DRUG LORD PREVENTS CAB SALE OF PROPERTY

A convicted drugs trafficker has succeeded in preventing the Criminal
Assets Bureau from selling all lands recently seized at Sneem, Co. Kerry.

Jan Hendrik Ljpelaar, from Rotterdam in Holland, was granted a stay on the
sale of ten acres at Greenane, which he claimed he had bought with personal
finances not tainted with drug trafficking.

He said he did not own Clashnacree House, Derryquinn, Sneem, set on 20
acres, which was also seized by the Bureau last month.

Mr Ljpelaar said the Derryquinn property was owned by a Swiss company,
Marbella Assets, in which he had sold all his shares eight years ago.

Mr Justice Paul Butler granted a stay on the sale of the land at Greenane,
but said the Bureau could go ahead with the sale of Clashnacree House and
surrounding lands, in which Mr Ljpelaar had not claimed an interest.

The court had been told Ljpelaar was a renowned trafficker in ecstasy and
cannabis, and had been convicted in Holland and jailed for six years in 1992.

Chief Supt. Felix McKenna, head of the Bureau, told the court the property
had been abandoned for several years, but had been kept under surveillance
by CAB officers.

He said Ljpelaar had bought the property in 1991 for pounds 300,000, and
had gone to great lengths to conceal the purchase. It had allegedly been
bought with the aid of a fake mortgage taken out through a British Virgin
Islands company, Howard Financial Services, which had since been struck off
the companies register.

Chief Supt. McKenna said Ljpelaar had been a leader of organised crime in
Holland, and had no other legitimate source of income.

Yesterday, Ljpelaar said he had been out of Europe when the Bureau seized
the properties and did not know about it until two days ago. He claimed he
had income tax documents to show he had earned money in the early '90s,
with which he purchased the property at Greenane. He had no objection to
CAB seeking that documentation from the Dutch authorities.

Mr Shane Murphy, counsel for CAB, said while the Bureau allowed the stay on
the Greenane lands until full determination of the proceedings, it was
still the Bureau's case that Ljpelaar was the beneficial owner of all of
the properties.