This trucker locked up for smuggling Kinahan cartel drugs into Ireland has been told to stump up more than €700,000 – or face extra jail time.
Offaly-born Thomas Maher is already serving a 14-year jail term after he admitted drugs and money laundering offences and now an English judge has hit him with a so-called confiscation order – which is a proceeds of crime fine. He has to agree to paying some £630,000 – €720,000 – and if he refuses, he will be given six more years in prison.
The order, handed down by a judge at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, means Maher (43) has to hand over his house in northern England, cars, lorries, jewellery, a number of high value watches, artwork - and gold ingots bought in Dubai. The judge gave Maher three months to pay or the extra sentence will kick in.
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Cops know Maher smuggled at least €4.5 million of cocaine into Ireland in 2020, but suspect he brought in multiples of that amount in previously – including for the mob controlled by Daniel Kinahan (45). Maher is suspected of helping several gangs get their drugs into Ireland – but his scam came to an end when French and Dutch cops smashed the Encrochat mobile phone system that he and hundreds of other criminals around Europe thought was safe.
They hacked the system and gathered millions of secret messages from gangsters organising murders and drugs shipments – including Maher, who has lived in northern England for at least five years. British cops found messages that show Maher organised the collection and delivery of at least 21 kilos of cocaine – worth as much as €4.5 million - from locations in the Netherlands. Associates reported back to Maher as the drugs were picked up, transported and arrived at their final destination in Ireland. On 2 April 2020 an exchange took place at a garage in Lierop, Netherlands, where 11 kilos of cocaine was passed between two vehicles.
Two days later, the arrival of the drugs by way of Dunkirk to Dover and eventually Donabate, in north Dublin was confirmed. He was caged in late 2020 after he pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to commit a crime abroad, spanning March 28 and May 11 that year.
They included two charges of conspiracy to import class A drugs into Ireland and two of transferring criminal property into Ireland, 300,000 euro in April and 600,000 euro in May. Maher, who ran his own haulage company and lived in luxury thanks to his secret life as a drugs smuggler, was given a 14-year jail term in December 2020, but since then the UK’s National Crime Agency has been examining the money he made from the scam and secured the confiscation order on Monday.
Speaking after the order was handed down, the NCA’s Head of Asset Denial, Rob Burgess, said: “This significant result demonstrates the agency’s ability to recover criminal assets, and prevent criminals from benefiting from their wrongdoing. Thomas Maher was a career criminal who was trusted by some of Europe’s biggest crime groups to move their drugs and money.
"The confiscation order will ensure money he made will be returned to the public purse to fund further efforts to protect the public from organised crime.” Maher, who used the Encrochat handle Satirical, discussed moving cocaine out of Colombia, where it was sourced, with other drug dealer – in messages that the NCA released after his conviction.
In one exchange, Maher and other drug dealers, whose names have been redacted, reveal that the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc with their drug-dealing.
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