A man implicated in a credit card fraud scheme worth $700,000 in the US has lost his appeal to stop the State from seizing the funds. The Court of Appeal rejected all arguments put forth by Harry Zeman on Friday against a 2022 High Court order for the money to be relinquished to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. As early as January 2011, the High Court had made a judgement pass that the confiscated $697,000 by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) was likely to be a result of a deception. It was revealed in court that this considerable sum was accumulated over merely four days by Routeback Media AB – a company where Mr. Zeman serves as a director and shareholder – through primarily targeting US cardholders. An appeal to the 2011 decision was not made by Mr. Zeman. In 2018, he also unsuccessfully attempted to fight the Cab’s proposition for a “disposal order” permitting the sum plus any interest to be moved from an account under receivership to the State. A decree to this effect was granted by Ms Justice Carmel Stewart against both Mr. Zeman and Routeback in 2022. Rejecting Mr. Zeman’s dispute of the disposal order, Justice Donald Binchy noted the appeal posed a query—whether the court has the authority to reconsider an initial crime proceeds declaration in later filing under the 1996 Proceeds of Crime Act. Both Routeback and Mr. Zeman claim that the funds come from legal business activities. Detailing the case’s origins, Justice Binchy stated that in 2002, Routeback, a Swedish firm, represented itself as a business dealing in $9.95 “lifetime email” accounts and went into an agreement with an Irish credit card payment processor. Shortly after it became effective in October 2002, several transactions totalling about 10,000 submitted by Routeback were rejected by card issuing banks due to reasons like insufficient funds or stolen card. It was alleged by the Cab in the High Court that Routeback was never prepared to offer the email services they claimed to. Information about Mr. Zeman’s potential connection with organised crime was reportedly sent by Swedish law enforcement, according to Justice Binchy.
Mr Zeman vehemently disagreed with all allegations levelled against him, pointing out that of the 79,445 deals initiated by Routeback, a total of 6,914 were contested by cardholders, who were subsequently reimbursed. He posited that Routeback is rightfully owed the funds transacted in the remaining 72,531 deals since they weren’t disputed by the cardholders.
He refuted the bureau’s assertion that Routeback was incapable of rendering email services.
Mr Zeman’s appeal was predicated on an insistence that Justice Stewart inaccurately evaluated the case before her and made an error in responding to his suggestion that the Proceeds of Crime Act does not cater to corporate bodies. Additionally, he condemned the judge’s inference that judicial rulings on past criminal profits couldn’t be questioned at a later stage.
His appeal was resisted by the bureau and was subsequently rejected in its entirety.
Justice Binchy observed that Mr Zeman was unsuccessful in proving the funds in question were not ill-gotten or that the 2011 proclamation led to unfair circumstances.
He criticised Mr Zeman’s assertion that the bureau couldn’t prove the alleged activities weren’t criminal offences in Sweden as “ill-conceived”. The judge pointed out that the bureau’s case hinged on Routeback coaxing a financial provider into facilitating sham credit card operations in Ireland with the aim of profiting Routeback and causing losses either to the provider, the cardholders, or both.
His judgement was backed by his associates, Justices Aileen Donnelly and Una Ní Raifeartaigh.