Gardaí have seized a number of documents during a search of the home of former hockey international Catriona Carey, as part of an alleged fraud inquiry.
Officers from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau and the Carlow-Kilkenny division carried out the search of the Co Kilkenny property on Tuesday, a Garda spokesman confirmed.
The search was “part of ongoing investigations into the activities of an asset management company,” the spokesman said.
“A number of items and documents were seized during this search. No arrests were made,” he said. The investigation into the matter was ongoing, he said.
Ms Carey, a Kilkenny-based former Irish international hockey player, ran a company that effectively promised to help people save their homes after their loans became distressed.
The UK-registered company, Careysfort Asset Estates, took deposits from people and offered to return the fees if the deals she said she was putting in place did not materialise.
Ms Carey offered to buy her clients’ mortgage debt back from their lenders at a discounted rate and sell the debt back to the mortgage holder at the same discounted rate. As part of the arrangement, her company would offer clients the loan they needed to buy back the discounted mortgages.
In a recent RTÉ Investigates programme into the scheme, some people said they paid sums of up to €30,000, in an attempt to keep their homes, and were still waiting for their money to be returned.
Gardaí in the Carlow-Kilkenny division had received a number of complaints prior to the RTÉ Investigates programme airing, with the inquiry later expanding to include the Garda Economic Crime Bureau, a Dublin-based national unit specialising in the investigation of alleged financial crimes.
Ms Carey has previously been charged with five offences relating to two separate cases; one connected to her dealings with the Revenue Commissioners in 2006 and another over her dealings with a hair salon in 2018 and money she stole from that company. She was fined €750 twice and given a suspended sentence on another occasion.
