More than 100 staff laid off at Liberty Recycling as gardaí examine links to Africa

More than 100 staff at Liberty Recycling, and two linked entities, have been temporarily laid off and the charity’s activities have been halted with tonnes of textiles stranded in its depot in Bluebell, Dublin 12.

The charity’s network of more than 400 clothes banks across the State cannot be emptied, despite being full at many locations.

Liberty Recycling was created in the 1990s, initially as a community employment scheme for drug users who had used the services of the Merchants Quay project. However, the two organisations are no longer linked and have not been for years.

Those laid off include many trying to recover from drug abuse, who had places on the charity’s community employment scheme, sorting the donated textiles in Bluebell.

Though eight community employment trainees were involved in the first year, Liberty Recycling has since grown to a charity with hundreds of clothes banks, nine stores nationwide and a depot in Dublin.

Gardaí are investigating the movement of large sums of money through the bank accounts of Liberty Recycling, and related entities, and are closely reviewing contacts with, as yet unidentified, parties in Africa.

International transfers into Liberty’s accounts are being reviewed to determine if they were a legitimate part of the organisation’s trading activities, or if the sums taken into them were unrelated to the charity’s activities.

Liberty uses its network of clothing banks to collect unwanted clothes and other items – sheets, curtains, handbags and shoes – and sells most of it to traders in Africa and Asia to raise funds for its core activities.

[ Liberty Recycling: Frozen bank accounts, suspicious transactions and seized luxury goodsOpens in new window ]

While that trading is legitimate, there are concerns a criminal element – possibly African or Irish, or both – has effectively infiltrated Liberty Recycling.

The Garda has already confirmed its criminal investigation into Liberty Recycling is examining allegations of money laundering. It is being carried out by the money laundering unit within the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.

The Charities Regulator this week appliedto the High Court for a provisional liquidator to be appointed and said that, based on information available, it appeared some of the conduct in the charity was “unlawful”.

[ Dublin charity may have been infiltrated by illegal organisation, watchdog fearsOpens in new window ]

The regulator said this conduct may have been “carried out for the benefit of an organisation, membership of which is unlawful”. It has also flagged its concern that a “substantial international transfers of funds” it feared “were not commensurate with the level of activity taking place in the charity”.

Liberty Recycling’s bank accounts have been frozen and some assets were last week seized – including two BMW X5s, designer bags and Rolex watches worth €40,000 – during Garda searches.

Its revenues have reached more than €4 million in some years and the Department of Social Protection has funded its community employment scheme by close to €500,000 in some years.