Listeners to Newstalk Breakfast will recall that last week it was revealed that residents of an apartment complex in Co Meath were living in fear after their homes were found to be fire hazards.

A number of expert reports into the buildings at Riverwalk Court in Ratoath found a series of breaches of building regulations, including fire safety regulations.

Well, we have been taking a closer look at one of the companies behind the development and have found remarkable links to some of the world's most dangerous individuals.

Riverwalk Court

Riverwalk Court is a 26 multi-unit timber frame development. One company owned the land on which the apartments were built, a separate development company ran the project, and then a third company was contracted to actually build the houses. That company was called Elk House Ireland Company Limited.

According to the Companies Registry Office, that company was wound up in 2009, and nobody who worked for them at the time was available for comment.

These were flat pack homes. They were manufactured in Austria, shipped to Ireland and bolted together. The manufacturer was a company called Elk Fertighaus. Or Elk 'Prefab House.'

Elk in Austria have not responded to any calls or emails, but it appears that actually this company in Ireland was separate to them. They just used a similar name and bought the Elk Austria product, brought it to Ireland and then put it together.

Who are Elk Ireland?

Elk Ireland was incorporated here in 2001. Their last annual return was filed in 2005. While in existence the purpose of this company, according to their memorandum of association, was the development and selling of real estate.

The directors of the company were two individuals based in Lichtenstein - Engelbert Schreiber and Engelbert Schreiber Jnr. The former was also the company secretary.

The sole shareholder of Elk Ireland was another company, called World Commercial Company. This company still exists. Their address is the exact same as Schreiber Snr and Jnr.

So in other words, these two men from Lichtenstein are running a construction company in Ireland and all the profits are going to a company that shares their address.

Who are the Schreibers?

According to their own website, they offer advice in the formation and management of companies, structuring of assets, tax and legal advice, as well as accounting and auditing. They have not responded to any attempts to contact them thus far but their names crop up in some unusual places.

In 2000, details of an investigation carried out by the BND (the German equivalent of MI6) into banking practices in Lichtenstein were revealed in a court case in the Philippines. The Schreibers were named in the report as being linked to other financial advisors in the principality with connections to the Philippines' Marcos family, Colombia's Medillin Cartel and other equally infamous clientele. Everyone named, including the Schreibers, denied any wrongdoing.

Their names next appeared in relation to a company called Nasreddin International Group Ltd Holding. This was a company founded by a man named Ahmed Idriss Nasreddin, who spent several years on the US terrorist blacklist after 9/11. He founded Al Taqwa Bank, a bank that the Bush administration described as Al Qaeda’s bank. That bank and Nasreddin himself also spent six years on a UN List of people or companies against whom sanctions were levied because of their links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Where are they based? The exact same address in Lichtenstein as you will find Schreiber Jnr and Snr and the exact same address that you will find World Commercial Company, the sole shareholder in Elk Ireland who, while all this was happening, was building houses in rural Ireland.

Where does this leave the residents?

One of two things has happened here. Either these two men from Lichtenstein decided they wanted to own and operate a relatively small scale construction company in Ireland, or someone else approached them and asked them to set up and operate a company on their behalf from Lichtenstein.

This company would then be protected behind the opaque corporate veil that Lichtenstein-based entities enjoy.

Who that person or persons might be, remains a mystery; but the whole set up does make life more difficult for the residents when it comes to identifying who might be at fault for the problems with their homes.

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