A fugitive Irish financier – the former head of the bank known as the Celtic Chernobyl during his country’s financial collapse – is facing 33 charges that carry potentially “unlimited” prison time in Ireland, according to a criminal complaint unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Boston.
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Drumm, 48, is being held in custody ahead of an extradition hearing on Tuesday.
His attorney, Tracy Milner, said she would be asking for Drumm to be released on bail at a Friday hearing and indicated that he planned to challenge the extradition proceeding.
“We’re being asked to honour a request of the Irish Government”, he said. He set a hearing for November 10th at 2.30pm for a status conference to determine how long the proceedings would take.
Drumm will appear today at the Moakley Courthouse before Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell.
Giving of unlawful financial assistance by a company to a person for the objective of, or in connection with, the purchase of shares in that company, in violation of Section 60 of the Companies Act 1963 (as amended), which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, per offence.
All of the offences are alleged to have occurred in 2008, the same year he quit his role as Anglo chief executive.
– Organizing illegal loans to help other elite bank clients secretly buy Anglo shares in a failed 2008 bid to bolster the bank’s collapsing stock value.
This is despite a number of requests from gardai, who had been seeking to interview him.
Mr Drumm did respond in writing to the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry.
A spokeswoman for the the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Christina DiIorio-Sterling, said: “I can confirm that Mr Drumm was arrested by US Marshals in Massachusetts on an extradition warrant”.
“Good afternoon”, said a defeated sounding Drumm.
Judge Bailey’s decision to deny Mr Drumm bankruptcy protection is now under appeal.
According to the court papers, an arrest warrant was issued for each separate charge on June 27 2013, by a judge in Dublin.
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Drumm resigned as chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank in 2009 amid a property loan scandal that resulted in the Irish government nationalizing the bank through a multi-billion-dollar bailout.
