Cork couple avoid jail sentence over international fraud cases

Judge James McCourt imposed a one-year suspended sentence on Ioana Munteanu and a four-year suspended sentence on Petru Munteanu at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

A husband and wife facing jail terms for their different roles in invoice re-direction frauds have avoided prison as they were given suspended terms.

Detective Garda Brian O’Connor said the crimes committed by the accused consisted of invoice redirection fraud commencing in April 2020 when two sums of money arrived in a bank account in the name of Ioana Munteanu in Mitchelstown. Those international transfers consisted of over €26,000 from an auto parts company in Mexico and more than €6,000 from a medical equipment company in Panama.

In both instances, there had been interference with the emails of those companies and they were effectively duped into changing the bank details of companies to whom they owed money and in effect paying the money into the account of the defendant who had no entitlement to it.

Det Garda O’Connor said Bank of Ireland notified gardaí of suspicious transactions but all the funds had been removed from the account.

It was later established in the course of the investigation that within a 24-hour period, all funds were removed. A sum of €1,300 was removed by two ATM withdrawals. And €30,800 was used at eleven different An Post outlets throughout Munster to purchase Sterling. 

Petru Munteanu was identified as the person who carried out all of these transactions.

The investigation also confirmed with the Mexican and Panamanian companies that they had been victims of invoice redirection fraud.

Ioana Munteanu was arrested in November 2020 and she made admissions. “We are satisfied that her role was that of money mule. Petru Munteanu is the person who had control of her account. He is the one who travelled throughout Munster to buy Sterling using her bank account. Ioana Munteanu was at the lowest level. Petru Munteanu is a step above that,” Det Garda O’Connor said.

Second series of crime

Detective Garda Paul O’Shea outlined a second series of frauds and money-laundering relating only to Petru Munteanu, dating from September 2019.

A sum of €40,700 was deposited in his bank account in Mallow in an invoice redirection from a company in Peru. Two months later €7,850 arrived in another of the defendant’s bank accounts in Cork from a company in the USA.

“He is a mid-level, trusted member of a crime group. In the probation report, he characterises his involvement as simply a money mule but I would not categorise him as that. One does not get to his position unless one is trusted,” Det Garda O’Shea said.

A lot of the money defrauded from the company in Peru has been recovered and more than €10,000 is outstanding. The €7,850 from the company in the USA has not been recovered.

Defence senior counsel Jane Hyland said: “Petru Munteanu did not have the trappings of wealth. He does not by a long shot represent the top of this criminal organisation. He was not involved in the more sophisticated parts of it. He is very anxious to try to avoid a custodial sentence. He is certainly remorseful.” 

Seamus Roche, senior counsel for Ioana Munteanu, stressed that it was accepted by the prosecution that she was at the very lowest level of involvement.

Judge James McCourt imposed a one-year suspended sentence on Ioana Munteanu and a four-year suspended sentence on Petru Munteanu at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. They are both in their mid-thirties with an address at Curraghalla, Kilworth, County Cork. They have four children.