Man jailed for holding cash from tiger kidnap

A man has been jailed after he was caught with €1.7m, part of the proceeds of a bank heist following the tiger kidnapping of a bank employee.

The court heard that a total of €7.66m had been taken from Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin, on Feb 26, 2009, after a staff member, his girlfriend, and her family were imprisoned by armed men at their home in Kilteel, Co Kildare.

Darren O’Brien, aged 27, of North Strand, Dublin 3, pleaded guilty to handling stolen cash on Feb 27, 2009. O’Brien has 27 previous convictions.

O’Brien’s co-accused, Mark Donoghue, aged 42, of Kileen, Legen, Longford, received a five-year term, with two suspended, in March 2010. He had pleaded guilty to the more serious charge of money laundering and had no previous convictions.

Uná Ní Raifeartaigh SC, prosecuting, told Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that the DPP was not suggesting that O’Brien was involved in the bank robbery or that he had any knowledge of the kidnapping.

She suggested the court “could draw an inference”, considering the quantity of cash O’Brien was carrying, that he knew it had come from a robbery.

Judge Hogan sentenced O’Brien to seven years, with a year suspended on strict conditions. He also gave him credit for 18 months he has spent on remand in prison awaiting sentence.

He accepted O’Brien had pleaded guilty and had saved the victims of the kidnapping having to give evidence at trial and “reliving the harrowing experience they must have endured”.

“It would be unfair to infer that he had knowledge of the tiger kidnapping,” said Judge Hogan.

“Having said that, the court is mindful that his offence was at the higher end of the scale, and involved him handling an extremely large amount of money.”

Det Insp Ashley O’Sullivan said that gardaí received confidential information on who had control over the stolen money and had an address in Great Western Villas, Dublin 7, under surveillance hours after the robbery.

Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, asked Judge Hogan to accept that his client did not know about the kidnapping or the robbery.

He handed in a number of testimonials on behalf of O’Brien and asked the court to take into account the fact that he had pleaded guilty to the offence.