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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
October-November 75
Dubai Heir, Congo Air
When Pris police picked up drunk Austrlin crrying
€195,000 in csh, they uncovered n lleged money-lundering
scheme led by Dubi-bsed Irish horsercing heir linked to
British royls. The odyssey spns Angoln gold, Congolese
presidentil dvisor, Russin mfi, botched $60m Flcon jet
del, nd tril bout Britin’s biggest ever crypto seizure
By Rory Mulholland, in Paris
T
he Paris ambulance service was
called out one October evenin to
help a drunk man who had been hit
by a car on Rue de Charenton in the
city’s th arrondissement. The
pompiers found an individual with a ba
stued with cash at his feet. They took him
away to treat his minor injuries and to let him
sober up. In his belonins they found
identity papers that showed he was an
Australian citizen. His ba contained
€,. They informed the police, who
later went to an AirBnB at he was stayin in
near the Arc de Triomphe and there
discovered a further €,.
This naturally piqued police curiosity and
an investiation was launched that found the
Australian had in — the year he was
arrested — alleedly handled more than €
million as part of a money-launderin
operation involvin cash, cryptocurrency
and old. The scheme spanned France,
Monaco, Dubai, Ukraine and Iran. The probe
into the Australian, a pony-tailed Melbourne
man called Damien Carew, led investiators
to take an interest in a Dubai-based Irish
businessman named Michael James Burke.
They bean to look at possible links between
Carew’s alleed misdeeds and one of Burke’s
many rms, MJB Holdins, which was based
in the Seychelles.
After a couple of months in custody, Carew
was released in early to await trial on
chares of money launderin. But it would
not be lon before he was back behind bars,
this time in the city of Nice, for a crime that
involved extreme violence.
Burke, who throuh his lawyers has
denied any involvement in money launderin,
is a free man for the moment. But the
-year-old faces arrest if he leaves Dubai
and turns up anywhere in Europe as there is
an international warrant out for him for
money launderin.
Police have also taken a keen interest in
the Galway-born man’s attempt to buy a
Falcon jet from the French planemaker
Dassault, that was ultimately destined for an
adviser to Conolese President Denis
Sassou-Nuesso whose previous Falcon was
seized in a dispute over unpaid debts. The
attempt failed — after French authorities
intervened and blocked it — and Burke was
left $ million out of pocket.
The delivery team
To French investiators, it quickly became
clear that Carew was no criminal mastermind.
He was a courier, a baman alleedly
followin instructions from Michael James
Burke, accordin to leaked reports from
French police and investiatin maistrates.
The Australian told police he was “an estate
aent livin in Monaco and workin with the
Russian maa”.
Between May and September he
alleedly dropped o a total of €. million
to people of Russian, Ukrainian and North
African oriin in Paris and elsewhere in
France.
“Every time I received the money, I took
my percentae and I had to be precise. I’m
dyslexic, so I bouht a banknote counter… I
received the money, took my share and
handed it over, and that was it”, Carew, a
raduate of Melbourne’s celebrated St
Kevin’s Collee, told French investiators.
He received one percent of the total for
every cash delivery he made, which came to
a total of €, for that period in .
Police found a document from Burke’s
Seychelles rm MJB Holdins on Carew’s
phone that listed all the cash deliveries he
made in that period.
About deliveries were listed, ranin
from €, to €,. Most took place
in Paris, but some were in Nice and Monaco.
The investiation established that Burke
The drunk Australian,
Carew, was “an estate
agent living in Monaco”
claiming to work with the
Russian mafiaDrren Crew
INTERNATIONAL
76 October-November
payment-solutions company to facilitate
potentially lucrative trade with Iran for Irish
and other international businesses. He said
that the company he hoped to use to achieve
this was his Switzerland-based Outsourced
Service Solutions (OSS).
It was this Swiss-reistered rm — alon
with MJB Holdins, for which French
investiators suspect Carew served as a
baman until he ot blind drunk that fateful
day in October — that ot Burke back
into the newspapers last year, but this time
for all the wron reasons.
Domestic violence on the
French Riviera
Carew, , was released in January on
bail to await trial for money launderin. He
returned to his home in La Turbie in France’s
Alpes-Maritimes reion, just across the
border from Monaco. He had moved there
after Dubai and was aain involved in real
estate, livin in France and doin his work
in Monaco, where his wife, Anna
Polianskaya, the dauhter of wealthy
Russians, had rown up.
Just three months later he was back in
detention after a drunken incident at his
home in La Turbie in which he beat his wife
so badly that she was put into an induced
coma in hospital to help her recover. Carew
was locked up in the Maison d’Arrêt in Nice
before facin trial in that city last October.
He was sentenced to a year in jail to be
served in home detention wearin an ankle
bracelet to take into account the months
he had spent in custody awaitin trial. The
couple’s two youn children have been
and a Frenchman workin for him booked
ihts to Paris for Carew, who was livin in
the hills of the French Riviera near Monaco,
so that he could deliver the cash.
They found a WhatsApp roup titled
“Delivery Team” in which Burke sent
instructions to the Australian on where to
o to pick up or deliver cash. Messaes on
that roup included questions like “Did you
receive the K?”.
All of the four participants in this roup
left it the day after Carew was arrested,
accordin to the leaked documents.
Investiators found evidence of other
money-launderin operations, includin a
system for exchanin cash for forein
currency or cryptocurrency.
Sons of Privilege
Burke, like Carew, is from a well-to-do
family. Both had left their comfortable lives
in their home countries to seek reater
fortune in the freewheelin real estate
markets of Dubai. They became friends
there and their families were close, sharin
photos of family news and birthdays in a
WhatsApp roup titled “Families
Carew-Burke”.
Michael James Burke was destined to do
well in life. His veterinarian father, Michael
Hilary Burke, founded what was to become
Ireland’s biest homerown dru rm,
Chanelle Pharma. Burke senior built up the
human and animal enerics manufacturer
over four decades before sellin the Galway-
based company last year to the UK private
equity rm Exponent for a reported €m.
Michael junior’s sister Chanelle McCoy
was a “draon” investor in the popular RTÉ
show, Draon’s Den. She is a successful
businesswoman who worked for her father’s
roup for many years and whose most
recent venture is a CBD rm called Pureis.
Chanelle, who was featured in a British
tabloid article hobnobbin with Queen
Elizabeth at the races, lives in Enland. She
is married to the huely successful Northern
Irish jockey Tony McCoy, who over his career
rode a record , winners.
The Burke clan is steeped in the world of
horse-racin. “It runs in the family, it’s in
the blood”, Burke junior told a United Arab
Emirates racin maazine which described
him as a “walkin, talkin equine
encyclopaedia” whose knowlede of horses
“will leave you mesmerised”.
The Burke family “own some of the UAE’s
best locally trained thorouhbreds”, the
maazine pointed out. Burke junior
explained that their six horses are actually
owned by his Iranian wife Near Burke and
by his father, “so myself and the kids are
just representin them”.
The Burkes sponsor a race at Ascot in
Enland, one of the world’s most eleant
racecourses. Their horses run in France, the
UK, the US Kentucky Derby, and in the
Emirates, where in February last year their
colt Killer Collect won a Dubai race that
carried a €, prize.
The making of an operator
Michael James Burke evidently shares his
relatives’ drive and ambition. After
completin a business deree at University
Collee Dublin in , he worked for
several years as a supply-chain manaer for
his father’s rm. This took him to Dubai,
where he eventually decided to settle in
and et into real estate.
He took a majority stake in the Arabian
Escapes property rm — whose website has
now been taken down and whose phone
oes unanswered — and later ot involved
with Executive Expatriate Relocations, now
called EER Middle East, which is keen to
point out that he no loner has any
connection with the rm.
Burke was clearly a man on the make,
ivin interviews over the years to talk
about his real estate adventures. He told
one maazine in that clients could pay
his Dubai property rm in an unusual way.
“At Arabian Escapes, we just want to oer
clients the opportunity to pay in cryptos and
we’ll convert it”, he told Arabian Business,
while notin that the new currency did not
have the support of local banks “who are
cautious, and also afraid from an anti-
money launderin perspective”.
He also told the Irish Independent in
that he hoped to launch a
Burke, like
Carew, is from
a well-to-do
family.His
father founded
Ireland’s biggest
homegrown drug
firm, Chanelle
Pharma, his
sister was a
“Dragon’ Burke
October-November 77
placed in the care of his wife’s parents, who
live on the French Riviera. Carew told the
court that he had iven up alcohol and was
now livin in Antibes while he awaits trial
for money launderin.
That risly domestic violence incident
made the local French newspapers and was
quickly picked up by Australian media,
which leefully splashed on the story of a
posh Melbourne boy who had lived a lavish
lifestyle with his lamorous wife in Dubai
before comin unstuck in Monaco.
The woman with the bitcoin
Burke’s alleed misdeeds, however,
remained rmly under the radar, despite the
fact the French authorities have been
investiatin him since at least and
instiated a European arrest warrant for him
in December . But a trial in Southwark
Crown Court in London early last year for the
first time made public alleations of
wrondoin by the Galwayman. He was
neither a defendant nor a witness in that
trial, and thus was not able to respond there
to the accusations made aainst him.
His name popped up in a case in which a
Chinese former takeaway worker, Jian Wen,
was accused of convertin bitcoin into cash
and property to help hide the proceeds of a
€ billion property scam in China alleedly
carried out by a compatriot. She was
convicted of money launderin and last May
was sentenced to six years in jail.
Wen moved to Britain in and worked
at Chinese restaurants. In the / tax
year she declared ross earnins from her
restaurant work of just £,. Within a
few years, however, her fortunes had
chaned and she was livin in a mansion in
Hampstead in north London whose monthly
rent was £,.
She was convicted of money launderin
on behalf of a Chinese woman, Qian Zhimin,
also known as Yadi Zhan, her former boss,
with whom she lived in the Hampstead
house. London’s Metropolitan Police raided
the mansion in and seized devices
containin , bitcoin, currently worth
nearly € billion. It was one of the biest
crypto hauls by a law-enforcement aency
anywhere in the world.
The Met had initially investiated Wen in
relation to the attempted purchase of a £
million mansion, also in Hampstead. Qian
went on the run after Wen’s detention but
was arrested in April in Britain. She
was convicted in London last month of
illeally acquirin and possessin crypto.
Burke’s “starkly fraudulent”
property scheme
Wen’s failed attempts to purchase property
in Enland “led her to chane tack and
become involved with Michael [James]
Burke”, accordin to the prosecution case at
her trial. They appear to have rst met at the
Marriott Hotel in Zurich on October ,
the London court heard.
When she told the Galwayman she didn’t
know how to describe the oriin of her
wealth, he alleedly said it was not
important. “Between you and me — what is
the real source, and I will think of somethin”,
he messaed her on October . When Wen
lled an application form to become a client
of Burke, she described the source of her
cash as “family wealth”.
The rst idea he suested to Wen was, “a
project that I use to help people create
source of wealth”. This involved three parcels
of land in Scotland he owned throuh a rm
called Alba Group. The court heard that
Burke told Wen: “We et people to ive us
money in cash or bitcoin, then we ive them
a loan of their own money, which they use to
make -percent prot over two years”.
Prosecutor Gillian Jones told the jury that
this scheme “stands out starkly as bein
somethin that’s fraudulent” and claimed it
was a “money-launderin scheme, plain and
simple”.
Burke junior was listed as chief executive
on the Alba Group website, which also
carried a photo of his father Michael Hilary
Burke and described him as an “early stae
investor”. The website was taken down last
year, and attempts by Village to reach the
Guernsey-based Alba Group by phone and
by email have been unsuccessful.
Lawyers for Michael Hilary Burke have said
he “provided some initial capital to his son
[for Alba Group]. Prior to March , Mr
Burke was not aware of his name and picture
bein included on the Alba Group website,
nor has he ever consented to such inclusion.
Mr Burke has no current or historic
involvement with the Alba Group”.
Wen did not o for the Scottish scheme but
decided to buy property in Dubai. She met
Burke in Dubai and ave him power of
attorney to set up companies and buy
property in her name. In October , she
bouht an apartment at Marina Arcade in the
Emirate for £,, and the followin
month another one at Bay Central Tower for
a little less.
“The two properties bouht were
immediately rented out and then, within a
year, one was sold”, the prosecutor at the
London court said. “This was simply a way of
convertin bitcoin into cash and cleanin it
– launderin it, in other words”. Over time,
Wen would sell bitcoins to Burke, worth
over £m at the time.
Milking the Burke family
name
Burke aunted his family connections in an
apparent bid to impress Wen and win her
custom, the London court heard. He told Wen
he was the brother-in-law of the jockey Tony
McCoy and that his sister Chanelle was a
business partner of Queen Camilla’s
dauhter, Laura Lopes. Chanelle McCoy
founded a now defunct fashion store in
Hunerford, Berkshire, with Lopes. Burke’s
lawyers say that Chanelle McCoy “is not, and
has never been ‘in business’ with our client”.
The court heard that Burke also told Wen
of his family’s involvement in horseracin
and pharmaceuticals.
“My father lives in [sic] Eaton Square, if you
want to meet him as well”, Burke junior told
Wen in a messae revealed to the London
court. Eaton Square in London is seen as one
of the most desirable addresses in Britain,
and has been home to lm stars such as
Sean Connery, prime ministers, royals, and
oliarchs.
The French charges against
Burke
The alleations about which the French
authorities want to talk to Burke concern
This was simply a way
of converting bitcoin
into cash and cleaning
it – laundering it, in other
words
Jin Wen
78 October-November
events that took place in France, Monaco,
Dubai and Iran between January and
November .
He is suspected on three counts:
aravated money launderin and
participation in an oranised roup in an
operation to invest, conceal or convert the
proceeds of a crime; carryin out a nancial
transaction between France and a forein
country usin funds derived from a customs
oence; and participation in a criminal
conspiracy to commit an oence punishable
by years’ imprisonment.
Burke said throuh his London lawyers
that he could not comment on any
investiation into his aairs that may be
onoin in France but that on that matter, as
in the claims made aainst him in the
Southwark court, he “viorously” denies any
accusation of money launderin by himself
or any company connected to him.
Burke was invited by French investiators
to appear before a jude in June in Paris
to be placed under formal investiation, the
equivalent of bein chared under French
law, but declined to attend.
The Falcon that never flew
The London trial exposed the rubby
mechanics of Burke’s launderin operation.
But the recently leaked French judicial and
police reports reveal a more polished
ambition: Burke was courtin the French
planemaker Dassault in a bid to buy a Falcon
X jet, the kind of plane favoured by heads
of state and tycoons.
The Irishman sined a contract to buy the
jet in February in a $ million deal that
French investiators said constituted
“money launderin” because the funds
came from a number of shell companies
linked to Burke and that Dassault had not
carried out the necessary checks as to who
the plane was really for.
Police searched Dassault’s oces in the
Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud in early and
found evidence that its Middle East sales
representative had colluded with Burke’s
associate to hide the “ultimate benecial
owner” of the plane, described as Client X.
Dassault, when asked about the deal, said
in a statement that it “conducts its business
in accordance with applicable laws and
reulations. In this case, Dassault Aviation
has cooperated fully with the French judicial
authorities and is not implicated”.
Client X turned out to be a Frenchwoman
called Francoise Joly, who works as an
adviser to the -year-old president of the
Republic of Cono, Denis Sassou-Nuesso,
who has ruled the deeply corrupt and oil-
rich former French colony for decades.
Investiators established that Joly had
neotiated with Masono Oil Tradin, a
company Burke had been runnin since
, to sell it oil from state-owned Société
Nationale des Pétroles du Cono at
favourable prices which could then be sold
on at a considerable mark-up on
international markets.
Masono was one of the rms which put
money — $m — into the purchase of the
Falcon jet, accordin to documents from the
investiation, which found that the money
paid to Dassault also came from bank
accounts in the Bahamas, Abu Dhabi,
London, Los Aneles, and Canada.
Joly told investiators that President
Sassou-Nuesso, whose previous Falcon jet
had been seized and auctioned o in a
dispute with a Lebanese creditor of the
Conolese state, was indeed interested in
this new jet but only with a view to possibly
leasin it at some future point.
Dassault, under pressure from French
investiators, in the end called o the sale,
deprivin Burke of the $ million he had
already paid for the plane. Seven million of
that amount was conscated by the French
state, with Dassault keepin the remainin
nine million due to a clause in the sale
contract that allowed it to retain a
percentae if a purchase fell throuh.
The French investiators were also
intriued by the arrival in Dubai, around the
time of the attempted purchase of the
Falcon jet, of old bars that came on a
plane from Anola and were worth more
than $,. The old, which was
delivered to the same address in Dubai that
housed Burke’s Masono Oil Tradin rm,
was sined for by the same person that
helped Burke coordinate Damien Carew’s
cash drop-os in France. The investiators
speculated that the old “could be
considered a compensation transaction”
related to the Falcon jet.
Where luxury meets
laundering
From Paris cash-drops to Dubai oil-deals,
from bitcoin in Hampstead to a Falcon jet
bound for Brazzaville, Burke’s story arcs
across the hidden circuits of lobal wealth.
He remains in Dubai, technically a wanted
man in Europe, but sheltered by the fact that
the Emirates rarely extradites anyone.
Back in , he quoted the leendary
investor Warren Buett, the Sae of Omaha,
in an interview with an Irish newspaper: “Be
fearful when everyone else is reedy, and
reedy when everyone else is fearful”.
In retrospect, the line feels less like
advice than auto-prophecy. Fear and reed
drive the markets, but also the shadows
around them. And for now, Burke lives
exactly where the two convere.
“My father lives in [sic]
Eaton Square [right], if you
want to meet him as well”,
Burke junior told Wen
Dssult Flcon: Burke’s purchse constituted “money lundering”
