GARDAÍ have carried out a search at the Co Cavan home of former billionaire Sean Quinn as part of an investigation into "alleged criminal activity" in the border region.
Officers arrived at the property in Ballyconnell on Wednesday morning and remained at the scene for a number of hours as the search was conducted and a number of items removed.
Mr Quinn, formerly the Republic's richest man before the fall of his business empire, has said he "has no idea" why the investigation was taking place, and said Garda officers took "boxes of stuff" from the house.
The former head of the Quinn Group, originally from Derrylin in Co Fermanagh and who declared bankruptcy in 2012, has called the search a "fishing operation".
A solicitor for Mr Quinn said Gardaí had told them the searches followed complaints made by members of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) and the Quinn Business Retention Company (QBRC).
No arrests were made during the operation, which a Garda spokesperson said last night was part of an "ongoing criminal investigation into alleged criminal activity in Cavan and the wider border region".
Following the search, Mr Quinn said he was unaware of the reasons behind it.
"I don't know why they were here," he said.
The 74-year-old said he was told by officers the search was linked to "coercion, deception, harassment, stuff like that".
"So I asked them, who am I harassing?" he said, adding: "They said 'we can't tell you that, we just have to do our investigation'," he told the BBC.
Mr Quinn, who was said to be worth €4.722 billion in 2008 when named in the Sunday Times Rich List, said of the officers: "They never mentioned anything about criminality, well unless harassment is criminality."
He added: "It's just a fishing operation."
Speaking of items removed during the search, he continued: "So they said, well sure we will do the investigation and report back to you. So they took my phone...they took my diary, and they took boxes of stuff and they went off with it."
He added: "I'm no wiser now than I was three or four hours ago."
Chris McGettigan, a solicitor for Mr Quinn, said his client had been told the search resulted from complaints from QIH and QBRC members.
Last year Mr Quinn gave an interview to the Irish News shortly before the conviction of three men over the kidnapping and torture of Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney in Co Fermanagh in 2019.
During the interview the former business mogul, who denied any involvement in the attack which he dubbed "barbaric", spoke of his reputation being "more important than money".
"Money was never important. Success was important to me," he said.