‘Drugs cash mansion’ is finally repossessed
ABUSINESSMAN who has given up a mansion after it was linked to drugs cash has hit back at the National Crime Agency.
Arran Coghlan, 44, surrendered the £600,000 house in Alderley Edge after a High Court judge granted a possession order on July 20.
Coghlan, who has previously been cleared of killing three people, has fought the order for four years and claims that the law enforcement agency has wrongly hounded him.
In a statement, Mr Coghlan said that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and the agency had misrepresented him, adding that he wouldn’t lose a penny from the sale of his house - which he said had been purchased on a 100 per cent mortgage.
The Stockport businessman claimed that the court had been told ‘lies’ during the case and that he had been prevented from using evidence which backed up his account.
He added: “I had recently been released from cases perpetrated by the NCA which were provably malicious. I then found myself in this case involving my home, brought by the same agency.”
He spoke out after the culmination of long running civil recovery proceedings.
In March 2012, a High Court Judge ruled that Mr Coghlan’s home had been purchased through drug dealing in the Stockport area.
It was ruled by the court that Mr Coghlan lived on the proceeds of crime from 1999 until at least interest only April 2004.
The NCA argued that his meagre income over the relevant timeframe could not have covered the money he spent ‘extravagantly’ restoring the house.
The businessman has no convictions for drug dealing and was cleared of the murders of Chris Little, in 1996, and David Barnshaw, in 2002.
He was also arrested over the death of Stephen Akinyemi in the violent struggle at his home in 2010 but charges were dropped.
Mr Coghlan was given 90 days to hand over the keys to Brook Lane Chapel, which he bought in 2007, and it was surrendered last month.
An NCA spokesman said: “We can confirm that the property has been vacated and the NCA has taken possession as per the order granted by the High Court on 20 July.