A man has been given consecutive jail terms for his involvement in payment redirect frauds, which saw two separate companies scammed out of tens of thousands of euros in November and December 2019.
Paul Adetunji (24), with an address at 55 Lana Aoibheann, St Michael’s Road, Longford, sat alone, wearing a black jacket and tracksuit pants as Judge Kenneth Connolly sentenced him to two years and three months in prison at Longford Circuit Court.
He appeared charged with six counts of money-laundering – one count relating to one Finnish company, and five counts relating to a second Finnish company.
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Detective Garda Clive Glancy told Shane Geraghty BL, for the state, that he received a report from AIB in January 2020 relating to a suspected fraudulent payment made to a Longford account under the accused’s name.
On November 27, 2019, a company in Finland made a payment of €23,140 into Mr Adetunji’s account after a false email instructed the company to change the account details, from those of the Polish company that was meant to receive the payment, to those of the accused.
The Finnish company later recalled the funds, stating their client had been defrauded, but the funds had been depleted.
A number of documents were provided to Gardaí, including an account ledger.
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Those documents were backed up by CCTV footage from November 27, which showed the accused withdrawing €600 from an ATM outside the bank, and from November 28, which showed him withdrawing €600 outside, another €1,500 from an ATM inside the bank, and €1,160 from the bank teller.
The rest of the money was distributed via a number of internet transactions, including a beneficiary labelled iNet Family.
Mr Adetunji, when arrested and questioned, told Gardaí he was in a nightclub in Dublin when a male named Alex approached him and bought him drinks before asking if he had a bank account and would he accept a payment.
The accused handed over his account details and later received a call asking him to make the withdrawals and meet three other males in a BMW, so he could hand over the money. He said he thought the money belonged to Alex.
The injured party has not been refunded, Det. Gda Glancy revealed. The accused has 11 previous convictions, including public order, assault, drugs offences and driving offences.
Detective Garda Mark Kelly of Galway Garda Station gave evidence of how, in January 2022, he was assigned to investigate an alleged fraud or deception at AIB in Galway, which took place between December 16 and 20, 2029 – just a short time after the fraud in Det Gda Glancy’s investigation.
Again a separate Finnish company was the victim of a redirect fraud and €44,089.68 was paid into the AIB account in Eyre Square, Galway, belonging to a man who has since been prosecuted.
“We followed the money and, straight away, as soon as it came in, it was filtered to other accounts, including an An Post account,” said Det. Gda Kelly.
That An Post account belonged to Mr Adetunji, who received a total of €8,200 of that initial €44k.
Det. Gda Kelly discovered Det. Gda Glancy was conducting a similar investigation into the accused and got his contact details before meeting him in Longford Garda Station.
Mr Adetunji admitted he had been advised by a third party to open an An Post account, which he did on November 11, 2019. He said he was aware money would be transferred, and he would receive €500 for providing the account details.
He withdrew a total of €3,000 from his An Post account, and €600 from a Bank of Ireland ATM, and handed it to a man he would only identify as ‘P’. He then gave his card to P, and two further withdrawals were made in Dublin.
A total of €12,000 was successfully recalled by the Finnish company, but none of the €8,200 that was transferred to Mr Adetunji’s account was recovered.
Again, a false email had been received by the company, requesting a change in bank account details and resulting in the loss.
In mitigation, Kieran Collins BL, for the accused, said his client had a “limited function” in the scam. He was 18 years old at the time and still in school.
He has a “very poor record” since these offences, with five incidents resulting in 11 convictions, he said, but most were dealt with summarily in the District Court, with only one driving offence before the Circuit Court.
The accused works shift work, and has a new baby. He is taking a “pro-social attitude” towards his behaviour, Mr Collins explained.
In a letter of apology, he stated he accepts full responsibility for his actions and regrets what he did.
“I have learned from my mistake and I really hope you can forgive me for my actions here today,” he said.
A probation report assessed him at the higher end of a moderate risk of reoffending, but said he has some level of insight into his offending and would be suitable for Community Service.
However, Judge Connolly said the offences were “very serious and very significant”, with penalties of up to 14 years.
He noted the significant value of the losses to the two companies, with one company losing over €23,000 to Mr Adetunji’s account, and the other losing more than €8,000 to Mr Adetunji.
None of that money was recovered and no offer of compensation was made, said Judge Connolly, noting that the accused had made under €1,000 from the two scams.
“The accounts he gave are touching on fantasy. He states he met a man he didn’t know in a nightclub. That man bought him drinks and requested the use of his account,” said Judge Connolly.
“That is very difficult to believe indeed. I can’t say it’s untrue but if it is true, it paints a very poor picture of Mr Adetunji that he’d go along with that.
“In the second incident, he was approached by a man he called ‘P’, and allowed him to use his account and gave him his card and pin number. I cannot, for a moment, believe he thought anything lawful was going on.”
There is a “complete loss of public confidence” in the banking sector as a direct result of these types of crimes, he said, and people like the accused have “complete disregard” for that when they engage in this type of offending.
He noted the accused had no previous convictions at the time of the offence, but has 11 convictions since and, despite his young age and the apology afforded to the court, he is at risk of reoffending.
“He says he learned from his mistake, but the court must take that with some scepticism given his 11 subsequent convictions.”
He set headline sentences of three years for the first charge, and two years for the second, stating that these sentences would be served consecutively because there were two separate victims in two separate schemes. The remaining four counts on the indictment would be taken into consideration.
He noted the plea of guilt in mitigation and the fact that the accused has an infant, so “it is not at all comforting to the court that it has to impose a custodial sentence”.
Following mitigation, he proceeded to reduce those sentences to two years and two months, and one year and four months respectively.
Noting the total sentence amounted to three years and six months, he said the total is “somewhat disproportionate”, and so reduced the second sentence to ten months, bringing the total of the two sentences to three years.
He then suspended the final nine months for a period of two years post-release.
