Three months after the Zoom call from Bóthar’s interim CEO Aideen O’Leary, Sister Vijili Dali is still in a state of disbelief and shock.
he 54-year-old Indian-born nun, better known simply as Sister Viji, had spent much of the past decade seeking funding from the international aid charity to help her mission’s project in Tanzania, where it works to rehabilitate and rescue child trafficking victims.
No money ever came, so she couldn’t believe her ears when told a list existed that purported to show sums totalling €226,099 were paid to her between 2013 and 2019.
The High Court has heard claims the charity’s former chief executive David Moloney (56) misappropriated the money and falsified documentation to cover his tracks, accusations he denies. Gardaí are now investigating.
“I have been in this field more than 35 years. For me, it is a really big shock. It is the first time I have really encountered this type of thing,” Sr Viji told the Irish Independent.
Ms O’Leary, who contacted the nun as part of the charity’s investigation into what became of the money, was said to be equally staggered by the alleged deception.
“The new CEO, she called us and we had an online meeting. She was really astonished to learn we were not supported by Bóthar,” the nun said.
Mr Moloney was suspended from the Limerick-headquartered organisation last November after an independent investigator identified a number of questionable transactions. He resigned in February.
Altogether, Bóthar alleges at least €465,000 has been misappropriated. Transactions identified by Damien Kealy, a director with financial services firm Smith & Williamson, included the withdrawal of €27,552 in cash from the charity’s account in June 2018.
Mr Moloney told the investigator he brought the money to Sister Viji in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. But according to documents filed in court, Mr Moloney later gave a different account to the charity’s board.
He is said to have indicated he brought the cash to Sister Viji when she visited Kimmage Manor in Dublin in the same year. According to the nun, neither version is true.
In fact, she told the Irish Independent she spent much time trying to get funding from Bóthar, only for proposals to Mr Moloney to be met with no response.
Sister Viji heads the Daughters of Mary Immaculate (DMI) mission in Dar es Salaam. The city is a gateway for human trafficking, with unscrupulous criminal networks trafficking children for labour and sexual exploitation around the continent and to the Middle East. DMI’s Spring of Hope mission works to rescue these children, rehabilitate them and return them to their families. It is difficult work, she says. As well as criminal networks, businesspeople and politicians are involved.
Many of the children have been badly damaged emotionally and need medical care and attention. Some have HIV. One rescued girl had been raped by more than 20 men.
Counselling, a life skills programme and vocational training is provided.
“So far, I have rescued and reunified more than 700 children,” said Sister Viji.
The aim of the training programmes is to ensure children can provide for themselves when they return to their families or communities.
But crushing poverty means the risk they will be trafficked again is high. This, according to Sister Viji, is where Bóthar came into her thinking.
The charity provides farm animals to struggling families in developing countries as a means to lift them out of poverty. The nun said she heard about Bóthar while visiting the Sisters of St Joseph in Dublin more than a decade ago.
While in Ireland, she said she arranged to meet Mr Moloney, hoping he could help with her goal of making trafficked children and their families more self-sufficient. After the meeting there was “a lot of communication”.
“I sent a lot of emails with information. Nothing worked out,” she said.
According to Sister Viji, her proposals were not responded to. “So I left it,” she said.
The next time she met Mr Moloney was in 2018 when he called to arrange a meeting at the mission in Dar es Salaam.
Sister Viji said she impressed upon him that she was working with “downtrodden” and “vulnerable” children and wanted to know why she did not receive a positive response to her requests for funding.
“He said he would try to get some support for us. Then he went back. That’s all. I didn’t hear from him again,” she said.
According to an affidavit filed by Bóthar chairman Harry Lawlor, seven other cash withdrawals were made by Mr Moloney which were expressed to be for the benefit of Sr Viji. The first was for €32,350 in July 2013, with further sums of €29,100 withdrawn in March 2014, €30,625 in February 2015, €38,162 in March 2016, €39,360 in April 2017, €1,400 in July 2018 and €27,552 in May 2019.
“Not a single penny did we receive,” Sister Viji said.
The nun said that if what was alleged was true, then Mr Moloney had “cheated” the charity’s donors.
Mr Lawlor claims the withdrawals were made without the board’s knowledge or approval. He also said the only withdrawal mentioned by Mr Moloney to the board or its investigator Mr Kealy was the €27,552 made in June 2018.
The charity also alleges Mr Moloney fabricated documents in connection with the withdrawals. In March 2016, Mr Moloney sent Bóthar’s internal accountant an email about projects for consideration, including a Word document he claimed to have received from Sister Viji.
Edel Mee, an IT specialist who conducted an analysis for Bóthar, said in an affidavit she was satisfied Mr Moloney created the document himself days earlier, using a Word file sent by Sister Viji in 2011 as a template. One of the changes made to original file was the insertion of the sentence: “I am very much hopeful that Bóthar will continue, as in the past, by supporting our worthwhile cause during the next twelve months into 2017.”
After his trip to Dar es Salaam, Mr Moloney is said to have produced a receipt dated June 28, 2018 from Sister Viji acknowledging receipt of the €27,552. Ms Mee found the document was actually created on July 18 by Mr Moloney.
A second copy of the same receipt, but this time given a date in 2019, was also found in Mr Moloney’s electronic files.
It was an edited copy of the 2018 receipt. Neither bore a signature, Ms Mee said.
“Mr Moloney fabricated several documents to lend verisimilitude to his suggestion that these funds had been lawfully withdrawn and paid for in good faith for charitable purposes. Mr Moloney has yet to account for the monies he withdrew in this way,” Mr Lawlor said in his affidavit.
In the High Court this week, Mr Moloney’s counsel said he denied any wrongdoing.
Mr Moloney’s assets have been frozen by court order. He has also given undertakings not to delete data or access his €600,000 pension.
Despite all that has happened Sister Viji said she hoped to have a relationship with Bóthar in future and perhaps it could help fund her mission one day. “[During the Zoom call] they all came to know the problems. It shows the present team is very concerned,” she said.
For now though, the charity’s future is unclear. It has ceased fundraising and a number of staff have been told they will have to be made redundant.
A Bóthar spokeswoman said the organisation would not be commenting while investigations are ongoing.
