Court hears how close woman came to losing €71k retirement fund to scam

A student is to be sentenced for allowing fraudsters to use his bank account for the fraud

In one case, a shareholder in a water filtration company received an email from the company seeking funds to assist with cashflow. The man contributed €5,000 which has never been recovered. File photo: iStock

A recently retired woman, a restaurant owner, a pharmacist, a shareholder in a water filtration company, and a crane hire and construction company were all tricked into putting money into a fraudster's bank account after hackers accessed their emails.

The account into which all the money was lodged - some of which was never recovered - was a Bank of Ireland account in the name of Michael Fakinle, with an address at Ballyboden in Rathfarnham, Dublin 16, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard on Tuesday.