Missing tycoon found dishevelled with insult carved into forehead

AN IRISH property developer has been found wandering along a country road in a dishevelled state and with an insult carved into his forehead, eight months after he was reported missing, police say.

Kevin McGeever, 68, who made his fortune selling exclusive properties in Dubai, told police he was abducted by three masked men at gunpoint from the garden of his mansion.

A startled couple discovered McGeever with a scruffy beard and long fingernails wandering along an isolated road in County Leitrim in the west of Ireland.

He had been reported missing near his mansion in County Galway last May, more than 160 kilometres from where he was found on Wednesday.

He was very thin and had an abusive word carved into his forehead, although police have not revealed what it was.

Catherine Vallely said he was just ‘‘skin and bones’’ when she found him while out driving.

‘‘ He had red trousers that made me think it was a cone in the middle of the road,’’ she told the Irish Independent.

‘‘When the man got into our car, he told us he had no shoes on. He said three men threw him out of a van.

‘‘The man said his name was Kevin, and he didn’t realise he was in Leitrim. He didn’t even know the month,’’ she said.

‘‘He had a pair of enormous eyes in a very thin face, and his cheekbones stuck out. He was rubbing his beard with fingers that had long nails. He was very well-educated, well-spoken and polite and articulate.’’

McGeever ran a successful property company, KMM International Properties, selling luxurious commercial and residential properties in Dubai, mainly to wealthy Irish and British people, during the economic boom of the past decade.

McGeever is recovering hospital in Mullingar.

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