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Counterfeit Goes To Trial With Equipment Found In Bunker
June 2012 – The trial of four men accused of having equipment for printing counterfeit currency has heard that machines found in a bunker hidden under a yard where the men were arrested were used to print a range of images.
These included those of US dollars, euro notes, sterling and posters of Star Wars characters.
The evidence was heard at the second day of the trial of Anthony Sloan (aged 57), a native of Belfast with an address at Ard na Mara, Dundalk, Co Louth, Liam Delaney (aged 41), of Borris-in-Ossory, Co Laois, Kevin Flanagan (aged 42), of Borris-in-Ossory and Andrew Poole (aged 43), of Portlaoise, Co Laois.
The men have all pleaded not guilty to possession of equipment, including printers and cutting machines, to manufacture counterfeit currency at Ballybrophy, Borris-in-Ossory, Co Laois on May 31, 2010.
In his opening address, prosecuting counsel Mr Tom O’ Connell SC told the court that gardaí who raided a yard at Ballybrophy on May 31, 2010 found the four accused men in a portakabin.
Inside the portakabin they discovered a trap door, hidden under a chest of drawers, which led to an underground bunker.
He said that inside the bunker, which had lino flooring, fluorescent lights and power provided by a generator outside, gardai discovered a number of printers, cutting machines and other materials used in printing.
At the Special Criminal Court this afternoon, witness Ray Sherlock told Mr O’Connell that in 2010 he was working for Canon as a business systems field support specialist and had worked for the company for 25 years.
He said that on May 31, 2010 he met with Detective Garda Janet Walsh and was taken to Borris-in-Ossory, given protective clothing to wear and brought to the underground bunker, where he examined two Canon iPF 8100 printers.
Mr Sherlock said that checked the user flow of each machine, which showed there had been 22 previous print jobs carried out on Machine Number One and 16 historic print jobs on Machine Two.
He said that, after he had determined the machines had run out of Cyan ink, gardai secured two replacement cartridges and he used his laptop to print off all the historic jobs.
Detective Garda Walsh told Mr O’Connell that Machine Number Two printed off 16 items, including images of a US $100 bill, several images of a Bank of England £20 and £1 note, several small and one very large image of a €500 note and an image of an unidentifiable crest.
She said that Machine One printed off 22 items, including several images of an American Express Swiss Franc traveller’s cheque and of a €50 note, including one large canvass printout with a total of 90 smaller images of the denomination.
Det Gda Walsh said that the printer also produced a number of assorted other images, such as graphic posters, posters of Star Wars characters and pictures of Steam Locomotives.
Mr Sherlock told counsel for Mr Flanagan, Mr Fergal Kavanagh SC, that there were two types of paper loaded in to the machines; one canvass type paper and another high quality paper with a “chalky coating”.
He agreed that both types were “wholly unsuitable” for printing paper passable as a €50 note.
Mr Sherlock told Mr Kavanagh that the machines were “not really designed” for double-sided printing and if a page needed to be printed on both sides, it would have to be manually re-inserted in to the printer.
He said that there was a “little red line” by which a page could be aligned if re-inserted in to the printer, but agreed that was done visually and any alignment could be out by a number of millimetres.
Asked by Mr Kavanagh as to whether the machines were capable of printing €50 notes, Mr Sherlock said that although paper could be fed back in to the machine by hand, there was no mechanism for doing this accurately.
The trial, which is expected to last four weeks, continues tomorrow in front of presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler
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