Jordan's plan to avoid €800k CABtax bill backfires.
BY CONOR FEEHAN – 07 JULY 2014 12:00 AM
A criminal who filed for bankruptcy in the UK in the hope of escaping an €800,000 bill from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has seen his plan backfire spectacularly.
Troy Jordan (44), from Kildare, is the number-one target on a hitlist of criminals compiled by dissident republicans.
He has also fallen foul of major Dublin gangland figures, including Brian Rattigan and Karl Breen.
His business connections over the years have included Martin 'The Viper' Foley and Geraldine Gilligan, the wife of convicted drug dealer John Gilligan, who is currently hiding in the UK after a second attempt on his life last March.
annulled
Along with Foley, Jordan helped to found Viper Debt Recovery and Repossession Services in 2005. He resigned as a director in June 2010.
During her legal battle with CAB over the Jessbrook Equestrian Centre in Kildare, Geraldine Gilligan told the High Court in 2008 that her only income was €5,000 a year she received from Jordan "for grass".
Despite having a lengthy criminal pedigree, Jordan has managed to avoid incurring any major convictions to date.
He is currently challenging the €800,000 bill handed to him by CAB and is taking his dispute to the Supreme Court.
But in an effort to thwart the authorities' efforts to extract the money from him, he filed for bankruptcy in the UK in May last year.
However, he recently withdrew that application after learning he "didn't have a hope or a prayer of success", according to sources.
Jordan filed the bankruptcy petition in Blackpool County Court on May 31 last year, hoping that after a year his debts would be discharged and he would escape having to pay the massive tax bill here on the basis that he would be technically broke.
But he was unable to meet the criteria laid down in England as regards his businesses there. More crucially, the Insolvency Court contacted authorities here to establish Jordan's bona fides and were told about his outstanding tax deb.
A UK source confirmed to the Herald that Jordan's bankruptcy order was annulled by his own petition last April 24 with "all debts paid in full".
That means Jordan paid whatever debts he had in the UK, but his tax bill here remains.
"For you to present your own petition to annul a bankruptcy would be very unusual, but this is what happened in this case," said the source.
Jordan used his full name of Troy Byron Jordan on his bankruptcy petition, giving an address in Fleetwood, Lancashire, as well as another in Allenwood, Co Kildare.
After he withdrew the petition, the Insolvency Court recorded the reason as "ought not to have been made".
threat
Gardai believe Jordan is one of the most serious players in the drug-trafficking world and is under threat from a number of criminals here.
After the murder of Dublin Real IRA leader Alan Ryan in September 2012, Jordan was reportedly one of a dozen gangsters summoned to meetings with the dissident group, who demanded protection money to allow him to continue his drug-dealing racket.
However, he refused to hand over any cash.
He was twice arrested by officers investigating the shooting murder of Latvian woman Baiba Saulite in 2006
