The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by a Swedish man alleged to have been among those behind a US$700,000 credit card scam in 2002.
The Court of Appeal last May dismissed all arguments made by Harry Zeman in his appeal against a 2022 High Court “disposal order” for the sum to be transferred to the Minister for Public Expenditure.
The High Court had already ruled, in 2011, that the $697,000 seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) was, on the balance of probabilities, generated by way of a fraud.
The High Court heard the amount was collected by Routeback — of which Mr Zeman is a director and shareholder — over just four days as part of a scam primarily targeting cardholders in the United States. The 2011 ruling went unappealed.
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The bureau’s civil case was brought under the 1996 Proceeds of Crime Act against him and Swedish firm Routeback Media AB, trading as Local Mart.
Mr Zeman unsuccessfully contested the Cab’s subsequent High Court application for a “disposal order” providing for the amount plus interest to be transferred from a receivership account to the State. Ms Justice Carmel Stewart granted this order in 2022 against Mr Zeman and Routeback.
Mr Zeman failed in his bid to have this order overturned in the Court of Appeal. He then applied to the Supreme Court, which agreed with him that his proposed appeal raises a matter of “public importance”.
The Cab submitted that Mr Zeman’s appeal bid lacked generally important issues and misconceived the case.
A three-judge Supreme Court panel said it will consider the relationship between early and late-stage orders in Proceeds of Crime Act cases. It will also examine whether a person facing a final order in such a case is entitled, without going through certain procedures, to cross-examine Cab officers on their sworn written testimonies.
A date has not yet been set for the appeal.
In the Court of Appeal’s judgment of last May, Mr Justice Donald Binchy outlined how Routeback claimed ownership of the money, while it and Mr Zeman both maintain the sums are the source of legitimate business activity and not the proceeds of crime.
The judge said Routeback entered an agreement in 2002 with a credit card payment processor in Ireland after holding itself out as a business that sold $9.95 “email for life” accounts.
Almost immediately after the agreement became operational, in October 2002, the processor became concerned when some 10,000 transactions submitted by Routeback were rejected by card-issuing banks for various reasons, including that the card was stolen or there were insufficient funds, the judge said.
He said the Cab alleged in the High Court that Routeback was never in a position to sell the email services it was purporting to offer. The Cab claimed Swedish police sent information regarding Mr Zeman’s alleged ties to organised crime, said Mr Justice Binchy.
Mr Zeman denied all of the claims and emphasised that out of 79,445 transactions submitted by Routeback, 6,914 were disputed by cardholders who were then refunded the amounts. The remaining 72,531 transactions were not disputed, so Routeback is entitled to the payments made by those cardholders, he contended.
He denied the bureau’s claim that Routeback would have been unable to provide the email service.
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