank staff had helped progress the investigation and information gathered will be added to the Garda file which was forwarded to the State solicitor for Cork last February.
Details of "Operation Phoenix" first came to light on February 17th, 2005 when officers from CAB and local detectives raided a house in Co Cork.
