Skip to main content

1993 £1m Felixstowe heist: Suspect Eddie Maher was 'bankrupt'

 

A man wanted in Suffolk over a £1m heist in 1993 had been declared bankrupt with debts of more than $30,000 (£19,000), American court papers have revealed. Eddie Maher, 56, originally from Essex, was arrested on 8 February after being found in Ozark, Missouri. Mr Maher had $85 (£54) in his bank account when he filed for bankruptcy in 2010. He is due in court in America on 22 February for a preliminary hearing. Anonymous tip-off Mr Maher disappeared in 1993 after a security van packed with cash was taken from outside a bank in Felixstowe. The former security guard, who had been living in South Woodham Ferrers when he disappeared, has been charged with immigration and firearm offences in the United States. Bankruptcy papers filed in November 2010 revealed Mr Maher had got into financial difficulties. They showed that he had $17,061 (£10,881) of loan and credit card debts. He also owed $1,759 (£1,121) in hospital and doctors bills and $3,148 (£2,007) in unpaid tax. The security van disappeared after stopping outside Lloyds Bank, in Felixstowe, in January 1993 Assets listed on the court papers included a rifle and digital camera valued at $170 (£108) and a 1997 Mercury Mountaineer car valued at $1,700 (£1,083). He was working as a broadband technician and earned $1,896 (£1,208) a month. His monthly expenses totalled more than $1,807 (£1,151). 'Financial management' course The papers also revealed Mr Maher and his family regularly moved home. Between May 2007 and September 2010, they lived in three addresses within the Ozark area. After being declared bankrupt in November 2010, Mr Maher was forced to complete a course in "personal financial management" on 13 December 2010. Police in America arrested Mr Maher after receiving an anonymous tip-off that he was a "fugitive wanted in England". Papers from a US District Court, in Springfield, Missouri, revealed Mr Maher cannot afford a lawyer. Suffolk police is looking to start extradition proceedings to bring Mr Maher back to the UK.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state, where two Mexican drug cartels are warring over control of smuggling routes and targeting sources of independent information. The brutal campaign is bleeding the media and threatening to turn Veracruz into the latest state in Mexico where fear snuffs out reporting on the drug war. Three photojournalists who worked the perilous crime beat in the port city of Veracruz were found dismembered and dumped in plastic bags in a canal Thursday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative newsmagazine was beaten and strangled in her home in the state capital of Xalapa. Press freedom groups said all three photographers had temporarily fled the state after receiving threats last year. The organizations called for immediate government action to halt a wave of attacks that has killed at least seven current and former reporters and photographer...

rich Irish still live life with a bang!

  Not everybody is going broke in Ireland these days. While the bankruptcy courts continue to clog with casualties of the recession, like the Stokes brothers, there still remains a wealthy sector of society flying well above the financial carnage. Preferring to indulge in luxury jaunts outside the country rather than display any largesse at home, they head to places far beyond Irish shores for treasured moments they'll never boast about in the society columns. One such pair headed first class Down Under for a specially organised New Year's Eve treat for two, high atop the Sydney Opera House to view the biggest fireworks display on the planet. It was the ultimate night to remember for the middle-aged couple, and all organised by their personal concierge service -- where discretion comes as part of the package. Though the ranks of Ireland's rich and famous have been severely thinned out by the economic downturn, there are still plenty of low-profile millionaires out there...

Ebola outbreak vastly underestimated

The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola stood on Wednesday at 1,069 from 1,975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said. The majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, while four people have died in Nigeria. The agency's apparent acknowledgement the situation is worse than previously thought could spur governments and aid organisations to take stronger measures against the virus. "Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," the organisation said. "WHO is coordinating a massive scaling up of the international response, marshalling support from individual countries, disease control agencies, agencies within the United Nations system, and others." International agencies are looking into emergency food drops and truck convoys to reach hungry people in Liberia and Sierra Leone cordoned off from the outside world to halt the sprea...