'Dublin Jimmy''s €10m fortune still untouched two years after death

Probate documents have yet to filed in relation to the multi-million-euro estate of gangster Cyril 'Dublin Jimmy' McGuinness - despite two years having passed since his death.

The Sunday World this week carried out searches with the Probate Offices in Dublin and Belfast to determine if moves were being made to divide up McGuinness's criminal fortune - north or south of the border.

The searches revealed that, despite McGuinness having died as a result of a heart attack during a police raid more than two years ago, no probate documents have been filed.

Over the last number of years, Gardaí and the PSNI have been engaged in tracing the vast hidden fortune McGuinness made from a life of organised crime.

This fortune, estimated in some circles to be worth well in excess of €10 million, includes more than €1 million he was paid for organising the Quinn Industrial Holdings attacks.

Previously, it was revealed that McGuinness, nicknamed 'Dublin Jimmy', had a trusted associate and long-time partner in crime who set up a number of construction and scrap metal companies both here and in the UK.

The firms were established for the purpose of laundering his money and Gardaí have been working with police to follow the money trail.

Separately, a well-placed border-based source this week told the Sunday World that there is anecdotal evidence that McGuinness money paid for at least three farms, purchased in and around the border, in the 10 years prior to his death.

"The farms were ostensibly bought by other people," the source told the Sunday World.

"The money used to buy them was McGuinness's but the police and Gardaí will have a very difficult time ever proving it."

McGuinness was 54 years old when he suffered a heart attack while Derbyshire Police were searching a house he was staying in the Buxton area on November 8, 2019.

The search was part of a multi-agency investigation into the abduction and torture of Kevin Lunney.

At the time of his death, McGuinness had more than 50 convictions, the variety of which spoke to the various streams of revenue he had coming in.

McGuinness's gang was identified as one of the top 10 gangs in Northern Ireland who have made vast amounts of money."

In 2011, he was extradited to Belgium for stealing construction and farm machinery.

His gang stole 20 trucks and cranes in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2006 and 2007 and brought them back to Ireland, where he used some of the machinery to steal ATMs from the exterior walls of banks and shops.

During the height of a spate of ATM robberies about 10 years ago, McGuinness and his gang were suspects for between 10 and 15 such raids a year; operating from Kerry up to the Border region and into the North.

McGuinness was also one of three individuals who faced 81 charges, including money laundering, handling stolen goods and illegal dumping when he appeared before Strabane Magistrates' Court, in Co Tyrone in 2005.

Figures presented in court showed that McGuinness benefited to the tune of £2.5 million (€2.9 million) from smuggling, but that only a fraction of this amount - less than £300,000 - was recovered through a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act.