ONE OF Donegal’s leading lawyers, who specialises in banking matters, has told donegaldaily.com that people who invested in ETIC Solutions could wait ‘up to five years’ to get any monies back.
And despite the fact we know more than 200 people in Donegal gave convicted crook Francois de Dietrich millions of euro, so far just EIGHT people have made a formal complaint to Gardai.
The lawyer we spoke to has also warned that just because Stg£20.2M has been located by authorities in the North, it doesn’t mean all the money has been found.
One account located by Gardai contains less than €2M. Two businessmen have won a Dublin High Court case preventing that money from being withdrawn.
Gardai believe dozens more investors will now come forward after revelations the French crook is a career criminal who specialises in conning people out of cash. He has a lengthy criminal record for deceit.
The lawyer told us: “My advice to people could not be more clear. Anyone who lost money needs to record that as soon as possible with the authorities.”
It is thought that some investors will not come forward as they invested ‘undeclared’ monies in the scam.