This article was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 23/01/2011
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
CONTROVERSIAL society beauty Gayle Killilea made at least €2m after selling a Swiss apartment that had been gifted to her by developer husband Seán Dunne, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
And amid growing questions over the source of her new-found personal wealth, the MoS has discovered that she was able to bank more than 5 million Swiss francs from the property deal in Geneva.
Until now, nobody even knew that the couple had been living in a suburb of Geneva between 2008 and 2010, at which point they moved to the US.
Thanks to Switzerland’s privacy laws, which are almost as strict as the laws regarding the famously secret Swiss bank accounts, their decision to move there as the Irish property market began to crumble passed unnoticed.
But property sales and purchases do have to be registered – and the MoS has been able to establish a chain of events showing how the couple bought the apartment together before Seán gave it to his wife – and she then sold it at a profit.
The Dunnes bought their apartment in Switzerland together in the summer of 2008 and are listed as having paid 4,650,000 Swiss francs for it (almost €3.6m).
The luxury ground-floor property, which includes an underground parking space and a wine cellar, is in the Chêne-Bougeries area of Geneva, just a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva.
It is around the corner from the city’s famous yacht club and offers easy access to the snow-peaked ski resorts surrounding the city.
Other residents of the modern, gated community include several of Switzerland’s most successful businessmen and bankers.
Mr Dunne transferred the property into his wife’s name last March, when Nama was preparing to take over his bad loans.
Gayle Killilea sold the Swiss property at a profit, just days before she bought a $2m house in an upmarket estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, through a secretive trust.
The transaction could explain how the former gossip columnist could afford her new life in America.
In addition to her purchase of the Greenwich house, she has set herself up as a property developer with at least $500,000 available to invest.
While waiting for construction work on her new home to be competed, she is renting a $17,500-amonth mansion to live in.
As revealed in a recent high-profile court row with her immigration lawyer, she also claims to have ‘other funds… currently in an investment portfolio that is performing well’.
Now the MoS can reveal the multimillion-euro Swiss transaction almost certainly explains how Miss Killilea acquired part of that fortune.
The reasons for the couple’s 18-month sojourn in Geneva remains a mystery, however, since Swiss commercial registers have no record of any company belonging to Seán Dunne or Gayle Killilea.
It is also impossible to establish what, if any, bank accounts the pair may have in Switzerland.
Apart from the property records, the only official record of Mr Dunne in the city is his residency permit and a published notice requesting that he attend the regional motor and driving office to be informed of an unspecified decision about him last April.
Although they have departed the country, the Dunnes are still officially registered as Swiss residents at their old address.
‘If someone leaves the country, they are supposed to inform us o f this residency change,’ said a local government official. ‘As far as we are concerned, they still live here.’
Despite their departure from Switzerland, transactions involving their Geneva apartment appear to be central to their controversial move to the US last spring.
Although the Geneva apartment was originally listed in both of the couple’s names, official records in Geneva show Mr Dunne signed his half of the property over to his wife at the beginning of 2010, making her the sole owner.
Swiss records indicate that Miss Killilea was officially registered as the sole owner of the home on February 1, 2010. Just six weeks later, on March 11, 2010, she signed a contract to sell the home to Francis Kahn, heir to a Swiss banking fortune.
Mr Kahn declined to comment when approached by the MoS but confirmed he had purchaseD the apartment from Miss Killilea.
Mr Kahn said: ‘I know nothing about Seán Dunne. He has nothing to do with me.’
Records of the purchase reveal that Mr Kahn paid 5,300,000 Swiss francs (almost €4.1m) to Miss Killilea – half of which would have belonged to Mr Dunne were it not for his generous gift to her the previous month.
Then, as we exclusively revealed in the MoS last month, Miss Killilea signed a €2m contract on March 29 for the purchase of No.38 Bush Avenue in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Mr Dunne declined to answer any questions this weekend about whether the Geneva and US transactions are linked. He also declined to answer questions about whether his transfer of Swiss property to his wife was an effort to hide his assets from Nama.
Mr Dunne has, however, acknowledged being in Nama, which is understood to have taken over some of his loans last June.
ENDS
