The farmer and the fraudster

DURING the summer, on opposite sides of the world, a fraudster and a farmer were both in prison. They were jailed for very different reasons yet their full stories cannot be told without each other.

Susan Bourton, originally from Louth, conned banks and their customers in New Zealand with an elaborate string of crimes set up to cover her own debt and her greed.

Eugene Costello, who owned a dairy farm outside Ballinasloe, was one of her victims. In July, he was imprisoned for failing to surrender his farm and his livelihood to the subprime lender who introduced him to Bourton.