Judge 'getting fed up' with money mule offenders pleading they were 'young and stupid' at the time
Ryan Odusanya, aged 20, of Bremore Pastures Drive, Balbriggan, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to holding €20,000 in criminal proceeds in his bank account on September 5, 2023. File photo
A judge has said he is “getting fed up” with young people convicted of money mule offences pleading they were “young and stupid” at the time.
Judge Martin Nolan made his comments at the sentence hearing of a Dublin man who allowed his bank account to be used to hold over €20,000 in funds stolen in an online banking scam. An elderly couple from Kerry and a business owner from Galway were targeted in the scam.
Ryan Odusanya, aged 20, of Bremore Pastures Drive, Balbriggan, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to holding €20,000 in criminal proceeds in his bank account on September 5, 2023. Odusanya was not involved in setting up or operating the scam.
A garda witness from the Garda Economic Crime Unit told the court that on July 31, 2023, an elderly man from Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, received a text message from a number he didn't recognise.
The text falsely claimed to be from his daughter and stated she was “in dire straits financially and needed money”. The court heard the man's daughter is a mother of four, was living in Dublin and paying a mortgage.
The man spoke to his wife the following day and they agreed to forward money from their AIB bank account to the account details provided in the text. After an initial transfer of €880, the man received another text again posing as his daughter and stating that she needed more money.
Two more money transfers were made, bringing the total to €5,380. The couple did try to call their daughter but were unable to reach her and they only realised they had been scammed when another sibling called into the first daughter.
The garda witness told the court that the people behind the scam had used what is a widespread technique of sending out the same message to hundreds of people on WhatsApp in the hope that some people will fall for the ruse and respond.
On September 5, 2023, a member of staff with ProAir systems, a Galway-based firm, received a phone call from a man who claimed to be calling from Bank of Ireland's fraud team. The caller stated that a suspicious transaction of €8,000 on the company account had been blocked by the bank.
The woman confirmed that the company had not authorised this transaction. The court heard there was no actual transaction and it was ruse to gain the woman's trust.
The woman asked the caller to verify that he was from the bank and he was able to tell her about two legitimate transactions she had made earlier. She then believed that he was genuine and when he asked her to log into her account over the phone she provided all her details.
Shortly after the call ended, the woman became suspicious and called the bank who told her that nobody with the name given by the caller worked for their fraud team. By this time, two withdrawals of €20,000 were made from the company account.
One of these withdrawals ended up in the account of the defendant, as did the monies stolen from the elderly couple.
Counsel for Odusanya told the court that her client was “a money mule” who had responded to an advert on Snapchat offering a small cash reward for the use of a bank account.
She said that Odusanya came from a good family and was a promising student who won “student of the year” at one point. She said his mother works for the health service and his father works as a taxi driver.
She said her client has working in an air conditioning company and is now taking an apprenticeship in carpentry. Judge Nolan said these type of money laundering cases are coming before the court “in droves”.
“Young people who know they are going to cause harm to other people and still give their account details to third parties. I am getting fed up with young people coming into this court and saying I was young and I was stupid. Every one of them knows people are going to benefit and people are going to lose”, he said.
He adjourned sentence to Thursday and remanded the defendant, who had been out on bail, into custody until then.
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