Company ‘involved in fuel laundering’ owes €10m to Revenue

A COMPANY alleged to be involved in the fuel-laundering business owes Revenue almost €10million for under-declaration of VAT, the latest tax defaulter list shows.

The list again shows the strong emphasis Revenue is now placing on alleged fuel launderers along the border.

Glendalough Stores, which is now in liquidation, had an address at Newtown Business Park, Boyne Business Park in Drogheda, Co. Louth. It owed Revenue a total of around €3.3million in tax, €3.37million in interest and €3.3million in penalties to bring the total it owed to €9.984million. The settlement was the largest listed on the defaulters list for the three months to the end of March, published yesterday. None of the sum owed by Glendalough Stores has been paid.

The company traded at BK Oils, and Bernard Kirk, of Tatebane, Dundalk Upper, Co. Louth, is listed as one of its two directors.

In a 2013 Criminal Assets Bureau case in the High Court, a sergeant swore an affidavit in which he said that ‘the Kirk family were having difficulty with supplies due to their suspected involvement in the illegal fuel-smuggling business’.

It was stated that Glendalough Stores and another Kirk family business had transferred over €5.5million to a legitimate fuel company so that they could purchase wholesale fuel, with further transfers amounting to €15million.

An affidavit by the Criminal Asset Bureau forensic accountant said that the Kirk family were involved in a fuel-laundering business, which ran parallel to, and was heavily interconnected with, a similar fuel-laundering business in the area run by another family, who were the subject of the same CAB investigation.

Yesterday’s defaulters list shows that there were nine settlements totalling €11.6million. Other settlements not fully paid to Revenue included a settlement of €313,389 with chartered surveyor Donagh Callanan, with an address at Euro Business Park, Little Island in Co. Cork, for underdeclaration of VAT.