Millionaire fugitive Jason Cardiff was arrested last week in his €3 million home in Rathgar, Dublin and brought to the High Court where he had to surrender his Irish passport. Cardiff was arrested on foot of extradition proceedings instigated by the US Department of Justice, which has charged him with fraud, identity theft and witness tampering. He is alleged to have defrauded customers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars after they bought homeopathic oral strips to boost male sexual performance, weight loss or smoking cessation in 2018. He could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted. Cardiff denies the charges.The American businessman has lived in Ireland since 2022 and regularly posts videos on social media from his Dublin 6 base. The posts show him golfing in Ireland, travelling to Austria for ski trips, with his Bentley parked outside his home and showing off a Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch that retails from €6,000. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan approved the extradition request for Cardiff from the US embassy on May 1st. High Court judge Sean Gillane approved his arrest warrant on May 11th.After his arrest at his home on Highfield Road in Rathgar at 8am last Thursday, Cardiff was brought to the High Court where he was granted bail with conditions. He must reside at his Highfield Road home and cannot travel to other parts of Ireland. He has an 11pm to 8am curfew and was forced to surrender his Irish passport. He is due to appear in court again on July 10th. Cardiff was born in the US and gained Irish citizenship 20 years ago due to having a grandfather from Co Roscommon. He was arrested one day after being interviewed by The Irish Times, which used social media posts to track him down. In the interview, published two days after his arrest, Cardiff spoke about how he believed the charges against him would soon be dropped by president Donald Trump’s Department of Justice over allegations that he was being pursued by officials and judges from the Obama and Biden eras. “The case is almost over,” he said. “We’re very close. Now we have the attention of the right people. ”Court records show a US warrant for Cardiff’s arrest was issued after the “absconder” failed to return from Ireland in January of last year as ordered by a Californian court. Extradition proceedings were initiated last year but were delayed after the Irish authorities raised queries about typos in the American filings. Two acquaintances who lodged sureties of $530,000 with the court in California so Cardiff could get bail in 2023 after his arrest that year have been ordered to forfeit their money. Cardiff said he had “taken care of” that debt for those people. He denied being in breach of a court order and said he was unable to fly to the US based on medical advice. Court records show US authorities have questioned the validity of the advice from Cardiff’s Irish doctors, pointing out that one seemed to specialise in gynaecological medicine.The 50 year old has been involved in an eight-year battle with US law enforcement over his running of Redwood Scientific. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2018 froze the assets of Cardiff, his wife Eunjung and the company. A court later found they had made unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of dissolvable oral strips marketed through TV infomercials and social media.One claim made by Cardiff’s company was that its product “Prolongz” was “clinically proven” to increase ejaculatory control in more than 97 per cent of men. FTC experts showed the pilot study used by Redwood was unreliable due to the small sample size.While their assets were supposed to be frozen, in 2020 a judge ruled that Cardiff and his wife, who had a senior role in Redwood, had “lied”. They were found to be in contempt of court over “lavish” spending by using a credit card in the name of Cardiff’s then 90-year-old father, Gerald.The current criminal case filings show the US authorities could seek orders for Cardiff to forfeit property and assets that were derived from his alleged crimes.US court records show that Cardiff filed papers on June 21st seeking emergency injunctive relief preventing US authorities from advancing his extradition while he challenges the validity of the charges against him. He wants an order directing the US Department of Justice to suspend the extradition process until his complaint is ruled on. His application said he does not seek to “direct any Irish court, Irish official, or foreign sovereign to take or refrain from taking any action”.
Millionaire fugitive arrested in Rathgar home to face US extradition proceedings
Jason Cardiff told The Irish Times last week he believed charges would soon be dropped











