US marshals in Massachusetts have arrested David Drumm – the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank who is seen as a culprit in Ireland’s banking crisis – on an extradition warrant, according to the US attorney’s office in the state reports The Guardian.
A spokeswoman for the the US attorney in 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. He will remain in custody until his hearing in federal court in Boston on Tuesday.”
It was reported in January that Ireland had sent an extradition file to the US government, outlining charges to be prepared against Drumm on up to 30 different offences.
The Irish office of public prosecutions, which has brought other Anglo Irish Bank executives to trial, requested in July that a parliamentary inquiry into Ireland’s banking crisis not publish a statement Drumm had issued to it.
Drumm stepped down from the one-time stock market titan in December 2008, a month before it was nationalised.
He filed for bankruptcy in his new home of Boston two years later, owing his former employer more than $11m from loans he had been given. A Boston court dismissed his application as not remotely credible earlier in 2015, saying he had lied and acted in a fraudulent manner in his bid to be declared bankrupt in the United States.
Bailing out the failed bank that Drumm ran from 2005 to 2008 cost taxpayers around €30bn, close to one-fifth of Ireland’s annual output. It was seen as the heart of a banking crisis that forced Ireland itself into a 2010 international bailout.
In July an Irish court sentenced three former employees of Anglo Irish Bank to between 18 and 36 months in prison, the first bankers to be jailed since the country’s financial crash.
Along with two others, Drumm stood down after hundreds of millions in directors’ loans were uncovered. He refused to return to Ireland to be questioned about the events leading to the collapse of the bank, which was later nationalised before being wound up.
During Drumm’s failed bankruptcy bid, the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation – formerly Anglo Irish Bank – fought his claims for bankruptcy, as he owed it €9m.
The public prosecutor recommended a number of charges be brought against Drumm after a years-long probe into Anglo Irish Bank by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
