Man pleads guilty to defrauding 18 international students

Raul Rodriguez Ramirez outside the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin after he appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court. Picture: Paddy Cummins

A former businessman scammed students out of almost €30,000 worth of fees for an English course and used the money to pay for his struggling restaurant. 

Mexican Raul Ramirez Rodriquez (36) now living in Dublin pleaded guilty to defrauding 18 international students at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

The former businessman told the court he had used the money to pay for his doomed restaurant that closed after ten months in 2020.

He will be sentenced on December 11 after he admitted to taking the money.

Mr Rodriquez owned the former Travel Now Agency in 2018 which helped foreign students in Ireland with courses and preparing CVs.

However the business and his new restaurant all collapsed during the pandemic. 

He told the court he returned to Mexico to "try and earn the money back" for the students, who were contacting him asking about their course and their money.

Detective Paul Griffith said he took 18 statements from students who were defrauded.

He then contacted Mr Rodriquez who came back to Ireland for questioning. 

In her victim impact statement Chisa Fukushima 28 from Japan said: “This case hurt me emotionally”. 

She told the court: “After this crime happened it was hard for me to work more and more to cover the amount of money which was stolen.

“This happened only a few months after I arrived in Ireland so I didn’t have really my bearings yet or much money to live here, it was very rough moment for me.

“I couldn’t tell my family as they would be worried a lot, so I tried to pretend in front of them that I am having a good life in Ireland.

“To this day I haven’t been able to tell them, I still find it hard to speak about it”.

Another victim of the fraud, David Cazares told the court he paid for a diploma course in Marketing with Mr Rodriquez's company.

However, when he stopped receiving messages in the run up to the course, he contacted the Travel Now Agency.

Mr Cazares told the court: “I never got an answer how to get my money back. I knew my money was gone.

“I was so sad and disappointed, all my savings were gone, I worked hard for almost three years in pubs and restaurants to get that money and all of a sudden my money along (with) my opportunity to move to Canada close to my cousin disappeared before my eyes."